Acceptance of Information Technology by Police Units
A Study with VTAM (Validated Technology Acceptance Model)
Jai Sankar Aluru,
Masters in Information Systems,
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Al 36608.
______________________________________________________________________
Abstract
The influence of Information technology has a good influence on the law enforcement agencies. Because of critical factors like learning curve, the difference in understanding levels between the clients (here police officers) and the designers, etc., Information systems are failing to reach the purpose for which they are designed. As this process of building such a system, involves billions of dollars investment, lot of planning and team work and valuable time. Davis (1989 ) proposed a basic theoretical model based on 2 factors : ease of use, usefulness. Caran A. Colvin & Angeline Goh (2005) validated that model and proved it as a bad fit to the data coming up with a validated TAM model with four factors: ease of use, usefulness, information quality, timeliness. This paper discusses the importance of the study and the importance of applying this method over COMPIS (City of Mobile Police Information System).
Keywords: Information technology, Influence of Information technology on Law Enforcement agencies, Ease of use, usefulness, Information quality, Timeliness.
____________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
Information is the finest part of the data. (Usually) Data can be defined as a set of statements which are unusually crude and dirty. Data, when interpreted into an useful form and stored to a defined structure like tables/ rows/ phases as per the requirement is called Information. As necessity is the mother of invention, the invention curve follows the necessity curve. Technology that drives the world (now-a-days) is one of the mighty powers making humans, the greatest of the living beings. Information Technology is helping humans in the everyday life, in unusually listless ways, making knowledge machines to work. I.T, being the core in all fields helping humans increasing the work-ability as well as sensitiveness with time.
Technology made the boring, routine work as simple and even creative by reducing the stress & strains on humans. Starting from the working of an ATM (Any Time Money) machine and up to the way a police officer works in his investigations to protect the society with his duties, I.T is serving the society a lot with its services and applications. Though Information Technology is trying to overcome all the complex & typical tasks, the interpretation of it is failing to achieve the desired success in some of its stories. Many studies were done on the systems to analyze the failures and extract the reasons behind them.
Davis (1989) developed a model called Technology Application Model [TAM] to explain, why police officers embraced or rejected the new computer technology, based on two factors, ease of use and usefulness. Later, Caron A. Colvin, Angelina Goh (2005) validated the model and came up with a 4 factor model based on the entities: ease of use, usefulness, Information quality and timeliness.
Innovations often look good on paper (Kent W. Colton, 1979). Of course, it is true. But an innovation / a research result will become a failure, only when it is tough to be interpreted or when it is unusually far in between the years, which can be of no use. A smart and useful innovation, which comes out as a result of good planning and a logical thinking, always follows the hot core term of the society, which is necessity. Information technology is an example for it. One of the good reasons for the great success of I.T is its smartness in serving the necessities and purpose of the users (clients). I.T received its valued credits & rewards for its smartness in Engineering, Medicine, Anthropology, Archeology, police functionality, banking, E-Commerce applications, Administration services, etc…
Problems:
1. What are the reasons behind the rejection of Information technology by police?
2. Why is COMPIS system not received by the police officers? What are the technology reasons behind the rejection?
Importance of the study on police units:
Information systems, though planned well and organized are failing to serve all the needs of the police officers because of critical factors like learning curve, difference in the understanding levels between the clients and the designers, etc. Millions of dollars are invested each year to develop information systems for the police and the law enforcement agencies. "Since 1994, Information technology awards to the state and local law enforcement agencies have exceeded $1 billion (Abt Associates, 2000)". Over the past 15 years, both the software technology as well as the hardware has improved considerably making the systems less expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. The operations on the systems do not require many technical skills as it was before. The combination of the technology and the high investments in it has vastly improved the processing capacity of the policing and law enforcement people.
Manning (1992) addressed a few changes in the policing after the invention of telegraph with the implementation of police-radios, CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) and MDT (Mobile Display Terminals) in the patrol cars used by the police. Nunn (2001) addressed the achieved efficiency of the law enforcement agency based on the computerization of the police units and the per capita. Nann & quinet (2002) supported the same finding.
