Collaboration Methods for Social Service Agencies: a Case Study of Johnson County, Indiana Larry Noonan Regis University
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Regis University ePublications at Regis University All Regis University Theses Summer 2010 Collaboration Methods for Social Service Agencies: a Case Study of Johnson County, Indiana Larry Noonan Regis University Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.regis.edu/theses Part of the Computer Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Noonan, Larry, "Collaboration Methods for Social Service Agencies: a Case Study of Johnson County, Indiana" (2010). All Regis University Theses. 444. https://epublications.regis.edu/theses/444 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by ePublications at Regis University. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Regis University Theses by an authorized administrator of ePublications at Regis University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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The materials may not be downloaded in whole or in part without permission of the copyright holder or as otherwise authorized in the “fair use” standards of the U.S. copyright laws and regulations. COLLABORATION METHODS FOR SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES: A CASE STUDY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, INDIANA A THESIS SUBMITTED ON 8 OF JUNE, 2010 TO THE SCHOOL OF COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES OF REGIS UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATABASE TECHNOLOGIES BY Larry Noonan Charles Thies, Thesis Advisor Denise Duncan Shari Plantz-Masters Social Service Collaboration Abstract Enabled by a shared Information Technology platform, social service agencies can collaborate and share information to better serve clients holistically, improve the agency’s ability to raise funds, provide better statistics to stake holders, and predict social services needed in the future. Social service agencies have many barriers to overcome before successful collaboration such as security, client confidentiality, choosing a software stack, cost, and agreement among the agencies on what information they can share. This paper presents practical methodologies that can be used towards the development of an IT platform to support the collaboration of social service agencies in a local community such as Johnson County, Indiana. ii Social Service Collaboration Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents .........................................................................................................................iii Chapter 1 – Introduction.............................................................................................................. 1 Statement of the problem............................................................................................................ 1 Agencies...................................................................................................................................... 1 Collect Information..................................................................................................................... 3 Reporting..................................................................................................................................... 3 Referral ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Collaboration............................................................................................................................... 4 System Changes and Problem Resolution .................................................................................. 4 Chapter 2 – Review of Literature and Research........................................................................ 4 Preliminary Literature Review.................................................................................................... 5 Messaging ................................................................................................................................... 8 Notification and Alert ............................................................................................................... 10 Broadcast................................................................................................................................... 11 Scheduling................................................................................................................................. 12 Sharing Artifacts ....................................................................................................................... 13 Information Gathering .............................................................................................................. 14 Software Solution Stack - LAMP ............................................................................................. 16 LINUX ...................................................................................................................................... 17 APACHE................................................................................................................................... 18 MySQL ..................................................................................................................................... 19 PHP ........................................................................................................................................... 20 LAMP Overview....................................................................................................................... 20 Business Intelligence ................................................................................................................ 21 Search Tools.............................................................................................................................. 22 Security ..................................................................................................................................... 22 Change Management ................................................................................................................ 28 Chapter 3 – Methodology........................................................................................................... 31 Work Plan, Methods and Procedures........................................................................................ 31 Chapter 4 – Data Analysis and Results..................................................................................... 35 Chapter 5 – Recommendations and Conclusions..................................................................... 46 Web Hosting Site ...................................................................................................................... 46 Database.................................................................................................................................... 46 Programming Language............................................................................................................ 48 Security ..................................................................................................................................... 49 Collaboration Tools .................................................................................................................. 50 Change Management ................................................................................................................ 50 Business Intelligence Tools ...................................................................................................... 51 Chapter 6 – Areas for Further Research.................................................................................. 52 iii Social Service Collaboration References.................................................................................................................................... 53 Appendix A – DB structure........................................................................................................ 60 Appendix B – List of Needs for Client Assessment.................................................................. 62 Appendix C – IRB Approval...................................................................................................... 63 iv Social Service Collaboration Chapter 1 – Introduction Statement of the problem Modern social service agencies need to collaborate and share information with each other enabling them to better serve clients holistically, compile statistics and data to assist them in raising funds, provide data to stakeholders, and predict