USE AND USERS OF INFORMATION

LIS 391D.1

Unique Number #45525

Dr. Philip Doty

School of Information

University of Texas at Austin

Spring 2003

Class time:Friday2:00 – 5:00 PM

Place:SZB 556

Office:SZB 570

Office hrs:Thursday 1:00 – 2:00 PM

Friday 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

By appointment other times

Telephone:(512) 471-3746 (Direct line)

(512) 471-3821 (Main iSchool office)

Internet:

Class URL:

TA:Elena Demidova

Office hours: TBA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction to the course 3

Assignment descriptions 5

Expectations of PhD students’ performance 9

Standards for written work10

Editing conventions14

Grading15

Texts16

List of assignments17

Outline of course18

Schedule20

References25

Readings in the class schedule

Selected ARIST “use and users” chapters 1966-2002

Selected important serial and other sources about users

Additional sources

INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

LIS 391D.1, Use and Users of Information, is one of the seminars currently required in the School of Information doctoral program. The purpose of the course, most broadly construed, is to consider some of the many ways in which users and information interact and create each other.

As such, the course has these goals:

  • To consider what information is and to examine the many ways that our field and others have identified information – at the same time, however, we will also discuss how the idea of information as a noun, a substantive, is a useful fiction, but only a fiction.
  • To discuss what a “user” is and how we have (unfortunately) naturalized our highly contingent, historicized judgments about that question.
  • To explore the concept of “the document” and how that concept both limits and offers clarity to our understanding of users.
  • To understand the increased cognitivist emphasis of research into users’ behavior, and then undermine a purely cognitive understanding of the use of information. To this end, we will consider some of the literature on communities of practice and the formative role that knowledge plays in forming communities.
  • To identify and evaluate major efforts to understand and model what we might informally but usefully call “users’ information behaviors.”
  • To consider the meaning and use of models in research.
  • To see how empirical user-based research leads to theory development and how theory leads to empirical research.
  • To examine closely some of the research methods used to understand users.
  • To understand the important concepts of information retrieval and relevance in their various historical permutations, especially how they grew out of an emphasis on scientific and technical communication and the documentation movement.
  • To explore important terms and authors from many disciplines and to determine how these terms and authors can help us in trying to understand users.
  • Most importantly, to immerse students in the very large interdisciplinary literatures related to information users.

As we all know, research and theory about users have evolved from system-centric to user-centric perspectives, an important and essential step in the maturity of the information disciplines. Despite the rich results of such efforts, we cannot fall prey to their limitations, i.e., we cannot regard users as simply cognitive and atomistic beings. To avoid such a (tempting) mistake, we will self-consciously consider some of the contexts, meanings, and cultural productions important to understanding how it is that people define and use “information.” At the same time, however, we will not focus on user groups per se or on information institutions qua institutions. Further, we will not rely on the supposed hierarchy of “facts”  data  information  knowledge  wisdom for reasons we will discuss throughout the semester.

Structurally, the course comprises three units:

  • Unit 1: Empirical and conceptual foundations (classes 1-7)
  • Unit 2: Examining the research of others (classes 8-12)
  • Unit 3: Students’ presentations of their own research and course summary (classes 13-15).

As I tell the students in the Master’s users class, all of the topics we address this semester deserve more attention than we can give them and there are a number of ideas that are especially pertinent that we cannot explore in any depth. A partial list of such important topics includes:

  • Browsing
  • Gender
  • Resistance to technology
  • Cognitive authority and the evaluation of information
  • Versioning
  • Digital libraries
  • Problem-solving and bounded rationality
  • Collection development
  • The value-added model
  • Formal evaluation of information systems
  • Epistemology
  • The contribution of the American pragmatist philosophers to the study of information users
  • Censorship
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Information policy
  • Scientific and technical communication
  • Information overload
  • Scholarly communication
  • Information equity
  • Usability
  • Collaboratories
  • Information infrastructures
  • Marketing
  • “Information literacy,” itself a highly contested concept.

Students are encouraged, however, to engage these and other topics as their interests and professional goals dictate. This imperative is especially strong for doctoral students.

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTIONS

I will provide you more specific information about each assignment as the semester proceeds.

  1. Students in the seminar will engage some important terms and concepts in a variety of literatures of interest to our understanding users. To help us engage these terms more profitably, each student will choose a minimum of three of the following terms and contribute to the class Web glossary. No more than two students can choose any term. These terms are sprinkled through the schedule for the first seven classes, and students will post their working definitions at various times of the semester as indicated in the class schedule.

epistemology

sub-text

ontology

genre and genre studies

theory

praxis/practice

community of practice

constructivism

ethnography

critical incident

think aloud protocols

hermeneutics

strong program(me) of sociology of science

intersubjectivity

phenomenology

thick description

invisible college

quasi-experiment

semiotics

indexicality

theories of the middle range

constructivism

literacy

dramaturgical view of self

social informatics

loose ties

intertextuality

discourse.