Smith et al. (2002) researched the understanding " why the police accepted or rejected computers had proven to be one of the most important issues in Information systems ". The reason for the failure is very important as the process of developing such an Information system needs billions of dollars investment, planning and time. If the system which was built as a deliverable of all these inputs, fail to meet the requirements (at least a 60 %), it is not worthy in going for such a useless system. It is mainly because of this reason: Many researchers worked on these failures and came up with suggestions and conclusions. These suggestions will be helpful in the building of new systems. These suggestions can also be helpful in the process of re-engineering of the old systems. (“ Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed ", as defined by Hammer
& Champy, (1993).
Purpose of the study:
The purpose of the study was not just to extract the reason behind the failure of the system but also to analyze them and help in modifying the system structure to meet the requirements of the clients. The important overall function of an Information system is to respond to what happens in the outside world by transforming the provided inputs into desired outputs as per the requirement.
A very important thing, the police officers need to know about the Information systems is that, it does not automate the process of policing but it helps the process with information. Even the analyzed and sophosticated data is just a little, if the trained & responsible officer does not act it upon it.
Consider an instance in which the police system failed to perform its function. "Lawrence Napper, a convicted rapist was paroled in Apr-2000. He was kept in GPS monitoring system program in Texas. This technology of GPS deals with an ankle bracelet, receiver, computers and the network of NATSAV satellites circling the earth. The System performed its function exactly for what it was designed for. The monitoring system followed his every movement and logged the information to the records automatically.
In the span of 9 months, Lawrence violated his parole more than 400 times by moving into zones banned to him. Even he drove around Texas-South-University, the place he had kidnapped and raped a student. Though the system monitored the violation of law by napper, the Texas officials remained calm and took no action for it. Consequently, in February 2001 He kidnapped and sexually assaulted a six year old boy". [Source: Current Issue-Connecting the Dots, Joe diamond] This incident might be easily prevented, if the law enforcement professionals monitor the victim's movements and informed his violation of the law to the police.
All the information technology & the systems designed for the purpose will be simply useless, if no act is taken with the provided information. Therefore an analysis is to be made on the use of the system and the reason behind its rejection or failure.
All the major factors must be considered. A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) must be applied and studied analyzing all the sections and streams of the system and the different types of users who work with the system, either directly / indirectly. The four-factor model proposed by C.A. Colvin, A.Goh (2005) indicated a good fit with the technology and the police. The validated TAM model deals with the four factors: Ease of use, Usefulness, Information Quality and Timeliness.
About VTAM (Validated Technology Acceptance Model):
About the Model:
Davis (1989) developed a model called Technology Acceptance Model [TAM] to explain, " why police officers embraced or rejected the new computer technology, based on the two factors: ease of use, Usefulness. It was widely accepted and was used as a model to identify the factors contributing to technology acceptance by the clients (users). The two basic dimensions laid the basis for the theory of TAM-perceptions of ease of use of technology & usefulness.
According to his theory, Davis (1989) believed in measuring computer acceptance through a questionnaire, which will be comprised of different scales measuring the dimension of a specific attitude. This model of technology was validated by C.A.Colvin & A.Goh in 2005 based on C.F.A (Confirmatory Factor Analyses) and E.F.A (Exploratory Factor Analyses).
Method:
Participants (Human Subjects):
The police officers who use the system are the main human subjects for this study. All the items (terms) related to the acceptance of technology were collected by a focus group with both police officers as well as SME (Subject Matter Experts). Construct Factorial Validity (CFV) of the application was valued using CFA & EFA conducted on the datum. This research (study) was done in a large U.S. City located on the west coast. Patrol officers who are responsible for patrolling in a section of the county on a regular basis participated in this study. Data is collected from these human subjects. Out of the 430 patrol officers who participated in the study 77 % are males and the remaining are females.
Trained university researchers (professionals) took part in the process in collecting the survey data and the observational data during ride-along's with the patrol officers. The amount of time savings associated with the introduction of the laptop computers to patrol officers is determined with this observed data. The focus group with eight police officers was requested to list out all the items related to technology. Primarily, ease of use was considered and ten items that reflected ease of use of laptops were listed. Secondly, usefulness of information retrieved from the systems were listed. In his study, Caran & Goh ( 2005) employed three SME's (Subject Matter Experts) in which 2 were faculty from the university with experience in police research and 1 was a computer science specialist employed for the police. The collected 20 items were assigned to the 3 SME's and were instructed to assign them to the 2 factor: ease of use and usefulness. An item was retained, only if it has at least two of the 3 SME's assigned to the same factor. The deliverable of this method gave 7 items for ease of use and 5 items for usefulness.
