Comments from Richard Thompson

I have four related comments on the concept of having one unified SIS masters degree.

ONE.

SIS is a "school," but what kind? (not just what kind of I-School) If we look around any university, we see two kinds.

A "school is an organization within a university that governs:

1 - a single unified academic discipline, like the Nursing School, the Law School, and GSPIA

2 - a collection of related, but separate, academic disciplines, like FAS and the Engineering School.

GSPIA and the Nursing School have a unified masters degree, but I doubt anyone would suggest a unified masters degree for FAS. There are some schools, like KGSB, that claim to be Type 1, but we observe that it is only the students who major in marketing and management who call themselves "Business Majors. Students who specialize in finance and accounting call themselves "Finance Majors" and "Accounting Majors" respectively. The reason is self-evident and a discussion would be inflammatory (but honest).

So, it seems that, since we're having this discussion yet again, SIS is back to the "same old question." Are we one academic discipline or are we a set of related, but separate, academic disciplines?

Before we can answer this, we have to ask how one determines whether a body of knowledge qualifies as a discipline? Issues like efficiency and similarity suggest that Pitt might consider merging Anthropology with Sociology, or Civil Engineering with Mechanical Engineering, or Economics with Finance (in KGSB), or IS with CS (instead of LIS), or even all of SIS with CS. But efficiency and academic similarity are NOT the over-riding issues. Especially in a school that calls itself a "professional school," discipline-ness is determined by the industries that hire our graduates, PERIOD.

Yale and Harvard have unified Engineering Schools and, "coincidently," these outstanding institutions are not famous for their engineering schools. Should Pitt's Engineering School emulate Yale and Harvard? Some in this administration would blindly say "Well, of course." But, I'm sure the faculty AND the administration in the Swanson School of Engineering would resist it, I'm sure the industries that hire Pitt engineers would resist it and I'm sure Mr. Swanson would want his endowment back. Michigan converted its I-School to the kind of school we're discussing here. Are we looking at doing this just because Michigan did it. Can anyone explain how Michigan's new I-School is "better" than its old one? I know a UM graduate who thinks it is not, and who would not have gone to the current version.

We produce people who have different, and only slightly overlapping, skill-sets. We know these people are in demand by their respective industries. I'm not aware that the enterprises which hire our graduates are complaining that MST graduates know too much about TCP/IP and not enough about archiving or that MLIS graduates know too much about archiving and not enough about TCP/IP. I'm not aware of anyone who is predicting a future trend in this direction. Our programs are pretty well "tuned" to the needs of the enterprises that hire our graduates. Why on earth would we change that?

TWO.

Has anybody thought about the implementation issues if we actually did this? Here are just three out of many:

1 - What would be the entry requirements for our unified masters program? What math skill would be required? What literary skills would be required? Will we require the GRE?

2 - What will be the impact on enrollment? I think we should consider polling our existing students and ask them if they would would have come here if:

a - the GRE were required,

b - their ability to specialize were restricted, or

c - their MS had another name.

3 - Finally, the implementation elephant in the room is that we couldn't agree on one common school-wide introductory course. How do does anyone think we're going to agree on a common curriculum? This exercise will not unite us.

THREE.

I like to think of SIS as a Track Team that is proficient in weight events, jumping events, sprints, distance races, and hurdle races. A track team is very difficult to defeat if it has good people in each of these areas. Although SIS is a strong analogy to this, for the 21 years I've been here, people have wanted to screw this up also. They think we would have a better track team if we had only decathletes and no specialists. Usain Bolt would get a bad raise because he runs too fast and can't throw a discus very far. Why am I the only one who thinks this is, not only silly, but the silliness is obvious? My colleagues, I have said this before and I'll say it again: "SIS' strength is her breadth."

FOUR.

Having argued that we are good just as we are, we all have to admit that SIS is NOT excellent. Our significant problem is that, collectively, we have never lived up to our potential. We could do some amazing things if we would only work together. Before I came here, I worked in an organization at Bell Labs that was similar us (it included Bob Allen, now at Drexel). When I intervied here in 1989, I though this school was better than that group at Bell Labs. But, I have been disappointed. My colleagues, our track team has good stars and good depth, but we lose track meets because of the relay events. We simply don't work together.