Each student will prepare working definitions of his/her three terms. Each definition will:

  • Be one or two double-spaced pages long
  • Include a personal interpretation of the term
  • Include a discussion of its importance in our domain
  • Provide examples of how researchers who study users employ the term.

The parroting of definitions from encyclopedias, dictionaries, or other sources will not suffice for this assignment. Instead, each student is expected to provide a scholarly level, value-added explanation of the term for us all. This assignment is worth 10% of your class grade.

  1. You will write two or three double-spaced pages on which of the two major “schools” in research you find more powerful: (1) the qualitative approach or (2) the quantitative approach. You should indicate specifically what you mean by “qualitative” and “quantitative” in your paper. You should also identify factors in your life (especially in your previous education and work experience) that have led you to that particular choice while avoiding the easy dichotomies that often result from this kind of contrast. As we know, methodologically diverse studies that combine qualitative and quantitative methods are increasingly common. This assignment is due on January 24, the second class meeting and has no credit associated with it.
  1. For five classes of the semester, students will work in self-selected groups of two or three, depending on the number of students enrolled in the course. These teams will determine what we will read and how we will discuss those readings for those classes. Each student team will choose the work of one of the 15 researchers in List A below as the focus of the class discussion. With approval of the instructor, a team could choose another researcher.

Each team will be responsible for leading discussion for the entire class period and will

have at least one formal meeting with the instructor three weeks before the class in which

it facilitates the discussion to discuss plans for the readings, presentation, and other

elements of the class. Thus, the team that leads discussion on March 7, the date of the

first class led entirely by students, must have provided all appropriate materials and met

with the instructor no later than February 14, preferably earlier.

List A

Gary Marchionini

Philip Agre

Reijo Savolainen

Christine Borgman

Raya Fidel

Robert S. Taylor

Pertti Vakkari

Nicholas Belkin

Brenda Dervin

Michael Buckland

Marcia Bates

Tefko Saracevic

Elfreda Chatman

Carol Kuhlthau

Thomas Wilson

List B

Paul Otlet

Ben Schneiderman

Nancy van House

Cyril Cleverdon

David Levy

Fritz Machlup

(Bertram) Chip Bruce

Donald Swanson

Cathy Marshall

Derek de Solla Price

J.C.R. Licklider

Peter Ingwersen

Kimmo Tuominen

Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver

Douglas Englebart

Carol Tenopir

Amanda Spink

Michael Eisenberg

Bruce Croft

Ann Peterson Bishop

Rob Kling

Gerald Salton

Carol Berry and Linda Schamber

Jesse Shera

Corinne Jörgensen

David Ellis

Sanda Erdelez

  • Each presenting team will identify two or more readings written by or about the work of the person(s) we are considering for that particular day (about 75-100 pp. of reading in toto).
  • It is important that you emphasize the research methods these researchers have used in order to investigate what we can broadly call information behavior and information. Thus, one of the major criteria used for evaluating your work will be how clearly and substantially you engage these research methods and help your colleagues do the same.
  • One of these readings should be empirical.
  • At least one of the readings should be available in hard copy.
  • Each student team will provide hard copies of the print materials to the instructor no later than three weeks ahead of the class in question; provide URL’s for the material available online at the same time.
  • Be sure to contextualize these researchers’ work in their fields and in the study of information users and use.
  • Prepare discussion questions, emphasizing at least three points in each piece we will be reading for the week. These questions will help us discuss the works read.
  • Facilitate discussion in class about that person and his/her work, starting with a 45-60 minute presentation, then moving to a more general discussion focusing on the particular discussion questions developed for the remainder of class.
  • This assignment is worth 25% of your class grade.
  1. Each student will act as a member of a two- or three-member team responding to one of the other student teams’ presentations and discussions. These respondents, like the presenters, will also be expected to facilitate the discussion for the day.

The respondents as a group will be expectedto produce an annotated bibliography of works pertinent to the topic(s) of the presentations, up to approximately 30 items with

one or two paragraph annotations for each item and an introductory, discursive overview of the works of six or seven double-spaced pages. This bibliography can include but must go beyond the works of the researcher(s) being discussed to focus more generally on research methods (data collection and data analysis in particular) and topics. As appropriate, I strongly encourage you to include works by one or more of the 28 researchers from List B above as well as at least one ARIST chapter we have not read as a class. The bibliography is due the day of the presentation. This assignment is worth 15% of your semester grade.

  1. Each participant in the seminar will respond to an appropriate call for papers for a professional conference, with an emphasis on users. For those students with the interest, the instructor strongly encourages them to perform and report an empirical investigation of users to satisfy this course requirement. Such a choice, however, requires early planning and writing, especially to meet Institutional Review Board requirements related to research involving human beings. Such experience, however, is invaluable.

