INLS 180: Human Information Interaction Spring 2001 Syllabus

Time and Place:  11:00-12:15 Mons. & Weds  Room 307 Manning Hall
Instructor: Gary Marchionini   Office: 203 Manning Hall  email: march@ils.unc.edu Phone (919) 966-3611
Graduate Asst: Meng Yang  Email: yangm@ils.unc.edu

Brief Course Description
This course is concerned with the behavioral, cognitive and affective activities of people as they interact with information, with particular emphasis on the roles of the information professionals who may mediate that interaction. It will provide an overview of the literature on peoples' recognition of their information needs, the actions they may take in resolving those needs, the roles of information professionals in supporting those actions, the use of information, the further dissemination of information, and the context of information interaction.

Course Materials
No textbook is required.  Readings are on reserve in the SILS Library.

Assignments and Evaluation
Activities include a set of readings, an in-class debate, an online discussion, and a set of media analyses culminating in a mid-term project.  The media assignments will be graded and in combination worth 30% of the final grade.  A final term project will determine 40% of the grade.  The term project will be an original design of an information product or service (infoware), or a critical assessment of a product, service, or idea.  All projects must be approved by the instructor.  Small group (two or three collaborators) projects are encouraged.  A brief summary of the project will be presented in the final week of class.  In addition, every student will be expected to make postings to the class electronic list and lead a discussion on one or more of the readings.  The remaining 20% of the grade will be based on class participation and special activities which contribute to the learning experience of other students (e.g., forums, MOOs, out-of-class meetings, etc).

Scholarly Policies and Honor Code
The UNC Honor Code prohibits giving or receiving unauthorized aid in the completion of assignments.  Students are strongly encouraged to cooperate and assist one another and share insights and respective expertise in this course.  I expect that you will acknowledge the support you receive from your colleagues (this may be done in acknowledgements at the end of assignments or projects).  It is crucial, however, that  in every case where you use the actual written words of others, that these be properly quoted and cited.  When you build arguments upon the ideas of others, the originators of those ideas should also be cited.  You should adopt a style guide (e.g., American Psychological Association, Council of Biology Editors, Modern Language Association, Chicago, Turabian, etc.) and use it for your written work.  Any style guide is acceptable, as long as you use one and follow it consistently.   As you use the SILS library and lab resources during the course of the semester, please remember that many of your fellow students also need to use the same material.  Be considerate of others and follow the proper checkout procedures, return materials promptly, and share workstation time if necessary.  Please also conserve resources by consciously managing your printing in the labs.

Tentative Schedule
Note: General pattern is lecture/discussion on Mondays with readings assigned and discussed on Wednesdays.

Wed. Jan. 10: Course Introduction and Overview
Overview of course
Assignments and labs
Introduce 1-min paper

Assignments:
Subscribe to list, send favorite definitions (communication, information, interaction)
Term Projects
 Media structures (Mid-term project)
 Final Project
Read for next meeting:
Pierce, J. (1972) Communication.  Scientific American, 227(3), 31-41
Schramm, W. (1973). Channels and audiences.  In Ithiel Pool, Wilbur Schramm, Nathan Maccoby & Edwin Parker, (Eds.), Handbook of communication.  Chicago: Rand McNally.  116-140.
Optional:  Weaver, W. (1949). Recent contributions to the mathematical theory of communication.  In, The mathematical theory of communication.  Urbana, IL: U. of Illinois Press. [Read Chapter 1]

Mon. Jan 15.  ML King holiday, no class

Wed. Jan 17.  Module 1: Fundamentals of Interaction

Mon. Jan 22. Module 2: Interaction Contexts

Read for next meeting:
Tannen, D. (1995). The power of talk: Who gets heard and why.
Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations. pp 1-37. (Note: this item is on reserve in the SILS library.)
Chatman, E. A. (1992). The Information World of Retired Women. Chapter 3, Social Network Theory, p33-41.

Wed. Jan 24

Mon. Jan 29. Module 3: Analysis of Information needs

Read for next meeting:
Belkin, N. J. (1980). Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval.
Chatman, Elfreda. (1996). The impoverished life-world of outsiders.
Taylor, R. S. (1968). Question-negotiation and information seeking in libraries.

Wed. Jan 31.

Mon. Feb. 5. Module 4: Information Seeking I
(no class, Information Architecture Summit)
Read for next meeting:
Dervin, B., & Nilan, M. (1986). Information needs and uses.
Culnan, M. J. (1985). The dimensions of perceived accessibility to information: Implications for delivery of information systems and services.
Harris, R., & Dewdney, P. (1994). Barriers to Information: How Formal Help Systems Fail Battered Women. Chapter 2.

Wed. Feb. 7

Mon. Feb. 12. Information Seeking II

Read for next meeting:
Kwasnik, B. (1992). A descriptive study of the functional components of browsing.
Marchionini, G. (1995). Information Seeking in Electronic Environments. pp 27-60. (Note: this item is not in the reading packet, and may instead be found on reserve in the SILS library. The book is located behind the reference desk.)

