INLS 500, Fall 2009 -- Course Outline

1. Introduction

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

Tuesday, August 25, Review course requirements, readings, assignments, and expectations. Introduction to Human Information Interactions.

2. Overview

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

Thursday, August 27, Theoretical perspectives

• 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)

Optional (these papers came from a special issue of JASIS -many of the papers are worth reading if you are interested, especially the following):

• 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, September 1, 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 teh 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/

3. 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 3, 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 8, 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)

4. 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 10, 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 15, Information retrieval: Analytical and Browsing strategies

• Choo, C.W., Detlor, B., and Turnbull, D. (2000). Information seeking on the Web: An integrated model of browsing and searching. Firstmonday, 5(2): http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_2/choo/index.html

Thursday, September 17, Summary and Discussion

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

Assignment 1 is due. 

Tuesday, September 22, 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 24, Information seeking contexts - information grounds and everyday information seeking

• 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, September 29, 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)

5. 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 1, 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 6, Technology and intermediation.

• Lee, Min Kyung et al. (2009). The Snackbot: Documenting the Design of a Robot for Long-term Human-Robot Interaction. ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction, pages 7-14. (ACM Digital Library, electronic copy)

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

6. 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 8, 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)
Optional
• Amento, B.L. (2000). Does authority mean quality? Predicting expert quality ratings of web documents. (supplemental readings, ACM portal)

Tuesday, October 13, 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)

7. 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, October 15, 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

Tuesday, October 20, Summary discussion

No new reading.

Assignment 2 is Due

FALL BREAK - NO CLASS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22

8. 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.

Tuesday, October 27, The cycle of scholarly communication.

• Borgman, C.L. (2000). Digital libraries and the continuum of scholarly communication. Journal of Documentation, 56 (4): 412-430. (Available through UNC e-journals)

Optional:

• 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, October 29, Scientific Communication in Mass Media

Reading:

• 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).

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 3, The home

• 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 5, Organizational information seeking

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

NO CLASS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10 AND THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12 - ASIS&T Annual MEETING

Tuesday, November 17, 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 19, 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 24, Ownership and protection of information, access and fair use.

• Thatcher, Sanford G. (2006). Fair Use in Theory and Practice: Reflections on its History and the Google Case. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, April: 215-229. (Available through campus e-journals - via Project MUSE)

• ALA Resolution on the Patriot Act, http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/civilliberties/theusapatriotact/alaresolution.htm

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, NO CLASS - THANKSGIVING

11. Course Wrap-up and Summary

Tuesday, December 1: No new readings

12. Project Presentations

Thursday, December 3: group presentations

Tuesday, December 8: later groups

Final Literature Reviews are due on Friday, December 11 and Group Projects are due by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 14.