C.F.A & E.F.A were conducted to test the goodness-of-fit between the hypothesized structure data of TAM and the obtained data. Primarily, the 2 factor TAM model was tested with CFA. With the results of Confirmatory Factor Analyses, TAM was proved to be a poor fit to the data and reality.
Four statistic values were used to evaluate the goodness-of-fit data. The four values are RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error for Approximation), test of close fit (Lower bound interval of RMSEA), test of not close fit (Upper bound interval of RMSEA) and ECVI (Expected Cross Validation Index). The validity of the model can be provided with the RMSEA and its upper & lower bound confidence values. Browne and Cudeck (1993) & MacCalum et. al (1996) recommended that " RMSEA should not exceed 0.10, the test of close fit should not be greater than 0.05 where as the test of not close fit should not be less than 0.05. The ECVI (Expected Cross Validation Index) was "a measure of the discrepancy between the fitted covariance matrix in the analyzed sample and expected covariance matrix that would be obtained in another sample of the same size". Browne & Cudeck (1993) recommended use of ECVI only for comparison of models, which are from the same data set. They even suggested that a small value will have higher ECVI and a higher value will have small value for ECVI.
[Source: From the study & analysis of Caran & Goh (2005)]
A Study with VTAM (Validated Technology Acceptance Model)
Jai Sankar Aluru,
Masters in Information Systems,
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Al 36608.
______________________________________________________________________
Abstract
The influence of Information technology has a good influence on the law enforcement agencies. Because of critical factors like learning curve, the difference in understanding levels between the clients (here police officers) and the designers, etc., Information systems are failing to reach the purpose for which they are designed. As this process of building such a system, involves billions of dollars investment, lot of planning and team work and valuable time. Davis (1989 ) proposed a basic theoretical model based on 2 factors : ease of use, usefulness. Caran A. Colvin & Angeline Goh (2005) validated that model and proved it as a bad fit to the data coming up with a validated TAM model with four factors: ease of use, usefulness, information quality, timeliness. This paper discusses the importance of the study and the importance of applying this method over COMPIS (City of Mobile Police Information System).
Keywords: Information technology, Influence of Information technology on Law Enforcement agencies, Ease of use, usefulness, Information quality, Timeliness.
____________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
Information is the finest part of the data. (Usually) Data can be defined as a set of statements which are unusually crude and dirty. Data, when interpreted into an useful form and stored to a defined structure like tables/ rows/ phases as per the requirement is called Information. As necessity is the mother of invention, the invention curve follows the necessity curve. Technology that drives the world (now-a-days) is one of the mighty powers making humans, the greatest of the living beings. Information Technology is helping humans in the everyday life, in unusually listless ways, making knowledge machines to work. I.T, being the core in all fields helping humans increasing the work-ability as well as sensitiveness with time.
Technology made the boring, routine work as simple and even creative by reducing the stress & strains on humans. Starting from the working of an ATM (Any Time Money) machine and up to the way a police officer works in his investigations to protect the society with his duties, I.T is serving the society a lot with its services and applications. Though Information Technology is trying to overcome all the complex & typical tasks, the interpretation of it is failing to achieve the desired success in some of its stories. Many studies were done on the systems to analyze the failures and extract the reasons behind them.
Davis (1989) developed a model called Technology Application Model [TAM] to explain, why police officers embraced or rejected the new computer technology, based on two factors, ease of use and usefulness. Later, Caron A. Colvin, Angelina Goh (2005) validated the model and came up with a 4 factor model based on the entities: ease of use, usefulness, Information quality and timeliness.
