information-science

Dissecting the Core Curriculum

As a random exercise in memory I offer the following none too certain linkage between the former core curriculum of the MSI program at UMich and certain faculty members. 501 = Judy Olson. Contextual design all the way, baby!! 502 = Jeff Mackie-Mason. There has to be an economics course. 503 = George Furnas. Search and information retrieval to find our way out of the MoRAS. 504 = Michael Cohen.

November Readback and Update

Another month has come and gone on this blue globe. The annual marks of mortality have left another ring and my weblog has been mostly silent. It’s not because I don’t like you, all half dozen of you who have subscribed to my feed, it’s because I pretend to myself that I’m busy, that there are other demands on my time. It’s a poor excuse my friend. In “real life” I’m nearing the end of my third semester as a master’s student at the School of Information at UMich.

Is there a difference between information ethics and media ethics?

Many of the discussions about information ethics I’ve had this semester have conflated information ethics with media ethics. Is there a difference between the two or is the conflation natural? When I use the term media I usually think of television, radio, and print, especially magazines or newspapers. Some properties of media are ephemerality, and political or cultural content. Most of all its mass communication. I associate information with high technology such as computers or the internet.

My Current Information Practice: Social Bookmarking

There are more social bookmarking sites today then anyone is really able to keep track of. For me the best sites are: Furl - I use this as an archive to search the text of things I’ve seen in the past. The best part about this site is building an archive up over time. I’ve been using it for two plus years and have collected a fair amount of stuff.

Philosophy of Information - Questions and Notes

A list of some philosophically motivated questions about information. Information ethics. A lot could be covered in this area. Is there a right to privacy for personal information? Why would such rights exist or not? See David Brin and Transparent Society or not. Creativity and information. Is information a form of property? Why should it be protected by law? Who gets the benefit of information? Emergent behavior and self-organization. Is there any use to asking about the existence of truth in a system of independent agents acting on different types of information?

A Couple of Questions about Wikipedia

Two recent examples of Wikipedia confusion regarding people that I’ve read raise questions about whether Wikipedia is just reproducing the same hierarchic structure that we find everywhere else. Wikipedia has questioned the notability of Stephen Downes and engaged in a long argument over the correct capitalization of danah boyd’s name I can’t fully put my finger on why the media-centric thing bugs me, but it does. The media has decided that i’m an expert because of my knowledge in a specific domain; Wikipedia has decided that i’m notable because i’m on TV.

Jessica Litman and Law School Publishing

Jessica Litman delivered a paper today to a rump crowd of SI students and faculty about the economic costs of law journal publishing. Her thesis was that the major costs for law school publishing are mostly externalized as the cost of the faculty who perform the research. The actual production and editorial costs of the journal is a fraction of the total cost of production. Given this fact there seems to be no economic reason to suppose that an open access model would do any harm.

Boundary Objects and an Interesting Talk

So another interesting talk at Friday’s ICOS meeting by Eugenia Cacciatori. She has been conducting a lengthy study of an English engineering firm that is adapting to a changing market. In the past the bidding process focused just on the design and construction of a building, now they are being asked to submit proposals that take into account the WLC, or whole-life cost of a building. This change is causing all sorts of confusion and conflict over who controls what information.

Musings on Web Moderation

Tom Coates of plasticbag has a new weblog called “Everything in Moderation.” Its opening manifesto begins: Online community development is one of my passions, and I have designed and/or managed social software “solutions” for organisations like UpMyStreet, EMAP and the BBC (often alongside Cal Henderson and/or Denise Wilton. Moderation systems are a particular subpassion of mine. In the abstract, people can think they sound bland, technical or intimidating, but fundamentally moderation is really about all those parts of an online community that stop it just being a place where people stand and shout randomly at each other.

Studying Citations

I’m fascinated by all of the discussions and research that is going on in the weblog world about the interconnections between people and the communities of interest and/or practice that seem to naturally form. One interesting project in this area is the NITLE Blog Census, this site has an entire database of weblogs that can be downloaded and used for research. Another database that might be useful is Journal Citation Reports.