Syllabus for INLS 150

School of Information and Library Science

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Fall Semester, 1996

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Time & Location:

Monday & Wednesday, 12:30-1:45pm
307 Manning Hall

Instructor:

Paul Solomon, 212 Manning Hall
Office: 962-8068
Home: 933-3893
E-Mail: solomon@ils.unc.edu

Office Hours:

The hour before class and immediately following class. Additional meeting times are available by appointment or by chance.

Course Description:

This course provides an introduction to and survey of the problems and methods of representing, classifying, and displaying information to facilitate decision making, task performance, retrieval, and analysis.

The role of information organization in the information transfer process will be used to provide an initial framework for considering representation, classification, and display. Efforts to organize information serve as a foundation for information retrieval, interpretation, and other value-added processes. In short, organization is not an independent function, but depends, for instance, on collection and selection decisions and contributes to retrieval and other uses of an organized collection (database) of information.

Information professionals are frequently called upon to work with the raw materials of their organizations (e.g., transactions, records, reports, customers, employees, and other physical objects) by representing their essence, ordering them for access, and displaying or presenting them for use in light of the anticipated needs of managers, employees, clients, and other organizational role holders. A specific example of the product of this scenario might be a personnel or inventory database. Other similar scenarios bring together raw materials or objects from many organizations for access and use (e.g., a directory of repositories of Pre-Columbian artifacts and their holdings). Scenarios of this type emphasize declarative knowledge or facts of interest to people who need or who are likely to need the collected information.

Looking toward the future, more complex scenarios are emerging. Hypermedia, distributed intelligence, knowledge-based systems, and virtual reality, for example, all require intricate representation, classification, and presentation strategies. These tools usually require more than organization of facts. Rather, they tie facts together with procedures, conditions, and structures: A knowledge-based system to help diagnose and repair an automobile might contain knowledge in various forms. For example, if you wish to replace the exhaust system of your 1984 Corvette (condition), then you might also want to know the parts (declarative) that you will need, why those parts are required (structural)-for the inquisitive, and how to go about replacing them (procedural). Thus, special issues in representation, classification, and presentation are needed to meet the requirements of these visions involving the appearance of "intelligence."

In order to provide you with the foundation needed to participate as professionals in both current and future scenarios, this course emphasizes designs that support the organization of and access to both traditional collections of declarative knowledge and the intelligent systems of the future.

Course Objectives:

• To develop an understanding of the general role of information organization in the information transfer process and its particular role in information systems design and operation.
• To develop a bridge from your own initial state of knowledge and experience to the terminology and methods of organizing information by reflecting on the historical, philosophical, and psychological bases of representing, classifying, and displaying information.
• To aid you in developing your own set of principles for organizing information. To help you factor in the interests, concerns, and abilities of users of organizing approaches in your designs.
• To develop basic skills in the design or redesign of representational approaches, classification schemes, and display arrangements for information systems.
• To be able to assess representation, classification, and display approaches employed in operating information systems.

Grading/Evaluation:

Your grade will be determined through your performance on the following:

Participation (Oral Contributions): 50%

Portfolio (Written Contributions): 50%

Participation: This will reflect your contributions and general interest in the class. It has been said that we do not truly know what we think until we have had to express our ideas or reactions. I, therefore, wish to encourage your questions and comments both within and outside of class through a supportive environment, where no question is silly and no comment is without value. As Albert Einstein is purported to have said: "The important thing is not to stop questioning."

Portfolio: Over the course of the semester you will develop a portfolio of your written work. This work will consist of your responses to readings, thoughts on discussion questions, solutions to design problems, evaluations of organization schemes underlaying existing information systems, and reflections on the act of organizing information. A portion of your portfolio will be in response to specific assignments that I will provide as we move from topic to topic. The remainder will consist of your own particular contribution to allow you to investigate your own interests as well as to express your own insights. [You might treat the discretionary portions of your portfolio as a journal where you, for instance, include your reflections on readings, class discussions, group work, experiences, happenings in the world, etc. that relate to organizing information.] I will look at new material for your portfolio or review previously submitted items (at your discretion) every few weeks as noted on the schedule. You complete portfolio will be due for final review and evaluation on the last day of class (December 4, 1996). Only the final portfolio will be graded. NOTE: Your final Portfolio may be turned in up to one week late without any deduction for lateness.

Honor Code:

Unless I specifically indicate otherwise for a specific assignment, collaboration, discussion, and seeking of assistance from me and others is encouraged. My major interest is in your learning and I believe that learning will best proceed as we share questions, answers, experiences and the like. In any case, words drawn from others should be so indicated by quotation marks or other established style and ideas drawn from others should refer to their source.

SILS Resources:

At times resources may be spread thin. I hope that you will respect the needs of others and not monopolize materials. Please keep me informed regarding the unavailability of course materials and I will try to make additional copies available to replace missing copies or meet demand.

LISTSERV:

I have established a LISTSERV to provide an additional vehicle for communication and participation. I plan to use the LISTSERV from time to time to distribute class information or materials. The LISTSERV is also intended to allow class members to continue discussions started in class and otherwise share information about organizing information. Use of the LISTSERV will count as part of your participation grade. In order to subscribe to the LISTSERV, you should send a message to: listserv@ils.unc.edu with the following command in the BODY of the message: subscribe INLS150-L your-first-name your-last-name.

Tentative Schedule

References (On Reserve)

Agar, M. (1994). Language shock : understanding the culture of conversation. New York: William Morrow. [P35 .A37 1994]

Carroll, D.W. (1994). Psychology of language. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. [BF455 .C268 1994]

Durkin, J. (1994). Expert Systems: Design and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. [QA76.76.E95 D87 1994b]

Fidel, R., Hahn, T.B., Rasmussen, E.M., & Smith, P.J. (1994). Challenges in Indexing Electronic Text and Images. Medford, NJ: Learned Information for the American Society for Information Science.

Hunter, E.J. (1988). Classification made simple. Brookfield, VT: Gower. [Z696 .A4 H86 1988]

Joyce, B.R., & Joyce, E.A. (1970). The creation of information systems for children. Interchange, 1(2), 1-12. [PAM]

Langridge, D.W. (1992). Classification: Its kinds, elements, systems, and applications. London: Bowker Saur. [Z693 .L14 1992]

Luger, G.F., & Stubblefield, W.A. (1993). Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex Problem Solving. Redwood City, CA: Benjamin/Cummings. [Q335 .L84 1993]

Meadow, C.T. (1992). Text information retrieval systems. Orlando: Academic Press. [Z699 .M413 1992]

Modell, M.E. (1992). Data analysis, data modeling, and classification. New York: McGraw-Hill. [QA76.9 .D35 M64 1992]

Norman, D.A. (1993). Things that make us smart : defending human attributes in the age of the machine. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. [T14 .N67 1993]

Parsaye, K., & Chignell, M. (1988). Expert Systems for Experts. New York: Wiley. [PAM]

Schement, J.R., & Ruben, B. (Eds.). (1993). Between communication and information. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. [HM221 .B47 1993]

Soergel, D. (1985). Organizing Information. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. [Z699.S539 1985]

Solomon, P. (1992). User-based methods for classification development. Advances in Classification Research:, 2, 163-170 [PAM]