That is our problem. We blamed it on our leadership; so we changed Deans and nothing changed. Others blamed it on "silos" and having separate departments; so we abolished departments and nothing changed. We added SIS Council and nothing changed. These changes were irrelevant to our real problem, but at least they were benign. Now, we are discussing a change in the structure of our bread-and-butter masters programs. This change is also irrelevant to our real problem, but this change is NOT benign. Let's solve our real problem and quit kidding ourselves that working on a different problem is going to solve it.

So, how do we solve our real problem? I used to think that we would come together quickly and happily if NSF announced some big pot of money for coherent research proposals in areas that lie at the center of SIS. But, we did NOT put a coherent proposal together for Digital Libraries when that area had a lot of funding. I still think something like that would help but, now, there's no money in the area, and no journal we all respect that we would publish in.

The Bell labs group that Bob Allen and I worked in had a common focus which every individual related to and "owned." That focus was "the office of the future." We were all encouraged to do our own research, but it was expected that SOME of each individual's research would affect and effect that common theme. Furthermore, and very important, this common theme did not exist only in papers and on viewgraphs; we were actually MAKING a prototype of the office of the future. I still have some physical souvenirs in my office at Pitt.

So, instead of dismantling our bread-and-butter, instead of changing arbitrary things that have nothing to do with our problem just so we can report "change" to Pitt's administration and our Board of Visitors, instead of forcing ourselves into some common center that has no common theory and no industry waiting to be served, let's do something CONSTRUCTIVE:

1 - Let's pick a theme; I propose "health-care management of the future" because (a) it has components in archiving, distributed databases, decision making, information organization, security, networking, geography, cooperative documents, etc. and (b) it addresses an important national need.

2 - Let's get a partner that has a vested interest and very deep pockets; that would be UPMC.

3 - Let's start working on system properties and an architecture.

4 - Let's work with our partner to get seed money (venture capital) from some source with deep pockets; that would be NIH or Bill Gates.

5 - Let's use this initial money to (a) start hiring some implementation specialists (programmers etc.), which could be some of our own future graduate students, and (b) to generate some publicity about ourselves and how (because of our "amazing breadth") we are uniquely positioned, on the entire planet, to work on this problem.

If we do this instead of making yet another pointless change, then (a) just maybe we can be the kind of school that I thought we would be when I first saw us in 1989 and (b) just maybe others will stop trying to destroy us.

Richard Thompson

Drop out of college for success?

Related to the higher education bubble is this news item about the Thiel Foundation encouraging high schoolers to drop out of school or skip college and instead start their own tech company. Also related is this article by Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) about what he thinks is real education.

As we formulate our vision, we should also think about the how the iSchool should be of real value to its students - e.g., do the separate specialized degrees with fewer credits have higher value or does a unified single degree with more credits provide higher value? should we focus on the BS program or should we focus on the MS programs which rely on the reducing numbers of folks (already having a BS degree) who are still willing to spend even more on education (especially with the increased perception of reduced value from higher education)?

 

Prashant Krishnamurthy

iSchool Vision 2016

The 2016 spring term is ending, and the faculty meets to reflect on the progress made over the past five years of developing the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences. Much has happened, and the years since first starting a major visioning project have seen significant change in a number of areas. The starting discussion about “iSchool integration” provided an opening for the faculty to surface collaborative interests, as well as make decisions with deliberation and insight into the directions of our institution. Realizing that in the larger consortium of iSchools, we have strong connections and similarities, but need to develop a distinct identity. We capitalized on learning from and augmenting the work done by our partner institutions. The result has been an environment of willing and open experimentation with programs, topics, and approaches to research, teaching, community formation, faculty development, and institutional growth. We are a faculty that is unafraid to try new approaches, capitalize on the benefits, cull and prune our approaches, and reward each other for inspired and thoughtful innovations regardless of the outcome (recognizing that failure is a valuable and instructive experience in an ongoing development process, focusing on rapid evaluation and retooling when necessary changes are apparent.)