Innovations often look good on paper (Kent W. Colton, 1979). Of course, it is true. But an innovation / a research result will become a failure, only when it is tough to be interpreted or when it is unusually far in between the years, which can be of no use. A smart and useful innovation, which comes out as a result of good planning and a logical thinking, always follows the hot core term of the society, which is necessity. Information technology is an example for it. One of the good reasons for the great success of I.T is its smartness in serving the necessities and purpose of the users (clients). I.T received its valued credits & rewards for its smartness in Engineering, Medicine, Anthropology, Archeology, police functionality, banking, E-Commerce applications, Administration services, etc…
Problems:
1. What are the reasons behind the rejection of Information technology by police?
2. Why is COMPIS system not received by the police officers? What are the technology reasons behind the rejection?
Importance of the study on police units:
Information systems, though planned well and organized are failing to serve all the needs of the police officers because of critical factors like learning curve, difference in the understanding levels between the clients and the designers, etc. Millions of dollars are invested each year to develop information systems for the police and the law enforcement agencies. "Since 1994, Information technology awards to the state and local law enforcement agencies have exceeded $1 billion (Abt Associates, 2000)". Over the past 15 years, both the software technology as well as the hardware has improved considerably making the systems less expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. The operations on the systems do not require many technical skills as it was before. The combination of the technology and the high investments in it has vastly improved the processing capacity of the policing and law enforcement people.
Manning (1992) addressed a few changes in the policing after the invention of telegraph with the implementation of police-radios, CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) and MDT (Mobile Display Terminals) in the patrol cars used by the police. Nunn (2001) addressed the achieved efficiency of the law enforcement agency based on the computerization of the police units and the per capita. Nann & quinet (2002) supported the same finding.
Smith et al. (2002) researched the understanding " why the police accepted or rejected computers had proven to be one of the most important issues in Information systems ". The reason for the failure is very important as the process of developing such an Information system needs billions of dollars investment, planning and time. If the system which was built as a deliverable of all these inputs, fail to meet the requirements (at least a 60 %), it is not worthy in going for such a useless system. It is mainly because of this reason: Many researchers worked on these failures and came up with suggestions and conclusions. These suggestions will be helpful in the building of new systems. These suggestions can also be helpful in the process of re-engineering of the old systems. (“ Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed ", as defined by Hammer
& Champy, (1993).
Purpose of the study:
The purpose of the study was not just to extract the reason behind the failure of the system but also to analyze them and help in modifying the system structure to meet the requirements of the clients. The important overall function of an Information system is to respond to what happens in the outside world by transforming the provided inputs into desired outputs as per the requirement.
A very important thing, the police officers need to know about the Information systems is that, it does not automate the process of policing but it helps the process with information. Even the analyzed and sophosticated data is just a little, if the trained & responsible officer does not act it upon it.
Consider an instance in which the police system failed to perform its function. "Lawrence Napper, a convicted rapist was paroled in Apr-2000. He was kept in GPS monitoring system program in Texas. This technology of GPS deals with an ankle bracelet, receiver, computers and the network of NATSAV satellites circling the earth. The System performed its function exactly for what it was designed for. The monitoring system followed his every movement and logged the information to the records automatically.
In the span of 9 months, Lawrence violated his parole more than 400 times by moving into zones banned to him. Even he drove around Texas-South-University, the place he had kidnapped and raped a student. Though the system monitored the violation of law by napper, the Texas officials remained calm and took no action for it. Consequently, in February 2001 He kidnapped and sexually assaulted a six year old boy". [Source: Current Issue-Connecting the Dots, Joe diamond] This incident might be easily prevented, if the law enforcement professionals monitor the victim's movements and informed his violation of the law to the police.
All the information technology & the systems designed for the purpose will be simply useless, if no act is taken with the provided information. Therefore an analysis is to be made on the use of the system and the reason behind its rejection or failure.
All the major factors must be considered. A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) must be applied and studied analyzing all the sections and streams of the system and the different types of users who work with the system, either directly / indirectly. The four-factor model proposed by C.A. Colvin, A.Goh (2005) indicated a good fit with the technology and the police. The validated TAM model deals with the four factors: Ease of use, Usefulness, Information Quality and Timeliness.
About VTAM (Validated Technology Acceptance Model):
About the Model:
Davis (1989) developed a model called Technology Acceptance Model [TAM] to explain, " why police officers embraced or rejected the new computer technology, based on the two factors: ease of use, Usefulness. It was widely accepted and was used as a model to identify the factors contributing to technology acceptance by the clients (users). The two basic dimensions laid the basis for the theory of TAM-perceptions of ease of use of technology & usefulness.
