My research interests focus on diffusion of knowledge and innovation, knowledge production, and data for development - all in the context of Africa, as well as information systems success, health informatics and learning technologies. His current research investigates the role of big data and data use to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #3 – i.e. – healthcare and well-being, taking Africa as a case.

Assefa, S.G., & Stansbury, M. (2018). Information seeking behavior of the poor: The study of parents’ school choice decisions. Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 67(6/7), 377-395.

Rorissa, A., Assefa, S.G., & Alemneh, D.G.  (2016). Characteristics of tweets about African cultural heritage. In J.W. Arns (Ed.), Annual Review of Cultural Heritage Informatics (pp. 129-147). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Assefa, S.G., Alemneh, D.G., & Rorissa, A. (2015). Diffusion of scientific knowledge in agriculture: The case for Africa. Agricultural Information Worldwide, 6, 34-47.

Oguz, F., & Assefa, S. (2014). Faculty members’ perceptions towards institutional repository at a Medium-Sized University: Application of a binary logistic regression model. Library Review, 63(3), 189-202. SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) based on Scopus database: 0.369.

Assefa, S.G., & Lee, J. (2014). Library Collaboration: International Perspectives. An Interview with Dr. Shimelis Assefa. Collaborative Librarianship, 6(2): 87-91.

Assefa, S. G., & Rorissa, A. (2013). A bibliometric mapping of the structure of STEM education using co-word analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 64: 2513–2536. Impact Factor: 2.159. ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking: 2012: 10/85 (Information Science & Library Science); 20/132 (Computer Science Information Systems).

Assefa, S. G., & Gershman, L. (2012). 21st Century Skills and science education in K-12 environment: Investigating a symbiotic relationship. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, 14(1&2), 139-162.

Assefa, S.G., Rorissa, A., Alemneh, D.G., & Albright, K. (2012). Content divide: Africa and the global knowledge footprint. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology, 49(1), 1-3. Based on conference committee preface, the acceptance rate was: 58%.

Assefa, S.G. (2009). Human conceptual representation and knowledge structure in the UMLS: A coherence analysis. Saarbrucken, Germany: VDM Verlag, 128p.(http://3.ly/gPA)

Assefa, S.G. (2009). Coherent knowledge structure and theory-based approach to categorization. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 45(1), 1-9. Based on conference committee preface, the acceptance rate was: 40%.

Assefa, S.G., & Prybutok, V. (2006). Towards a comprehensive model to predict perceived performance impact of wireless/mobile computing in a mandatory environment. In I. Garcia & R. Trejo (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twelfth Americas Conference on Information Systems (pp. 2663-2672). Acapulco, Mexico: Association for Information System.

Assefa, S.G. (2001). Reaching the unreachable: The role of HealthNet Ethiopia in disseminating electronic health information resources. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 27 (6), 19-23.

Assefa, S.G. (2009). Human Conceptual Representation and Knowledge Structure in The UMLS: A Coherence Analysis.Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag.

Desciption:

How Humans use, represent, and organize concepts are age-old questions. A better understanding of humans conceptual representation is critical to create a better knowledge structure in information retrieval systems. Using the theory-based approach to concept representation and considering semantic relations as important constraints for a coherent knowledge structure, this dissertation investigated to find answers to important issues such as bases for categorization judgment, discrimination, classification, the role of intension and extension in conceptual coherence. By employing appropriate data-analytic tools that offer adequate formalization of concept representation, the Unified Medical Language System is used as the testbed for evaluating the knowledge structure. This study showed that only a rich and complex network of representation based on semantic content would address the profoundly complex human conceptual system. More importantly, this study confirms the underlying thesis that a mere similarity and feature/attribute/property correlation is not adequate to model representational systems.

Assefa, S.G. (2012). Unfulfilled promises of globalization: Global knowledge production and Africa. In W. Kuang-ming (Ed.), Globalization Dynamics: psychological, Economic, Technological, and Cultural (pp. 65-93). New York: Nova Science Publishers.