Kinawy, S N (2017) Customizing information delivery for citizens in transportation infrastructure projects: Towards active community participation in decision-making. PhD thesis, University of Toronto, Canada.
Abstract
The communities living and working within many of today's high density urban cores are pushing for greater transparency in planning and governance, and a higher level of public involvement in the identification of impacts of construction activities and mitigating them. Lately, the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has enabled the use of electronic community engagement, which provides greater accessibility and wider reach. However, these technologies have exhibited a deficiency partially due to a lack of an automated semantic platform for knowledge exchange. To engage the public, the process needs to extend beyond simple, one-way communication into a realm where relevant knowledge is more easily shared between the public and project teams. Thus, this research proposes a social, semantic, customized knowledge exchange framework to address this gap. The main purpose of this research is to extend the scope of construction management research that is typically limited to a number of stakeholders such as the designer, builder, owner and regulatory authority. The proposed framework is intended to complement the current process rather than completely replace it. To successfully create this partnership between project teams (planners and designers) and the public, this research uses ontologies as a formal form of knowledge representation. The social web and other social networking tools are also proposed as the best available technologies to maintain public engagement. Finally, as a way to enhance the user experience on the web implementation of this social-semantic framework, a wayfinding and recommender system is integrated. The eSocOnto ontology and decision support framework were evaluated with the aid of domain experts. The ontology and framework were also further validated through the development of a web software platform as a proof of concept to showcase a variety of features enabled by the framework and the knowledge base.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | El-Diraby, T |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | accessibility; construction activities; decision support; project team; communication; governance; infrastructure project; integration; participation; partnership; builder; designer; owner; stakeholder |
| Index terms: | ontology, community engagement, public engagement, decision-making, management research, information delivery, project team, governance, builder, knowledge exchange, integration, user experience, designer, implementation, customizing, density, planner, infrastructure project, partnership, platform, information and communication technology, owner, transparency, knowledge base, wayfinding, accessibility, construction activity, decision support, networking, community participation, transportation infrastructure |
| Subjects: | decision analysis, sociology, information systems, computing systems, construction operations, knowledge management, community and social dimensions, partnership management, digital design, professional development, organizational analysis, project delivery, research design and methodology, building performance, practitioner, inclusive design, construction manufacturing, contractual arrangements, analytical methods, user-centered design, participation process, business, communication, education and knowledge transfer, infrastructure and transport systems, profession |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Procurement, Site Management, Organizational Design, Business Strategy, Urban Studies, Information Management, Governance, Research Practice, Digital Applications, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Project Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here