According to his theory, Davis (1989) believed in measuring computer acceptance through a questionnaire, which will be comprised of different scales measuring the dimension of a specific attitude. This model of technology was validated by C.A.Colvin & A.Goh in 2005 based on C.F.A (Confirmatory Factor Analyses) and E.F.A (Exploratory Factor Analyses).
Method:
Participants (Human Subjects):
The police officers who use the system are the main human subjects for this study. All the items (terms) related to the acceptance of technology were collected by a focus group with both police officers as well as SME (Subject Matter Experts). Construct Factorial Validity (CFV) of the application was valued using CFA & EFA conducted on the datum. This research (study) was done in a large U.S. City located on the west coast. Patrol officers who are responsible for patrolling in a section of the county on a regular basis participated in this study. Data is collected from these human subjects. Out of the 430 patrol officers who participated in the study 77 % are males and the remaining are females.
Trained university researchers (professionals) took part in the process in collecting the survey data and the observational data during ride-along's with the patrol officers. The amount of time savings associated with the introduction of the laptop computers to patrol officers is determined with this observed data. The focus group with eight police officers was requested to list out all the items related to technology. Primarily, ease of use was considered and ten items that reflected ease of use of laptops were listed. Secondly, usefulness of information retrieved from the systems were listed. In his study, Caran & Goh ( 2005) employed three SME's (Subject Matter Experts) in which 2 were faculty from the university with experience in police research and 1 was a computer science specialist employed for the police. The collected 20 items were assigned to the 3 SME's and were instructed to assign them to the 2 factor: ease of use and usefulness. An item was retained, only if it has at least two of the 3 SME's assigned to the same factor. The deliverable of this method gave 7 items for ease of use and 5 items for usefulness.
C.F.A & E.F.A were conducted to test the goodness-of-fit between the hypothesized structure data of TAM and the obtained data. Primarily, the 2 factor TAM model was tested with CFA. With the results of Confirmatory Factor Analyses, TAM was proved to be a poor fit to the data and reality.
Four statistic values were used to evaluate the goodness-of-fit data. The four values are RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error for Approximation), test of close fit (Lower bound interval of RMSEA), test of not close fit (Upper bound interval of RMSEA) and ECVI (Expected Cross Validation Index). The validity of the model can be provided with the RMSEA and its upper & lower bound confidence values. Browne and Cudeck (1993) & MacCalum et. al (1996) recommended that " RMSEA should not exceed 0.10, the test of close fit should not be greater than 0.05 where as the test of not close fit should not be less than 0.05. The ECVI (Expected Cross Validation Index) was "a measure of the discrepancy between the fitted covariance matrix in the analyzed sample and expected covariance matrix that would be obtained in another sample of the same size". Browne & Cudeck (1993) recommended use of ECVI only for comparison of models, which are from the same data set. They even suggested that a small value will have higher ECVI and a higher value will have small value for ECVI.
[Source: From the study & analysis of Caran & Goh (2005)]
DISCUSSION:
The model, Validated TAM proposed by Caran & Goh (2005) identified a four-factor model that matched & adequately fit to the data. The four factors are ease of use, usefulness, timeliness and information quality.
The percentages of items related to the factors towards the variance of technology are shown below.
Factors influencing the application of Technology in Police Units :
( According to VTAM )
A. Ease of Use (21.92 %)
B. Usefulness (21.85 %)
C. Information Quality (33.36 %)
D. Timeliness (22.88 %)
All the items related to the factors (which are considered in the study with respect to the application of technology on the police units) are depicted in the table below.
The model, Validated TAM proposed by Caran & Goh (2005) identified a four-factor model that matched & adequately fit to the data. The four factors are ease of use, usefulness, timeliness and information quality.
The percentages of items related to the factors towards the variance of technology are shown below.
Factors influencing the application of Technology in Police Units :
( According to VTAM )
A. Ease of Use (21.92 %)
B. Usefulness (21.85 %)
C. Information Quality (33.36 %)
D. Timeliness (22.88 %)
All the items related to the factors (which are considered in the study with respect to the application of technology on the police units) are depicted in the table below.
