Practice

Abstract: This article describes how information systems research in the human services can be facilitated with a conceptual framework that addresses the fundamental roles of data, information, and knowledge in understanding organizational information systems. Using methodologies originating in information systems and organizational research, the resulting conceptual framework explains how social work researchers are to understand information technology from the perspectives of clinical social work, supervision, social work administration, policy, and community collaborations. The article concludes by reminding social work researchers and educators that given that we have done little to educate our students on the differences between data, information, and knowledge, and to educate them based on research performed in our human services agencies, our professional practice relative to technology will not advance in the 21st century. Key Words: Data, information, knowledge, information systems This article describes one researcher's academic journey that has focused on better understanding the roles of data, information, and knowledge and how those three entities are captured in human services information systems. As such, it may be considered a case study of what has been learned along the way thus the first person voice is used throughout. While some may consider it to be unorthodox to do so in a conceptual paper, this perspective may largely reflect the behavioral social science research paradigm dominant in social work. In contrast, much information systems research originated in the ethnography field as researchers attempted to understand the lived world of information technology users. In that vein, the use of voice, both first person and second person, was felt to be instrumental in better understanding the divergent perspectives oftentimes encountered with technology artifacts thus the use of first person voice should in no way be perceived as decreasing the rigor of that research (Boyle & Parry, 2007; Robey &amp