Effective information integration and reutilization : solutions to technological deficiency and legal uncertainty

The amount of electronically accessible information has been growing exponentially. How to effectively use this information has become a significant challenge. A post 9/11 study indicated that the deficiency of semantic interoperability technology hindered the ability to integrate information from disparate sources in a meaningful and timely fashion to allow for preventive precautions. Meanwhile, organizations that provided useful services by combining and reusing information from publicly accessible sources have been legally challenged. The Database Directive has been introduced in the European Union and six legislative proposals have been made in the U.S. to provide legal protection for non-copyrightable database contents, but the Directive and the proposals have differing and sometimes conflicting scope and strength, which creates legal uncertainty for valued-added data reuse practices. The need for clearer data reuse policy will become more acute as information integration technology improves to make integration much easier. This Thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to addressing both the technology and the policy challenges, identified above, in the effective use and reuse of information from disparate sources.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Zhu, Hongwei

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stuart E. Madnick.

• Technology, Management, and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34485

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34485