Faculty & Research

Josette Jones, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Health Informatics
Associate Professor, School of Nursing

Education

PhD, Nursing with Informatics focus, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2002)
Licentiate in Commercial and Financial Sciences, - Management Information Systems, Economische Hogeschool Sint-Aloysius, Brussels, Belgium (1990)
Licentiate in Medical Social Sciences and Hospital Business Administration, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Louvain, Belgium (1981)
Licensure to teach in Higher Education, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Louvain, Belgium (1981) (equivalent to a certification to teach in higher education)
Graduate Hospital Nursing, Mater Salvatoris – School voor Verpleegkunde, Hasselt, Belgium (1973)

Biography

Josette Jones currently teaches Introduction to Nursing and Health Informatics (Spring), Clinical Information Systems (Fall), and Social Impact of Information Technology (Spring).

Research Interests

Health – Nursing Informatics: knowledge representations, information and data modeling, “Tell and Ask” – functional interface design

Research Statement

My area of expertise is Nursing Informatics, more specifically tasks analysis and conceptual design of information systems for health care providers and consumers as well. My long range goals and intentions are to develop a program of research on “tell and ask” functional interfaces” where the user (i.e. nurse, patient, caregiver …) communicates with a knowledge base by making logical assertions (tell) and posing questions (ask) based on domain specific knowledge representation, its ontologies, and ontological commitments. A knowledge representation embodies an aspect of the reality, believed to be relevant, attending to some features and processes while ignoring others. Ontology – using a wide variety of languages and notations - represents the content attended to, more specifically the description of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents observed. Knowledge representations and their ontologies are developed for the purpose of enabling knowledge sharing and reuse. Ontology, as thus, is a specification used for making ontological commitments. An ontological commitment is an agreement to use a vocabulary and data model in a way that enables information systems to validate and interact with user input conform to domain requirements.