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INFORMATION SCIENCE.
Term Paper ID:28865
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Essay Subject:
Defines & analyzes 6 of the most critical issues. Variety of disciplines of IS.... More...
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8 Pages / 1800 Words
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Paper Abstract:
Defines & analyzes 6 of the most critical issues. Variety of disciplines of IS.
Paper Introduction:
Information Science (IS), as defined by Soergel (1998, p. 10), is:
concerned with both research and design. It conducts
research into the nature of information, its creation,
organization, use and impact. It studies information
needs and the interaction between people and information.
It combines conceptual structures with appropriate
technology in the design of systems for information
sharing, retrieval and access, as well as information
assimilation, processing and learning.
Given this broad and sweeping definition of IS, the purpose of this brief analysis is to identify six of the most important or critical problems, issues, or concerns that are currently exerting
Text of the Paper:
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Helping people find what they don't know.Communications of the ACM, 43(8), 59-61. One of the goals of IS is to reduce such interfacedifficulties and make the interaction between humans and machines (orexpanded systems) more easily achieved. Information Science (IS), as defined by Soergel (1998, p. This brief essay has identified six important concerns that confrontIS today. As Soergel (1998) suggests, IS knows few boundaries, overlaps manydisparate fields and draws upon their unique ideas, methods and results.Included are mathematics and statistics, computer science and artificialintelligence, human-computer interactions, cognitive science with itsconstituents of cognitive psychology, linguistics, epistemology andphilosophy of knowledge, communication, education, economics, politicalscience and sociology, and administration and management (Soergel, 1998).Given the variety of disciplines which intersect within IS and the inherentcomplexity of those disciplines, selecting only six major concerns is asomewhat difficult task. Chandra, et al (2 ) believe that the knowledge networks that arecurrently envisioned by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and many ISprofessionals represent the next generation networks of telecommunicationssystems, intelligent databases, collaborative technologies, and highperformance computing platforms. IS, asa discipline which draws upon the aforementioned range of fields andprofessionals, is an ideal partner in the development of such a plan. MIS Quarterly, 24(2), 245-273. Kantor, Boros, Melamed, and Menkov (2 ) have noted thatone of the goals of IS is to introduce and facilitate a type ofasynchronous collaborative activity to increase the speed and accuracy offinding information in IT systems and infrastructure such as that of theInternet of the World Wide Web. (1997). A goal of this effort is to leverage internal and external researchto facilitate standardization of educational programs and to moreeffectively integrate IS activities in the classroom and the laboratory andall other work settings and environments (Champness, 2 ). (2 ).Information systems frontiers. There are a number of emerging frontiers in the field.Included are the integrated circuits revolution, object technologies,knowledge and distributed intelligence, the evolving multi-agentintelligent systems, satellite networks and mobile commuting, and thevirtual corporation of the next millennium. (2 ).Capturing human intelligence in the Net. It combines conceptual structures with appropriate technology in the design of systems for information sharing, retrieval and access, as well as information assimilation, processing and learning.Given this broad and sweeping definition of IS, the purpose of this briefanalysis is to identify six of the most important or critical problems,issues, or concerns that are currently exerting most influence over thefield. Integrating human intelligence into IS, creating standards forinformation and systems, improving collaborative practices for educating ISprofessionals, rationalizing the economic effect of IS, ensuring ethicalaccess, and selecting development directions and policies are the issueswhich have been discussed above. All too often, today's sophisticated electronictechnologies have been developed by technically competent and proficientsystems designers and engineers without adequate attention to how thesystems will be used by ordinary human actors. Given that IS is becomingincreasingly reliant upon the Internet - and even that Intranets must beable to interact effectively with other dedicated systems - it may wellbe extremely critical in coming years to develop standards that becomeindustry-wide. The sixth and final problem or issue that IS faces today is relatedto access. What needs to be done in thefuture is the expansion of hardware and software systems to includeknowledge networks capable of literally as well as