Factors:
Elements underlying the factor
1. Ease of Use
- Usability of MDT's (Mobile Display Terminals)
- Information provided by the MDT's.
2. Usefulness
- Flexibility
- Report Writing
- Dependability & Transportability
3. Information Quality
- Relevance
- Accuracy
- Recency
- Specificity
4. Timeliness
- Timely access to the information.
- Timely response to the CFS ( Call For Services ).
Study Results:
TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) findings suggested that patrol officers acceptance of technology would be made easier by increasing its ease of use and its usefulness. EFA findings suggested that a greater success would be achieved, if the timeliness and information quality were considered. The study also suggests the administrators to give preference to the factors information quality & timeliness while making purchase decisions about technology hardware and software. They also suggested them to know the users needs with the system. For e.g. A patrol officer is more worried about the quality & timeliness of the information related to the CFS data transmitted by the MDT (Mobile Display Terminal) and is less concerned about the usefulness of MDT to complete the reports staying the field.
About COMPIS:
(April-1996) The Mobile (Alabama) police department's 10 year-old-main frame system became more & more unreliable because of its huge data and its scarcity of parts. The annual maintenance contract reached $90 K, delaying the unavoidable events.
The challenge of the periodic maintenance of this huge system fell into the responsibilities of the Municipal Information Systems and the law enforcement agencies. The team set a criteria and a proposal for a new information system.
The new system had to retain all the existing data in it and must be integrated with the municipal court's computer system. It is also added, that it must be with a client-server system technology with open-system architecture. It is also stated, to be with the then current database management system. The team also expressed their interest in graphical user interface technology like power builder. The city team, after trying a few ready-made software systems, came to a conclusion to develop a custom-made system in-house application. The result of all the efforts took the shape and came up as COMPIS, the City of Mobile Police Information System.
The city's old data was transferred into oracle database on the city's already existing super computer. As per the users interest, power builder ("a windows driven development package tool") deals the user interface part of the system. Oracle database was made as the primary database and was provided access to all the other responsible departments. The overall cost of the process and the system is very less (compared to the previous system) as the processing is done on the desktop computers. As the software is maintained internally with in the organization, the cost of maintenance came down considerably.
COMPIS include softwares like AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System), CRAY computer (for building regional unsolved crimes database), Law on Disk (which is a program that provides the research issues to the city legal department to manage huge amounts of data), GIS ( which is a Geographic Information Systems with a graphical user environment providing more than 100 layers of plotted maps to help in taking decisions regarding the distribution of man power, automated zoning applications and law enforcement purposes.
Applying Validated TAM on COMPIS:
As validated TAM proposed by C.A.Colvin & A.Goh (2005) based on the four factors ease of use, usefulness, information quality and timeliness was proven and validated as a sound method. Applying the Validated TAM on the COMPIS ( City Of Mobile Police Information System ).
LIMITATIONS:
One of the main limitations of this study is the neglecting of criterion related validity. The correlation of the four factors of the model with the actual model supported the psychometric properties, on a whole. This limitation is negotiable. Hence this process is a good method to apply on any police system to know the reasons for rejection of the technology.
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS:
As COMPIS system is a huge system with a number of sections, It seemed to have an analysis and explore it and its users to know the reasons for its rejection. As VTAM is proved to be a perfect method for Police Information systems, COMPIS system need a validation with VTAM. The validation results will be helpful in the re-engineering of the system. These results can also be helpful in building the future systems with out letting these errors repeat in them. Hence it is recommended to apply VTAM model on COMPIS system for better results.
References:
1. Caran A .Colvin & Angeline Goh (2005), Validation of the technology acceptance model for police, Journal of Criminal Justice 33 (2005) 89-95.
2. Timothy C. O'shea & Keith Nicholls (2003), Police Crime Analysis: A Survey of US Police Departments with 100 or More Sworn Personnel, Police Practice and Research (An International Journal), 2003, Vol.4, No.3, pp.233-250.
3. Timothy C. O'shea & Keith Nicholls (2003), Crime Analysis In America: Findings and
Elements underlying the factor
1. Ease of Use
- Usability of MDT's (Mobile Display Terminals)
- Information provided by the MDT's.
