3 Competitive Information From Databases Greenpeace example essay topic

Contents Page Page 2 Executive summary 3 Introduction 4 1.2 Information management within Greenpeace 1.21 Strategic Level 5 1.22 Analytical Level 6 1.23 Technical level 1.3 the Value of information as an resource to Greenpeace 7 2.1 Company's professional Responsibility 8 2.2 Individuals Professional responsibility 3. Environmental scanning 3.2 General and operating environments 10 3.3 Competitive information from databases 13 3.1 modules 3 and 4 17 References Executive summary Since 1971 Greenpeace has become one of the world's largest environment activists. This Report will go into deal about several aspects of information management within the company, which have brought the organization to its successes it is today by stirring it away form failure. Information monitoring, information as a resource, and professional responsibilities will be the focus topics that are covered in this report.

Information has been retrieved from various sources in order to find how and to what extent Greenpeace manages their organization's information. Greenpeace's 2002 annual has been published, both in print as well as electronically through the Greenpeace Internet site. Among other sources, substantial amounts of information were found in relation to Greenpeace and how they achieve their mission. Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organization that uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and force solutions for a green and peaceful future.

Greenpeace's goal is to ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity. (Greenpeace 2003) It was found that Greenpeace deals with information on all three levels of information management (technically, analytically and strategically). Greenpeace is well aware of their general and operating environment, including Societal, Political, Production and Organizational areas. Greenpeace is on the way to make this world safer and environmentally friendly place.

Introduction Greenpeace is an organization of information. It is important to see how Greenpeace is aware of the importance and the depth of information management needed. The objectives of this report is to consider, research and evaluate aspects of information management of the organization with respects to: . Information as a resource. Information policy. Information monitoring and environmental scanning These areas are to be assed because of there importance to an organizations success.

If these aspects of information management are not dealt with sufficiently it can have a detrimental effect on the organization ability function sufficiently and economically. Greenpeace's annual report, web site and along with other publications of data provides evidence of their attitude towards information management. Their support for professional responsibility is seen through Greenpeace's publications as well as their interpreted overall nature. General and Operating environment scanning plays a key role in the organizations failure or success, this area will also be investigated to find out if and how they play a role in Greenpeace. 1.2 Information management within Greenpeace Greenpeace in an organization devoted to information, "INFORMATION IS POWER" (Greenpeace 2003). Its objectives and aims are to inform the world's population on current and dangerous environmental issues.

(Greenpeace 2003) Information management is a proven multi-disciplinary strategy, which applies sound management principles to the life cycle of an organization's information resources. (Pemberton 2000) The information life cycle includes creation, evaluation, acquisition, organization, representation, control, dissemination, use, protection, and ultimate disposition of information whatever the format or medium and whether of internal or external origins. (Pemberton 2000) There are three levels that information management can be categorized into, these are Technical, Analytical and Strategic The technical level deals with day-to-day management e.g. maintaining and operating online databases. At the Analytical level, involves research and investigation, evaluation and assessment, where as the strategic level is based on analyzing and developing information policies (Diner 1992). Greenpeace is a large international organization, which relies on information management at all three levels to keep up with the received, distribution and storage of important information. 1.21 Strategic Level Greenpeace, is based on information and directing it to facilitate the needs and goals that the organizations wishes to achieve.

Greenpeace has three levels of strategic activities; the first is in spreading global and local interests to members, subscribers and the community. Secondly, since Greenpeace is closely associated to a political party "the greens" means it also has its information framework as any other political party (Adept 2003). The third activity that Greenpeace has to deal with is the strategic amalgamation of both environmental activities, information and with the running by policies of a political system. As Greenpeace grows they continue to collect and study information statistics valuable to their success. They must develop new and refurbish old ways of information research, storage, with integration of both methods to give them complete and accessible information for new ideas.

Greenpeace thoroughly documents information resources at all activities in the strategic level through different publications, virtual or print, which are easily accessible by the public. 1.22 Analytical Level The analytical level is phased on delving into dominions of research and investigation. The information management professionals have a key role at this level in the studies of feasibility, proving viability, assessing patrons and user needs and other important functions in the organization. The analytical level is one of the major parts of Greenpeace's information management. Since Greenpeace is fondly an organization of information, researching and investigation is a main concern and need. Decisions are concluded using stimulus such as organizations records e.g. databases, financial summaries and other related data, this is also known as environmental scanning which will be covered later in the report.

The organization also uses external sources, (other governmental and support organizations) this reflects in their absorption into the population as effective as possible. Technology advancement is a great importance to Greenpeace's integration but this area also administers to a major part for why, Greenpeace is an active organization, as technology brings new environmental issues. 1.23 Technical level The Technical level is about managing and directing information facilities, systems and services (Diner 1992). Greenpeace shows their importance to information as a resource, as well as the up keeping of their records, through their websites, annual report and other hard copy productions. Greenpeace has several web sites from local (web) to international (web) to any other organization location, Chile (web). These sites give publications of interest, up and coming campaigns, annual reports and other information concerned with Greenpeace.

1.3 the Value of information as an resource to Greenpeace The three levels in the information management process are very important to Greenpeace. As an environmental political organization, it is constantly changing and improving information updates as a data resource, to keep the population updated on current issues that need to be addressed. The main place of publication is in the form of their website, this allows people from all over the world being able to view Greenpeace's information as a resource. "INFORMATION IS POWER" (Greenpeace 2003). 2 Company's and the Individual's professional Responsibility 2.1 Company's professional Responsibility One of the major responsibilities of Greenpeace's professionalism is the ability to avoid selection bias. In the course of the Information professionals (IP's) work they routinely make different selections at the various stages of the information life cycle that determines the effect and the extent to which materials are preserved, presented, or made known to others, these activities and value-laden, with the shadow of bias ness on a prevailing point of view.