Generally all students will:

  • Write and submit an abstract in response to the call for papers.
  • Write a full draft of the paper (10-12 double-spaced pages long), even if the abstract is rejected or if you have not heard from the organizers by the time the paper is due.
  • Act as a peer editor for another student’s draft. Each student will write a paper two or three (2-3) double-spaced pages long reacting to another student’s paper. This effort is worth 10% of your final grade. The goal of this review is to help the author of the paper under review to improve that paper.
  • Present the final version of the paper publicly. We will emulate the logistics of a professional conference, with each student having about 20 minutes to present, with another 10 minutes for questions. This schedule will probably result in two classes with four papers discussed and one class with five papers discussed. The presentation will be worth 5% of your semester grade.
  • Members of the seminar, with a minimal amount of guidance from the instructor, will reserve an appropriate room in the Sánchez building for the presentations, ensure that all presentation equipment is reserved and there, be sure that the room is set up properly, and so on. Members of the Master’s users class (LIS 382L.20, Understanding and Serving Users), as well as the iSchool faculty, doctoral students, and others, will be invited to attend.
  • A final 15-page draft of the paper will be handed in on May 9 (25% of grade).
  • The students who sit in the class rather than enrolling will perform several tasks. They will:
  1. Act as the initial evaluators of the abstracts submitted, offering advice and direction to the members of the seminar
  2. Organize the papers into thematic groups for the three class periods used for these presentations
  3. Moderate the sessions.

The instructor will try to ensure that students will be able to submit abstracts to real conferences. If that is not possible, then the students sitting in will develop their own call for papers focusing on users and their behavior to which the enrollees’ papers will respond.

EXPECTATIONS OF PHD STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE

PhD students are especially expected to be involved, creative, and vigorous participants in class discussions and in the overall conduct of the class. In addition, students are expected to:

•Attend all class sessions; if a student misses a class, it is his or her responsibility to arrange with another student to obtain all notes, handouts, and assignment sheets

•Read all material prior to class

•Spend at least 5-6 hours in preparation for each hour in the classroom of a PhD seminar; therefore, a 3-credit hour course requires a minimum of 15 hours per week of work outside the classroom

•Participate in all class discussions

•Hand in all assignments fully and on time -- late assignments will not be accepted except in the particular circumstances noted below

•Be responsible with collective property, especially books and other material on reserve

•Ask for any explanation and help from the instructor or the Teaching Assistant, either in class, during office hours, on the telephone, through email, or in any other appropriate way. Email is especially appropriate for information questions but please recall that I do not do email at home and that I try to stay home two days a week. It may be several days after you send email before I even see it.

Academic or scholastic dishonesty, such as plagiarism, cheating, or academic fraud, will not be tolerated and will incur the most severe penalties, including failure for the course. Naturally, PhD students are held to the highest academic standards.

If there is any concern about behavior that may be academically dishonest, please consult the instructor. Students are also encouraged to refer to the UT General Information Bulletin, Appendix C, Sections 11-304 and 11-802 and the brochure Texas is the Best . . . HONESTLY! (1988) by the Cabinet of College Councils and the Office of the Dean of Students.

STANDARDS FOR WRITTEN WORK

Review the standards for written work both before and after writing; they are used to evaluate your work.

You will be expected to meet professional standards of maturity, clarity, grammar, spelling, and organization in your written work for this class, and, to that end, I offer the following remarks. Every writer is faced with the problem of not knowing what his or her audience knows about the topic at hand; therefore, effective communication depends upon maximizing clarity. As Wolcott reminds us in Writing Up Qualitative Research (1990, p. 47): "Address . . . the many who do not know, not the few who do." It is also important to remember that clarity of ideas, clarity of language, and clarity of syntax are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Good writing makes for good thinking and vice versa.

All written work for the class must be done on a word-processor and double-spaced, with 1" margins all the way around and in either 10 or 12 pt. font.

Certain assignments will demand the use of notes (either footnotes or endnotes) and references. It is particularly important in professional schools such as the School of Information that notes and references are impeccably done. Please use APA (American Psychological Association) standards. There are other standard bibliographic and note formats, for example, in engineering and law, but social scientists and a growing number of humanists use APA. Familiarity with standard formats is essential for understanding others' work and for preparing submissions to journals, professional conferences, and the like. You may also consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001, 5th ed.) and (a useful if non-canonical source).

Never use a general dictionary or encyclopedia for defining terms in graduate school or in professional writing. If you want to use a reference source to define a term, a better choice would be a specialized dictionary or subject-specific encyclopedia. The best alternative, however, is having an understanding of the literature related to the term sufficient to provide a definition in the context of that literature.

Use the spell checker in your word processing package to review your documents, but be aware that spell checking dictionaries: do not include most proper nouns, including personal and place names; omit most technical terms; include very few foreign words and phrases; and cannot identify the error in using homophones, e.g., writing "there" instead of "their," or in writing "the" instead of "them."