Lian Ruan's presentation at CALA Midwest Chapter 2011 Annual Conference on May 21, 2011 at Indiana University Southeast (IUS) Library

1. Digital Knowledge Management
Structure for Fire Service Training
Lian Ruan
Director/Head Librarian
Director of IFSI China Programs
Illinois Fire Service Institute
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CALA Midwest Chapter Annual Conference
May 21, 2011
Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, Indiana
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2. Abstract
• The findings from my doctoral thesis study suggest that
librarians and information professionals should develop a
systematic and structured way to manage fire service
training instructors’ informal/personal and group network-
mediated sources of information that do not exist in
writing and cannot be found in the library or the archives.
There are successful knowledge management practices in
corporate library settings that can be studied and
borrowed. This presentation will report how a digital
knowledge management structure of fire service training
can be developed and implemented.
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3. Information-Seeking and Sharing Behaviors among
Fire Service Field Staff Instructors:
A Qualitative Study
Lian J. Ruan
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Committee Members:
Professor Linda C. Smith, Chair
Professor Carole L. Palmer, Director of Research
Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite
Professor Marshall Scott Poole
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4. Objectives of the Study
• 1) On the empirical level, the study aims to discover and analyze fire service field
staff instructors’ information-seeking and sharing behaviors. The findings will help
enhance library collection and information services to support their information
sharing and collaboration in a complex information use environment of daily
routines, such as training, teaching, curriculum development and actual incident
response;
• 2) On the conceptual level, it aims to extend existing conceptual frameworks of
information-seeking and sharing of professionals;
• 3) On the practical, operational and technological level, it will inform librarians
and information professionals about the information-seeking and sharing behaviors
among fire service field staff instructors, so they can be more responsive in key
areas, such as information services, user training and collection development.
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5. Research Questions
• 1) How do fire service instructors, in particular the Fire Academy’s field
staff instructors, organize, work and perform their training, teaching and
curriculum development?
• 2) What views of the world and theory of work inform their instructional
activities?
• 3) What are the typical problems that lead them to engage in information-
seeking while they are involved in their training, teaching and curriculum
development activities?
• 4) What kinds of information sources do they look for and where, to solve
these problems?
• 5) How does collaborative teamwork affect an individual field instructor’s
information-seeking behavior?
• 6) What obstacles do they perceive in the search for and use of necessary
information during the course of their work?
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6. Firefighters & Fire Service Training
• Respond to emergencies and save lives
• Responsibilities: a broad spectrum of emergencies in
areas such as firefighting, emergency medical care,
aircraft crashes, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes,
tornadoes, hazardous materials incidents, civil
disturbances, rescue operations, explosions, terrorism
and other emergency responses (Angle et al., 2008)
• Dangerous and high risk profession involving the risk
of death or injury
• Comprehensive training for firefighters becomes a
must if firefighters are to respond to emergency
incidents effectively and safely.
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7. Target Population: Field Staff Instructors at the Fire
Academy
. Core training force for the fire service in the state where field staff
instructors work
. Part-time: Primarily employed by local fire departments to
supplement full-time faculty at the Fire Academy
. “Street Expert”
. Coordinated team fashion
. Actors and creators of the Fire Academy’s teaching, training, and
curriculum development
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8. Qualitative Interviewing
Qualitative Interviewing:
• Study behaviors that are context-dependent (Rubin & Rubin, 2005)
• Obtain highly personalized data (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003)
• Interpret, recall and convey group experiences narratively (Fisher, 1984)
Semi-Structured Interview:
• Allow data collection in a limited period of time for small scale study
• Ask questions that are not anticipated at the start of the interviews
• Collect data through interview questions in order to answer research questions and relate to
Taylor and Leckie’s models
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9. Informal/Personal Sources of Information
• Informal/Personal Sources of Information:
- Restricted audiences temporarily; Storing it in either one-to-one communication
channels or one-to-many channels (Garvey, 1979)
- Site of community knowledge, social source (Lloyd, 2007)
- Corporeal site; Tacit and difficult to articulate (Lloyd, 2007)
- Highly situation-dependent, experience-based and held privately
• Support fire service knowledge structures of KSA, especially psychomotor domain
learning and skills training but little written information available
• Instructor Participants’ Own Sources of Information:
. Personal Social Network of People (Internal and external)
. Street Experience (“Know how” knowledge through direct hands-on training
and storytelling)
. Personal Collections (Assembled to satisfy instructor owners’ special needs)
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10. Figure 6. Actors in Field Staff Instructor's Personal Social Network

11. Figure 7. Personal Experience as Source of Reference in Curriculum
Development

12. Group Network-Mediated Sources of Information:
Transactive Memory System (TMS) as Informal Source of Information
• Transactive Memory System (TMS):
- Specialization, coordination and credibility (Wegner, 1987)
• Group network-mediated sources of information, especially transactive memory
system (TMS), support learning in all three domains of KSA
• Instructor participants’ TMS exists at the beginning of the instructional process:
- Highly collaborative groups, ranging from 2 to 25 persons
- Group members handpicked by lead instructors
- A shared and combined knowledge system based on members’ different
domains of subject expertise and experience
- Clearly aware of others’ knowledge to access and utilize it
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13. Practical Implications
- Help to find innovative ways to further
support field staff instructors’ work practices
- One major suggestion: Digital Knowledge
Management Structure for Fire Service
Training
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14. Figure 10. Subject- and Program-Centered Knowledge Management
Structure

15. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• Focus on the information-seeking and sharing
patterns of individual instructor groups that
have different subject backgrounds but share
similar information routines and practices

16. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• The library serves as the portal and integrative
center of knowledge management to assess
and validate knowledge management needs
within the groups of training programs.
• It facilitates instructors’ information-seeking
and sharing among various actors in social
networks and multiple types of information
sources.

17. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• Informal/personal sources of information, such
as street experience and transactive memory
systems, can be organized and made accessible
in separate, yet linked archives – side by side
with formal/institutional sources of
information.

18. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• Connecting fire terminology across
information products and actors can help
improve capabilities for searching multiple
sources of information and multiple actors
across databases.

19. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• The knowledge management structure informs
instructors of new work in primary interest
areas; shares instructors’ street experience;
facilitates crossover subject information-
seeking and sharing; and identifies relevant
actors, places and activities in common subject
areas.

20. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• I suggest tying the knowledge management
structure closely to the fire service knowledge
structures of KSA to represent the overall field
of fire service training in the three learning
domains.

21. Fire Service Knowledge Structures of KSA:
Table 1. Knowledge/Skill/Affective (KSA) Profile for Firefighters
(Adopted and expanded from Carter & Rausch, 1999, p. 416) (Partial)
Knowledge Skills Affective (Attitude)
Cognitive Domain Psychomotor Domain Affective Domain
(“know why” (“know how” or procedural (feeling and emotion)
knowledge) knowledge) (“Know who” knowledge)
Organization of fire Hose evolutions Attitude
department
Scope of fire Ladder evolutions Interest
department
operation
Standard operation Breathing apparatus use Appreciation
procedures
Fire department Forcible entry Teamwork
rules and
regulations
Safety policies Ventilation operations Hardworking
Fire behavior – Hydrant operation and Trustworthy
chemistry of fire connection
types of fire etc.

22. Digital Knowledge Management Structure for
Fire Service Training
• A knowledge management structure can be
further developed to concentrate on the most
critical actors in the instructors’ social
networks of people: the expert instructors with
their multiple roles of expert, mentor, role
model and source of feedback.

23. Questions?
• Contact Information:
Lian Ruan
lruan@fsi.illinois.edu
• Thank You!