This is on of the hardest areas for IP's to over come, this is because it is usually unintentional, unreported and is difficult to detect by clients and other IP's because it is often socially determined and validated (mason 1995). This area is important to Greenpeace because it is in a constant movement of information, which is published for supporters and public to read. This information that is gathered, is also used by the organization to start and continue campaigns, If there were to be bias or corrupt view it could put the organization's mission statement into disarray. It could give the wrong or misleading information to gain support for Greenpeace, which is again sed the political party legislation. (Greenpeace 2003) 2.2 Individuals Professional responsibility A particular job in Greenpeace's organization is the media officer, which is situated in the board of directors. This job includes keeping up with campaigns throughout the vast Pacific region, devising media strategies to communicate the Greenpeace message and dealing with constant public queries (Greenpeace 2003).

This position in the organization has a very high responsibility for information professionalism. The media officer needs to present Greenpeace's messages as well as information to public queries with out a bias view, that is true and not misleading. 3. Environmental scanning "Environmental scanning is the acquisition and use of information about events, trends, and relationships in an organization's external environment, the knowledge of which would assist management in planning the organization's future course of action". (Choo & Auster, 1993) 3.1 modules 3 and 4 (See appendix 1) 3.2 General and operating environments General environments Information about General environments is very useful for an organization to help set them in the right direction.

Some of these environments of information are; . Societal: "information such as demographics relating to population movements, life expectancies, consumer activism, environmental awareness and leisure utilization". (Middleton 2002) And. Political: "information relating to potential changes of government, and regulatory framework for such matters as trade, employment and financial services". (Middleton 2002) Societal: There is one area of the societal environment that looks at environmental awareness. This is the fundamental reason why Greenpeace is up and active in the world, to inform the world of environmental issues Political: Greenpeace also has a connection in the political system, with the political party the "green's".

This makes the organization concerned with the political environment and changes that occur. Operating Environments The operating environment focuses on information about organizations competitors. Some of these environments are: . Production: "such as anything to do with product range and evaluation, quality control, packaging, delivery, production capacity, and breakdown tolerance". (Middleton 2002) And.

Organization: "such as ownership, control and management structure, extent of decentralization, directors, links with other companies, facilities, financing, and asset return". (Middleton 2002) Production: The Complete spectrum of production environments of all companies are closely look at by Greenpeace, this is in case of an environmental issue that needs to be addressed, which the organization believes to be wrong. Organizational: This area of information researching is used to give options, examples and other related data to help direct the management of Greenpeace. 3.3 Competitive information from databases Greenpeace could use wide variety of databases, to gain information for selected environmental scanning. The Environmental Abstracts (EVA) and the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) are both quality databases for the organization's needs. EVA: The EVA has Coverage from 1987 to the present, it stores over 17,400 records (total in 1998).

EPA Victoria Library produces this database. The Source documents are selected journal articles from approximately 600 journals published in Australia and overseas. EVA's data base coverage includes air pollution and quality, sustainable development, salinity, environmental protection and management, hazardous wastes, etc. There are many different ways that you can search the data base to find relevant information these include Searching for a Descriptor Using the Index, Searching Using Operators, searching using descriptors, etc. This database could be useful to Greenpeace to find out about environmental issues that the organization might have not known about yet. AustLII: The Australasian Legal Information Institute is one of the biggest sources of legal materials and information on the Internet.

It has over 2.5 gigabytes of raw text materials and about. 5 of a million searchable documents. AustLII publishes public legal information: that is, primary legal materials (legislation, treaties and decisions of courts and tribunals); and secondary legal materials created by public bodies for purposes of public access (law reform and royal commission reports etc). It has a user-friendly Graphic user interface that helps you through different types of searching.

AustLII would be a good database for green peace to find out different legislation for environmental issue, in relation to reporting a breach of legislation or acting to get recommendations for new legislation. APPENDIX 1 Module 3 I found out that when looking for information on a topic that there are a variety of resources you can use and the way in which u can find information using various print and electronic resources. I now understand that information can be found in a variety of print and electronic resources, the Differentiation between the different reference sources and be able to select and use the most appropriate reference tool for my information needs. The Library Catalogue can be used to find and retrieve information on assignment topics, as well as finding particular items. Module 4 In module 4 I learnt the ability to search effectively for information using electronic resources, as it is a necessary skill in the information age. Searching for information using the most appropriate tool from a wide range of resources is very important lesson that learnt As well as Understanding the basic search concepts and being able to formulate search strategies.

I am now able Use a variety of methods to find and retrieve information that is vital to my studies. Module 4 examples Operators Boolean, proximity and adjacency operators are used to broaden and narrow your search. AND Find all the words. Example: environment AND law AND NOT Find articles, which have the first word, but not the second word.

Example: environment AND NOT scanning OR Find any of the words. Example: environment or environmental WITHIN Find articles where the first word appears some number of words before or after the second word. Example: ocean W/3 environmental WITHIN DOC Find articles where all the words appear within either the indexing or the article text. Example: environment W / DOC issues NOT WITHIN Find all words except this one within a field. Example: environment NOT W/2 greens PRE Find these words within n words in a field.

Example: law pre/3 legislation

Bibliography

Adept (2003).
web Adept. Diner, R.A.V. (1992).
Strategic, analytic and operational domains on information management". Billet in of the American society of information Science 19 (1): 18-19. Greenpeace (2003).
web Greenpeace. Greenpeace (2003).
web Greenpeace. mason, R.O.M., F.M. : Cul nan, M.J. (1995).
information professionalism. ethics of information management, Sage: 151-194. Middleton, M. (2002).
Environmental scanning. Information management, centre of information studies: 73-74. Pemberton, j. M. (2000).
web information management associates, inc. vs. 2003.