Wed. Feb 14

Mon. Feb. 19.  Module 5: Assessing Information Value

Read for next meeting:
Harter, S. P. (1992). Psychological relevance and information science.
Schamber, L., Eisenberg, M. B., & Nilan, M. S. (1990). A re-examination of relevance: Toward a dynamic, situational definition.
Amento, B., Terveen, L., & Hill, W. (2000). Does ‘authority’ mean quality? Predicting expert quality ratings of web documents.  Proceedings of ACM SIGIR (Athens, July 24-28).  296-303. Also available in the ACM Digital Library through the UNC Library web page.
Wilson (optional)

Wed. Feb. 21

Mon. Feb. 26 Module 6: Information Use

Read for next meeting
Reeves, B. & Nass, C. (1996). The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and the new media like real people and places.  NY: Cambridge University Press. (Preface ix-xiii, Chapter 1 p 3-15, and Chapter 23 p251-256.)

Wed. Feb 28.

Mon. March 5 Module 7: Information Design

Scan for next meeting:
ASIS Information Architecture Handouts
Rosenfeld, L. & Morville, P. 1998. Information architecture for the WWW.  Sebastapool, CA: O’Reilly.
Materials/handouts form Spring 2000 IA meetings (Book #2 and #3 RPC 1)

Wed. March 7

March 10-17 Spring Break

PLEASE NOTE: SYLLABUS REVISED FROM THIS POINT FORWARD

Mon. March 19. Module 8: The Roles of Intermediaries I

Midterm Project Debriefings: Strucure, meaning, and degrees of Interaction

Read for next meeting:
Tibbo, H. (1995). Interviewing techniques for remote reference: Electronic versus traditional environments.
Roloff, M. E. (1981). Interpersonal Communication: The Social Exchange Approach. Chapter 1, Social Exchange: Key Concepts, p13-31.

Wed. March 21

Mon. March 26. The Roles of Intermediaries II
Project Updates

Read for next meeting:
Morris, R. C. T. (1994). Toward a user-centered information service.
Walker, R. D., & Hurt, C. D. (1990). Scientific and Technical Literature: An Introduction to Forms of Communication. Chapter 6, Secondary Literature, p225-63.
Ackerman, M. & Malone. T. Answer Garden: A tool for growing organizational memory.  Proceedings of ACM COIS (Cambridge, MA April, 1990).  P 31-39.   http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ackerman/pub/90b03/cois90.final.pdf

Wed. March 28

Read for next meeting:
Moorhead, G., Ference, R., & Neck, C. P. (1991). Group decision fiascoes continue: Space Shuttle Challenger and a groupthink framework.
Sonnenwald, D. (1996). Communication roles that support collaboration during the design process.
Constant, D., Kiesler, S., & Sproull, L. (1994). What's mine is ours, or is it? A study of attitudes about information sharing.

Mon. April 2. Module 9: Team Interactions

Day 21 Notes

Wed. April 4.
(no class, CHI conference)
Read for next week
Dibbell, J. (1996). A rape in cyberspace: How an evil clown, a Haitian trikster spirit, two wizards, and a cast of dozens turned a database into a society. In Mark Stefik (Ed.) Internet dreams: Archetypes, myths, and metaphors.  Cambridge, MIT Press.

Mon. April 9. Module 10:Authoring, publishing and scholarly communication
Guest Lecture: Dr. Misook Heo: Web Visualization and Mental Models

Read for next week:
Pool, I. D. S. (1973). Communication systems. pp 3-36.
Harnad, S. (1990). Scholarly skywriting and the prepublication continuum of scientific inquiry.
Smith, L. C. (1981). Citation analysis.
(Optional) Garvey, W. D. (1979). The role of scientific communication in the conduct of research and the creation of scientific knowledge.

Wed. April 11.
MOO experince---meet in SILS Lab

Day 24 Notes

Mon. April 16. Module 11: Scholarly Communications I

Day 25 Notes

Read for next week
Gasaway, L. (1998). Copyright, the Internet, and other legal issues

Wed. April 18
Pool discussion: Monica Vong
Harnad discussion: Naomi Parkhurst
Smith discussion: Mary Ruvane (note tape discussions)

Mon. April 23. Policy Issues I

Day 27 Notes

Read for next meeting
Doctor, R. D. (1992). Social equity and information technologies: Moving toward information democracy.
Anderson, R., Bikson, T., Law, S., & Mitchell, B. (1995). Universal access to e-mail: Feasibility and societal implications.  Santa Monica, CA: RAND  [Read: Summary xiii-xxiii AND Chapter One: Introduction p. 1-12.]

Wed. April 25.

Day 28 Notes

Mon. April 30.  Project Presentations

Wed. May 2.  Project Presentations