figurativelydistributing intelligence. Everything that is done in the field mustultimately revolve around serving users well. This issue is that though IS and IT havedeveloped quite rapidly, both are still in what can best be described as apioneering stage. Research Technology Management, 43(4), 8. Cooper, R.B. 1 ), is: concerned with both research and design. Standards vary from one industry to another, anddifferent groups have pursued different goals as they develop hardware andsoftware systems for their own specialization. Journal of Management Information Systems, 16(4), 69-97. Cooper (2 ), as well as Chandra, et al (2 ) maintain thatto date, IS has been a somewhat exclusive club. It studies information needs and the interaction between people and information. Serving the needs of those whoare by virtue of their socioeconomic condition or status, disenfranchisedwithin the IS/IT revolution is a critical moral and ethical concern witheconomic implications as well. (1999). Those who have benefited most thus far from IS have been institutional ororganizational users for whom access is not a great problem. Intellectual property issues are also addressed by this effort, asis identifying the research needs of the field (and its many subsidiary orrelated disciplines). This is as true in the case of non-profit orinstitutional users (e.g., libraries, schools, health care facilities,etc.) as it is in the case of for-profit businesses and industries. Chandra, J., March, S.T., Mukherjee, S., and Pape, W. In libraries, for example, this isa critical issue; most large libraries now are home to a wide range andvariety of often very different databases and applications, and ISprofessionals in these work environments must be trained to use thesesystems to function effectively and serve their own constituents. It is Belkin's (2 ) view that one specific aspect of thedifficulties non-technocrats face in using or interacting in informationsystems is related to language - choosing the right words to representtheir information problems or needs. Helping industry and universities collaborate. Information seeking in electronic environments. Gregory, G. Communications of the ACM, 43(1), 71-79. Related to this issue is the importance of IS education itself.Champness (2 ) argues that both universities where IS professionals aretrained and business or institutional users ofIT/IS must work collaboratively to ensure that new professionals will beprepared for practice. This will only be achieved bygreater collaboration between the universities and the business andindustrial community. Information technology development creativity: A case study of attempted radical change. (2 ). Serving users well furthermandates recognition that "users" come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties. Information Technology andLibraries, 18(2), 78-83. Travis, I.I. Similarly,Budd and Miller (1999) recently described education for library and IS asneeding to incorporate a critical technology component into master'sprograms - and the recognition that librarians as a professional groupcritically involved in IS are a "front line" focus of professionalactivity. The underlying mathematics of IS, whichinclude Boolean functions, involve any number of variables whose values andjudgments are binary. Soergel(1998) states that at the heart of IS are the twin concerns ofunderstanding users in their quest for meaning and problem solutions andrepresenting knowledge structures that support the construction of meaningand the solution of problems. Budd, J.M. The fifth issue of significance was identified by Chandra, March,Mukherjee, and Pape (2 ). However, as Sircar, et al (2 ),suggest, investments in technologies and IS professionals that are made forthe sake of investment alone (or without any systematic planning for how ISis to be integrated into an organization's overall long- and short-termbusiness strategy) are foolhardy. Cooper (2 ) also examined this issue, and noted that while manyfirms and institutions that are heavily invested in IT and dedicated to ISapplications are extremely creative in developing internal standards forsystem design and software program. and Miller, L.K. An Information Science manifesto.Bulletin of the American Society for Information Sciences, 24(2), 1 -12. One of the most important tasks confronting IS professionals,regardless of their particular academic or professional field ofspecialization is capturing human intelligence in hardware and softwareapplications. A second issue of significance is related to emerging informationstandards. It conducts research into the nature of information, its creation, organization, use and impact. A frameworkfor assessing the relationship between information technology investmentsand firm performance. Sircar,Turnbow and Bordoloi (2 ) have pointed out that the IS/IT revolution hasled to an enormous financial investment in human and technological capital- an investment that must, in the long run, be linked to productivity andprofitability improvements. Making hard decisions about how scarceresources (financial and human) will be allocated among each of thesefrontiers is a