INLS 500, Fall 2011 -- Course Outline

1. Introduction

Objective: Students should be able to define some of the basic concepts of the course.

Tuesday, August 23, Review of syllabus, course objectives, and basic concepts

Reading:

Bates, M. J. (1999). The Invisible Substrate of Information Science, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50 (12), 1043-1050. (campus e-journals, SILS bound journals, see Blackboard site for other options)

2. Overview

Objective: Students will identify the theoretical overview and context for exploring human information interaction.

Thursday, August 25, Theoretical perspectives

Review course requirements, readings, assignments, and expectations. Introduction to Human Information Interactions.

• Saracevic, T. (1999). Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50 (12), 1051-1063 (campus e-journals, SILS bound journals, see Blackboard site for other options)

Tuesday, August 30, Scholarly Communication

Objective: Students will be able to describe the cycle of scholarly communication, explore some of the techniques used to measure the significance and impact of scholarly communication, and identify the challenges facing those who are concerned with disseminating and sharing the results of scholarly communication.

Reading:

• Nicholas, D., Jamali M., H. R., Huntington, P., and Rowlands, I. (2005). In their very own words: authors and scholarly journal publishing. Learned Publishing, 18:212-220.
• Hahn, T.B., Bright, M., and Duggan, H.N. (2011). Has the revolution in scholarly publication lived up to its promise?  Bulletin of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, (June/July).  See www.asis.org  publications.

Optional (a view from a different perspective):

• Nasser, R. and Abouchedid, K. (2001). Problems and the epistemology of electronic publishing in the Arab World: the case of Lebanon. Firstmonday,6(9). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_9/nasser/

Thursday, September 1, Scientific Communication in the Media

• Schwartz, L.M., Woloshin, S., and Baczek, L. (2002).  Media coverage of scientific meetings:: Too much too soon? Journal of the American Medical Association, 287 (21): 2859-2863. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/287/21/2859
• Leggett, J.J. and Shipman, F.M. III (2004). Directions for hypertext research: exploring the design space for interactive scholarly communication. HT'04, August 9-13, 2004, Santa Cruz, CA. (Available through the ACM Portal).

Tuesday, September 6, Perspectives on communication and fundamentals of interaction.

• Klemmer, Scott R., Hartman, Bjorn, and Takayama, Leila (2006). How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design. Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, pages 140-149. [Available in electronic format through the library's ACM Digital Library (ACM Portal).

Optional:
• Shedroff, Nathan (2000). Information interaction design: A unified field theory of design. http://www.nathan.com/thoughts/unified/

4. Recognition and Identification of Information Needs

Objective: Students will define motivations for information seeking, discover some of the barriers and problems people face when they seek information, and describe some of the concepts researchers in the field apply to these problems.

Thursday, September 8, Perspectives on the causes/motivation for information seeking.

• Belkin, N. (1980). Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval. Canadian Journal of Information Science, 5:133-143. (on e-reserve, PAM box)
• Belkin, N.J. (2000). Helping people find what they don't know. Communications of the ACM, 43(8):59-61. (on reserve in PAM box, e-journals)

Tuesday, September 13, Analyzing information needs and recognizing barriers.

• Chatman, E. (1991). Life in a Small World: Application of Gratification Theory to Information-Seeking Behavior. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42 (6):438-449.

Optional:
• Chatman, E. (1996). The impoverished life-world of outsiders.Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47(3):193-206, 1996.(on reserve in PAM box,e-journals, bound journals)
• Schaller, S. (2011).  Information needs of LGBTQ college students.  Libri 61 (2):100-15.
• Savolainen, R. (2009). Small world and information grounds as contexts of information seeking and sharing.  Library and Information Science Research, 31 (1):38-45.

5. Resolving information needs

Objective: Students will be able to describe techniques and strategies people use as they seek answers to questions, and will be able to explain why information behaviors may be affected by the information-seeking context.

Thursday, September 15, Information seeking methods and sources

• Savolainen, R. (2008). Source preferences in the context of seeking problem-specific information. Information Processing & Management, 44(1): 274-293. (SILS journals; also available online through campus e-journals).

Tuesday, September 20, Information retrieval: Analytical and Browsing strategies

• Yuan, X., et.al. (2010).  Investigating information retrieval support techniquest for different information-seeking strategies.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61 (8):1543-63.

Thursday, September 22, Summary and Discussion

• No additional reading - we will recap what we have read to date.

Assignment 1 is due. 

Tuesday, September 27, Information seeking contexts - professionals and organizations.

• Reddy, M.C. & Jansen, B.J. (2008). A model for understanding collaborative information behavior in context: A study of two healthcare teams. Information Processing & Management, 44(1):256-273. (bound journals, e-journals, see Blackboard site for other options)

• Kuhlthau, C.C. & Tama, S.L. (2001). Information search process of lawyers: A call for 'just for me' information services. Journal of Documentation, 57 (1): 25-43. (campus e-journals)

Thursday, September 29, Information seeking contexts - information grounds and everyday information seeking

• Counts, S. et al. (2010). Mobile social networkig as information ground: a case study.  Library and Information Science Research, 32 (2): 98-115.

