全球智库信息集成服务系统

Measuring the Effects of Information-Sharing

• Measuring the effects of information-sharing is not straightforward, because information is not being shared simply for the sake of sharing but with the intent of doing something else better. Many typical quantitative measures (e.g., amount of information shared by such systems) measure process or outputs, not necessarily the effect of sharing information.
• We teamed up with the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) to provide a real-world case study in which to experiment with measuring the effects of different types of data-sharing. As part of this effort, we interviewed users of ARJIS information-sharing tools in various roles and agencies to identify how the ways that criminal justice practitioners performed their tasks would shape the challenge of measuring the effect of information-sharing on their efficiency or effectiveness.
• We also developed measures for three different types of sharing tools provided by ARJIS to its users. The measures examined the effect of ARJIS applications that made specific types of information more prominent for users, allowed sharing of information among groups of users, and offered tools to search cross-jurisdictional databases on the speed and likelihood of different law enforcement events, as well as the involvement of agencies with different jurisdictions in making arrests or managing specific types of offenders.