2. Usefulness
- Flexibility
- Report Writing
- Dependability & Transportability
3. Information Quality
- Relevance
- Accuracy
- Recency
- Specificity
4. Timeliness
- Timely access to the information.
- Timely response to the CFS ( Call For Services ).
Study Results:
TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) findings suggested that patrol officers acceptance of technology would be made easier by increasing its ease of use and its usefulness. EFA findings suggested that a greater success would be achieved, if the timeliness and information quality were considered. The study also suggests the administrators to give preference to the factors information quality & timeliness while making purchase decisions about technology hardware and software. They also suggested them to know the users needs with the system. For e.g. A patrol officer is more worried about the quality & timeliness of the information related to the CFS data transmitted by the MDT (Mobile Display Terminal) and is less concerned about the usefulness of MDT to complete the reports staying the field.
About COMPIS:
(April-1996) The Mobile (Alabama) police department's 10 year-old-main frame system became more & more unreliable because of its huge data and its scarcity of parts. The annual maintenance contract reached $90 K, delaying the unavoidable events.
The challenge of the periodic maintenance of this huge system fell into the responsibilities of the Municipal Information Systems and the law enforcement agencies. The team set a criteria and a proposal for a new information system.
The new system had to retain all the existing data in it and must be integrated with the municipal court's computer system. It is also added, that it must be with a client-server system technology with open-system architecture. It is also stated, to be with the then current database management system. The team also expressed their interest in graphical user interface technology like power builder. The city team, after trying a few ready-made software systems, came to a conclusion to develop a custom-made system in-house application. The result of all the efforts took the shape and came up as COMPIS, the City of Mobile Police Information System.
The city's old data was transferred into oracle database on the city's already existing super computer. As per the users interest, power builder ("a windows driven development package tool") deals the user interface part of the system. Oracle database was made as the primary database and was provided access to all the other responsible departments. The overall cost of the process and the system is very less (compared to the previous system) as the processing is done on the desktop computers. As the software is maintained internally with in the organization, the cost of maintenance came down considerably.
COMPIS include softwares like AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System), CRAY computer (for building regional unsolved crimes database), Law on Disk (which is a program that provides the research issues to the city legal department to manage huge amounts of data), GIS ( which is a Geographic Information Systems with a graphical user environment providing more than 100 layers of plotted maps to help in taking decisions regarding the distribution of man power, automated zoning applications and law enforcement purposes.
Applying Validated TAM on COMPIS:
As validated TAM proposed by C.A.Colvin & A.Goh (2005) based on the four factors ease of use, usefulness, information quality and timeliness was proven and validated as a sound method. Applying the Validated TAM on the COMPIS ( City Of Mobile Police Information System ).
LIMITATIONS:
One of the main limitations of this study is the neglecting of criterion related validity. The correlation of the four factors of the model with the actual model supported the psychometric properties, on a whole. This limitation is negotiable. Hence this process is a good method to apply on any police system to know the reasons for rejection of the technology.
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS:
As COMPIS system is a huge system with a number of sections, It seemed to have an analysis and explore it and its users to know the reasons for its rejection. As VTAM is proved to be a perfect method for Police Information systems, COMPIS system need a validation with VTAM. The validation results will be helpful in the re-engineering of the system. These results can also be helpful in building the future systems with out letting these errors repeat in them. Hence it is recommended to apply VTAM model on COMPIS system for better results.
References:
1. Caran A .Colvin & Angeline Goh (2005), Validation of the technology acceptance model for police, Journal of Criminal Justice 33 (2005) 89-95.
2. Timothy C. O'shea & Keith Nicholls (2003), Police Crime Analysis: A Survey of US Police Departments with 100 or More Sworn Personnel, Police Practice and Research (An International Journal), 2003, Vol.4, No.3, pp.233-250.
3. Timothy C. O'shea & Keith Nicholls (2003), Crime Analysis In America: Findings and
Recommendations.
4. [About COMPIS] Nelson & Susan (1996), In-House System Saves Time, Money. American City & County. Current Issue. April-1996.
5. Joe Diamond, Connecting the Dots, Current Issue.
4. [About COMPIS] Nelson & Susan (1996), In-House System Saves Time, Money. American City & County. Current Issue. April-1996.
5. Joe Diamond, Connecting the Dots, Current Issue.