• Fisher, K.E., Durrance, J.C., and Hinton, M.B. (2004). Information grounds and the use of need-based services by immigrants in Queens, New York: A context-based, outcome evaluation approach. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 55 (8): 754-766. (e-journals, also current periodicals)

Tuesday, October 4, The need to know

• Heinstrom, J. (2006). Psychological factors behind incidental information acquisition. Library & Information Science Research, 28(4):579-594. (bound journals; also available online through UNC e-journals; Google scholar)

6. The Role of the Intermediary in Information Seeking and Retrieval.

Objective: Students will be able to describe the role of intermediaries in information-seeking and to describe the challenges intermediaries face in this role.

Thursday, October 6, Methods and means of intermediation.

• Taylor, R.S. (1968). Question negotiation and information seeking in libraries. College & Research Libraries, 29(3):178-194, 1968.(on e-reserve, in PAM box, bound journals)

Tuesday, October 11, ASIS&T Annual Conference, NO CLASS

Use the time to work on Assignment 2. and your Team Project Idea

Thursday, October 13, Technology and intermediation.

• Halverson, C.A., Erickson, T. and Ackerman, M.S. (2004). Behind the help desk: Evolution of a knowledge management system in a large organization. CSCW '04: 304-313.

Tuesday, October 18, Discussion of Team Project Ideas

Team Project Idea (or Literature Review Topic) is Due - 1-2 page description

Thursday October 20, FALL BREAK, NO CLASS

Tuesday, October 25, Social networks as mediators.

Reading:

•  Preece, J. (2001). Sociability and usability in online communities: determining and measuring success.  Behaviour & Information Technology, 20 (5): 347-356.

7. The Use of Information.

Objective: Students will be able to explain how the use of information differs from retrieval.Students will also be able to provide one or more definitions of relevance and ways of measuring it.

Thursday, October 27, Assessment of Value

• Stvilia, Besiki, Twidale, Michael B., Smith, Linda C., and Gasser, Les (2008). Information quality work organization in Wikipedia. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59 (6):983-1001. (available through UNC e-journals)

• Amento, B.L. (2000). Does authority mean quality? Predicting expert quality ratings of web documents. (supplemental readings, ACM portal)

Tuesday, November 1, Relevance

• Tombros, A., Ruthven, I., and Jose, J.M. (2005) How users assess Web pages for information seeking. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56 (4):327-344. (available through UNC e-journals)

8. The Dissemination of Information

Objective: Students will be able to describe ways that information is shared within and between organizations and describe the role that technology has and can play in information dissemination. Additionally, students will be able to discuss unintended effects of technology, the ways that technology has influenced the way we communicate that were unforeseen.

Thursday, November 3, Diffusion theory, social network theory and the sharing of technology.

• Rogers, E. (1995). Elements of diffusion. In Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. NY: Macmillan. (on Blackboard, in PAM box, shelf)

9. Organizational contexts for communication

Objective: Students will be able to identify ways that organizations and social groups influence information seeking and use, and will define the challenges facing individuals and organizations in distributed environments.

Tuesday, November 8, The home

• Jarkko, K. & Savolainen, R. (2007).  Relationships between information seeking and context: a qualitative study of internet searching and the goals of personal development.  Library & Information Science Research, 29(1): 47-69.

• Rieh, S.Y. (2004). On the Web at home: Information seeking and web searching in the home environment. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55 (8): 743-753. (e-journals, bound journals)

Thursday, November 10, Organizational information seeking

• Tannen, D. (1995). The power of talk: who gets heard and why.Harvard Business Review, 73:138-148. (on e-reserve)

Tuesday, November 15, Information sharing in organizations, technology and organizational communication

• Lippincott, J.K. (2005). Net generation students and libraries. In D.G. Oblinger & J.L. Oblinger (Eds.) Educating the Net Generation. Educause. Available at http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen and on through the Blackboard site.

Thursday, November 17, Controlling interaction and managing overload.

• Levy, D.M. (2005). To grow in wisdom: Vannevar Bush, information overload, and the life of leisure. Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, pages 281-286. (e-journals: ACM Digital Library)

10. Policy Issues

Tuesday, November 22, Intellectual property and fair use.

• Litman, J. (2006). Lawful personal use. Texas Law Review. 85:1-50.
• ALA Resolution on the Patriot Act, http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/civilliberties/theusapatriotact/alaresolution.htm

Thursday, November 24, THANKSGIVING, NO CLASS

Tuesday, November 29, Course wrap-up and summary.

No new reading

11. Project Presentations

Thursday, December 1: group presentations

Tuesday, December 6: group presentations (continued)

Final Group Projects are due by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 12.