INFORMATION SYSTEMS MEETS INFORMATION SCIENCE

1. INFORMATION SYSTEMSMEETSINFORMATION SCIENCE Ian Beeson & Jackie Chelin University of the West of England Bristol UK ian.beeson/jacqueline.chelin@uwe.ac.uk

2. an MSc in Info & Library Management DISSERTATION IN ILM ORGANISING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OF INFO & LIB SERVICES RESEARCH METHODS IN ILM OPTION 3 INFORMATION & ITS USERS TRANSFERABLE MANAGEMENT SKILLS OPTION 1 OPTION 2 ….in mounting this programme, we noticed considerable overlap of interest, but also differences of meaning and emphasis around major concepts Beeson/Chelin

3. definitions of Info Sys and Info Sci • Information Systems (acc. to UKAIS): “the means by which organisations and people, utilising information technologies, gather, process, store, use and disseminate information” • Information Science (acc. to IIS): “broad concepts and theories of information systems and information and communication technologies insofar as they apply to the principles and practices of information management” • questions • relation to management and organisations • profession vs academic discipline • central object of interest Beeson/Chelin

4. convergence of Info Sys and Info Sci? • Info Sys and Info Sci have previously diverged • Info Sci: documents and libraries • Info Sys: databases and organisations • particularly since the WWW, there are signs of convergence • both interested in categorisation, metadata, search and retrieval • but perhaps they still differ in primary object of interest • ‘conjunct subjects, disjunct disciplines’ (Ellis, by citation analysis) • ‘the subject overlap is superficial’ (Monarch, by leximapping) Beeson/Chelin

5. the main object of interest… • for Information Science: • information itself, as contained in documents • organisation of and access to that information • for Information Systems: • some further objective…. • usually the support or automation of some area of work • we’ll consider two key terms – classification and search – under the two perspectives Beeson/Chelin

6. the expansion of IT • increased volumes of information • diversification of formats • digitisation: a generalisation of text? • generalisation of ‘information’ to all forms of symbolic representation (eg entertainment) • urgent problems of overload, organisation, and retrieval • decoupling of information from local organisational context • bigger challenges for Info Sys than Info Sci Beeson/Chelin

7. classification & search: Info Sci perspective • already central features of the discipline • practical problems to the fore • complexity and dynamism of classification schemes • loss of local knowledge and salience of classification (in libraries) as items arrive pre-classified • metadata standardisation efforts (eg Dublin Core) • proliferation of end-user databases produces emphasis on generic search skills or preference for familiar interfaces • power of search engines makes search simple but exacerbates problems of relevance and selection Beeson/Chelin

8. classification & search: Info Sys perspective • less central/ more specific in Info Sys, to date: • classification not a major issue for local systems • search mainly delivered through query into structured records (rather than full text) • both handled principally through database systems • rise of WWW thrusts these aspects into the foreground for Info Sys: • web design: full text, multimedia interface, with hyperlinking and metadata • information architecture: structuring an organisation’s information for external and trans-organisational use Beeson/Chelin

9. complementarity of Info Sci and Info Sys • Info Sys can learn from Info Sci about classification, controlled vocabularies and metadata, search and retrieval… • however, Info Sys is interested in the use and impact of IT in work settings • Info Sys needs to transfer these concepts from Info Sci cautiously • Info Sci can benefit from an expansion of the use/ impact perspective • we look forward to exploring the meeting of Info Sci and Info Sys in the implementation of the new MSc… Beeson/Chelin