We are fortunate to support a wide range of speakers in the Information Science Seminar series. They are disciplinarily diverse, and they are diverse in terms of the goals of their talks. For example, some speakers are focussing on the particulars of an empirical study. Others are informally presenting work-in-progress. Still others are communicating a vision for a large program of research. There are many other genres of oral presentation, but they all have something to say about what it means to be in the discipline, what it means to be a kin to it, and what it means to move and shape it.
Through all this disciplinary diversity and forms of presentation, we can develop mental models of what constitutes the discipline of information science.
We will consider these talks at a high level, and with gratitude to our speakers for bringing new ideas to us. Together with the course instructor, students will discover the historical and multidisciplinary scholarly trajectories that populate the conceptual space and that define and shape our discipline. Why are we hearing about the topics as we are? What literatures, traditions, and other big ideas is the speaker invoking to communicate an insight? Through discussion, we will learn about the differences between different forms of investigation, including interpretivist, positivist, critical studies and design exploration. We will consider the different genres of scholarly communication, and how to become facile at recognizing---so that we might eventually model--- these different forms.
By the end of the course, students will have an advanced understanding of the contours of the discipline. They will have greater context to place their own work and their readings of others’. Because no single semester can comprehensively populate the field, the instructor will also help students identify absences in representation of the larger scholarship, again so as to understand disciplinary reach and limits. As this course is offered every semester, the long arc goal is to continue to accumulate working knowledge of the discipline over time, as it itself might shift and transform as we participate in it.
Advice on enrollment: This is a required course each semester for Information Science Ph.D. students. Ph.D. students in affiliate programs who are studying with Information Science professors are strongly encouraged to participate, especially if they are also attending the weekly public seminar. Other interested Ph.D. students are welcome to attend with permission of or invitation by the professor.
This course requires that students attend the Information Science Seminar, which for Spring 2018 will be held on Wednesdays at 3pm, and then attend a 50 minute class meeting following seminar.