INFSCI 2000
Introduction to Information Science
Fall 2014 (2151)
| Instructor: Dr. Stephen Hirtle Office: 2B01 IS Building Office Phone: 412-624-9434 Email: hirtle@pitt.edu Office Hours: Tuesday, 2:30pm - 4:00pm, or by appt. Class Meets: Thursday 12:00 PM - 2:50 PM, CL 232 GSA: Cristina Robles, 2B03, cmr93@pitt.edu Secretary: Mary Stewart, 706 IS Bldg, 412-624-9402 |
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Overview. This course covers the history, academic roots, conceptual structure, and methodology of information science. Explores principles and concepts that underlie information processing, including information theory, models of information storage and retrieval, and human cognition. Basic processes of information systems analysis, design, and development. INFSCI 2000 is recommended as your first course in the MSIS program.
Prerequisite: Less than 12 graduate credits or permission of the instructor.
Required Textbooks
- Gleick, J. (2011). The Information: A History. A Theory, A Flood. London: Fourth Estate, 2011.
- Zittrain, J. (2009). The Future of the Internet--and How to Stop It. Yale University Press. ISBN: 13:978-0300151244
- Norman, D. A. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books. ISBN: 13:978-0465050659
- Glushko, Robert J. The Discipline of Organizing. (Ebook).
Email. All email to the instructor about this class should be sent from you Pitt email account or include your Pitt email address. The userid in your Pitt email makes it easier for me to locate your class records. In addition, please put "INFSCI 2000" in the subject line to be read. For example, the subject line might read "INFSCI 2000: Question about project". Email without both of these pieces of information might be deleted by spam filters or routed to a folder to be read at a later date. Email with the appropriate identifier will usually be read within 48 hours of receipt.
Special circumstances. If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and the Office of Disability Resources and Sevices, 216 William Pitt Union, (412-648-7890/TTY:412-383-7355) as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accomodations for this course. You should be aware that my office is up a short flight of stairs. If this problematic, I am happy to arrange a meeting in an accessible location at any time.
Assignments
Grades will be primarily based on an objective midterm (30%) covering material from the first half of the course, an objective final exam (30%) covering material from the second half of the course, and your participation in a team project (30%). The remaining10% of the grade will come from blog postings and other informal activities. Details of these assignments will be posted on https://courseweb.pitt.edu/.
Schedule (subject to change)
| Date | Topic | Subtopic | Reading (under construction) | |
| 8/28 | Week 1 | Introduction | ||
| 9/4 | Week 2 | History of Information Science | Gleick: Prologue, Ch 1-4 | |
| 9/11 | Week 3 | Information Theory | Gleick: Ch 5-7 | |
| 9/18 | Week 4 | Document Processing (Prof. Spring) | * | Gleick: Ch 13-15 |
| 9/25 | To be announced | |||
| 10/2 | Week 5 | Cloud Computing (Prof. Palanisamy) | Review for Midterm |
Dean & Ghemawat, 2008 |
| 10/9 | Week 6 | Midterm Exam | Project Teams | |
| 10/16 | Week 7 | Recommender Systems (Prof. Brusilovsky) |
|
Zittrain: Intro, Ch 1-6 |
| 10/23 | Week 8 | Social Computing (Prof. Farzan) | * | Zittrain: Ch 7-9, Concl |
| 10/30 | Week 9 | Cognition | Norman: Chap 1-3 | |
11/6 |
Week 10 | Network Visualization (Prof. Lin) | Norman: Chap 4-5 | |
| 11/13 | Week 11 | Human Computer Interaction | Norman: Chap 6-7 | |
| 11/20 | Week 12 | Organizing Information | Glusko: to be determined | |
| 11/27 | Thanksgiving Holiday (no class meeting) | |||
| 12/4 | Week 13 | Group Presentations | ||
| 12/11 | Week 14 | Final Exam/Projects Due | ||
Additional Readings:
Dean, J., & Ghemawat, S. (2008). MapReduce: Simplified data processing on large clusters. Communications of the ACM, 51(1), 107-113.