challenge that public and private sector IS organizationsand policymakers must address in relatively short order. Information Today, 14(11), 55. In this context, Gregory (1997) has pointed out that the commonplaceuse of computers has revolutionized the world of information and thatdeveloping ways of making information both accessible and useful to humanbeings is vitally important. Kantor, P.B., Boros, E., Melamed, B., and Menkov, V. Travis (1998) has noted that many different groups areattempting to create appropriate standards for use by informationprofessionals who are working to create and deliver information andinformation products. References Belkin, N.J. Lackingstandardization of key elements of the underlying technology, IS will notachieve its fully potential. Teaching for technology:Current practice and future direction. As IS becomesimbedded within the nation's educational system, new users for whom thetechnology is not commonplace will emerge. For about a year and a half, the Business-HigherEducation Forum, a membership organization of about nearly 7 business,higher education and museum chief executive officers, has been working on astudy of "best practices" in university-based research and teachingcollaborations. Communications of the ACM, 43(8),112-115. There have been a number of attempts to assessthe impact of IS on organizational performance, but these studies havetended to yield conflicting results. (2 ). (1998). Emerging information standards. Exploring and then mastering the complexities of IS within thecontext of library science is well underway, but technology is outstrippingeducational preparation in this field. This is the issue withwhich IS must deal in coming years if the IT revolution is to be moreeffective as a communication medium than it is today. A fourth concern that IS must resolve is economic in nature. Specified searching is improvingdaily, but for many end users of IS systems, mastery of the variouslanguages that are regularly found in complex IT systems is an all-but-impossible task. (2 ). Champene, M. IT is so pervasive that the "conventional wisdom"demands that firms and institutions of varying sizes and areas of activitymake substantial investments in IT. Belkin (2 ) discussed this issue with regard to the question ofpersonalization, or how a machine can help an individual user gaininformation. Soergel, D. IS, therefore, is the bridge between thetechnocrats and the people or organizations which are users oftechnological systems. Researchers have as yet been unable toconclude that IT/IS spending by an organization results in increases in keyperformance indicators. Practice, according to Budd andMiller (1999), consists of comprehending the needs of information and/orlibrary users, which entails an understanding of the cognitive andintellectual processes by which the user formulates and expresses a query,and assesses information that is retrieved. Information sciences knowsno boundaries and access must be universal if IS is to be ethical. While creativity is a characteristic ofthe overall IT/IS revolution and its value cannot be overestimated,standards remain essential for cross-application coordination. Thus far, IS and technologyhave worked best together in producing the hardware background - thesemiconductor technologies and systems. What is needed, in the view of Sircar, et al (2 ), is the inclusionof IS planning and policy in the development of an organization's businessplan and strategy. (1997/1998). Sircar, S., Turnboss, J.I., and Bordoloi, B. Fears ofmonopolies on specific hardware and software systems aside (and this is aneconomic and political issue of significance), the reality is that for ISto move forward, systems and system users must be able to communityeffectively with one another, and navigation of the various systems must berealistic and "user friendly." Part of the problem that now plagues ISprofessionals is the difficulty of moving readily from one hardwareplatform to another, or from one software system to another. The goal of the organization is to create greater numbersof more effective university-based research collaborations, leadingultimately to modifications in what could be called "real world" practicein IS and in the ways that IS professionals are educated and trained forwork. On the larger scale, the fieldalso requires that its professionals have an increasingly elevatedunderstanding of systems design, hardware and software applications,operating platforms, and user interfaces. Bulletin ofthe American Society for Information Science, 25(1), 6.----------------------- 1 (2 ). Given that human users are the "consumers" of ISsystems and applications, integrating human intelligence into systems thatare artificial is a critical task which IS professionals must address.While various software systems which integrate humans as part of theenabling technologies of the Web and more limited Intranets have beendeveloped, what is missing is a kind of broadly applicable program languageand hardware platform which allows IS users to more freely from one kind ofdatabase or system to another.
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