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Myeong Lee, an assistant professor of information science and the director of the Community Informatics Lab at George Mason University, has been working with the Virginia Board of People with Disabilities (VPBD) since presenting at their Information Access Summit in November 2022.
"It was an event of government staff members, officials, non-profits, and community advocates, discussing the information access challenges faced by individuals with disabilities and their family members," Lee recalled. At the summit, he emphasized the need to address not only tech literacy issues but also structural barriers to information access. His ideas resonated with VBPD members and state government officials, leading to the inception of the Mapping Information Ecology project, for which Lee received a grant of about $150,000 from the VBPD.
Lee, whose past research has focused on information access issues in local communities, explained, “At the community level, if information is fragmented across different sources and in different forms, then those structural factors make people's access difficult." Lee’s research approach involved finding a way to measure these structural challenges and mitigate their negative impact.
The project aims to understand information provision and management practices from both information provider and user perspectives. Lee's team employed a mixed-method approach, conducting interviews with providers and surveying their information sharing patterns to uncover both managerial and structural challenges.
Based on network analysis of information-sharing patterns, key findings from the project will extend our understanding of obstacles faced by individuals with disabilities and their family members, such as the lack of customized information for diverse populations, outdated information, and reliance on informal sources, such as social media, leading to exposure to misinformation.
“We are currently designing the survey questionnaire to [further] understand both information providers’ and users’ practices,” said Lee. Using information from the survey, he explained, “We want to visualize those networks—how information is circulated and shared.” The data visualization will help Lee and his team identify “hot spots” and “cold spots” where improvements can be made. Finally, the team will provide recommendations to the VBPD.
“We want to provide information systems strategies, structural recommendations, and related policy recommendations to the state. That's our goal," said Lee.
Despite the project's official ending in May, Lee envisions continued collaboration between his team and the VBPD. Looking ahead, he sees potential applications of their approach beyond disability-related issues. Ultimately, Lee hopes to create metrics and tools for assessing information availability and fragmentation at the state level so to assist policymakers in understanding the complicated issue of information access.
Lee's work exemplifies a holistic approach to information access, bridging the gap between research and policy to empower marginalized communities. He concluded, "It's not just about making recommendations—it's about building systems and developing assessment metrics that empower users and inform policymakers for years to come."