Administration & GovernanceTo manage the administrative needs of the School of Information Sciences more efficiently and effectively, four Associate Dean positions have been created and are occupied by tenured faculty.

• Associate Dean for Student Affairs – oversees the administration of undergraduate and graduate programs for the school. Responsible for managing the school-wide scheduling of courses. Fulfills role as Academic Integrity Officer. Chairs the school-wide curriculum committee.
• Associate Dean for Research and Innovation – Coordinates faculty research programs, managing two dedicated staff grant-writing positions. Develops programs to integrate and further school vision of interdisciplinary research opportunities, and arranges for ongoing opportunities to develop faculty training and resources for research production (i.e., promoting faculty to the NSF as reviewers, coordinating grant-writing training workshops, working with faculty to develop new proposals for collaborative research streams.)
• Associate Dean for Faculty – coordinates annual reviews, P&T cases, faculty meetings, and committee assignments. Works with faculty to arrange sabbaticals, course releases, overload schedules, and new faculty recruiting.
• Associate Dean for Strategy and Development – works closely with the Dean and faculty to implement and augment the collectively developed Pitt iSchool vision. Connects with the leadership of other units within the University of Pittsburgh to foster research and teaching initiatives that continuously position the school to contribute to and benefit from the broader resource infrastructure of the university and the iSchool consortium. Works with the Alumni Relations staff member to develop capital campaigns that continuously increase alumni contributions and donations.

The four Associate Dean positions, then, see to much of the internal administration of the school, freeing the Dean to focus largely on external relations and initiatives, representing the school to the Provost and Chancellor, and promoting the iSchool perspective as a model for broader transformation in higher education.

Faculty governance has become more proactive and involved. Alternating meetings happen every two weeks during the fall and spring semesters. In closed faculty meetings, the full-time faculty attends a three-hour work session where decisions are made and action-based projects are advanced. Two weeks later, the SIS Council holds an open meeting that is well attended by faculty, staff, and students from all levels and specializations to communicate school initiatives, achievements, and hold discussions to make recommendations to the administration. The high impact of both meetings means that most faculty attend every meeting and find ample outlets to advance their own voices and projects, as well as those of the school at large.

Research
As it ever was, faculty actively pursue exciting research projects driven by their own interests and expertise. The visioning exercise conducted in 2011–2012, though, revealed a number of larger cross-cutting research themes representing interests of the faculty, and provided a number of opportunities for faculty to collaborate in previously unrealized combinations. As a result, the faculty decided to make personal commitments to always keep at least one research project active that involves collaboration with other SIS faculty outside of their immediate disciplinary traditions. Since the landscape of information science moves and changes quickly, and new and interesting questions are consistently arising, the faculty reviews the portfolio of cross-cutting research themes on a regular basis, culling those that have become less relevant or have reached a stage of completion, and adding emergent and potentially high-impact research strands. Under the guidance of the new Associate Dean for Research and Innovation, the iSchool has developed an impressive portfolio of productive research that has generated increased interest from funding agencies, foundations, and alumni donors.

In order to increase the financial autonomy of the iSchool, as well as provide more opportunity for funding doctoral students, the faculty of the iSchool has ramped up the production and submission of research grants. To foster this environment of active grant seeking, the iSchool has hired two full-time, dedicated grant writers with backgrounds in interdisciplinary science. These professionals work actively with faculty to rapidly develop and submit grants to a wide array of funding agencies, and as a result, the iSchool procured over $5 million in grants during the 2015–2016 academic year, with an optimistic eye and goal toward increasing the total amount of secured grants by 10% each year.

Curriculum & TeachingIn fall 2012, the iSchool convened a working group to review the full curriculum with the goal of developing a consistent set of foundations courses for the graduate program. While masters students are required to choose a portfolio of specialization areas, they are provided with a base of theoretical and practical tools applicable to the information science professions broadly. The working group, with input from the full faculty, has implemented four core courses on:

• Information & Society
• Technological Foundations of Information Systems & Services
• Information Organizations & Institutions: Ethics, Policy, & Management
• Choice & Decision: Information Economics & Incentive-Centered Design

In addition to the core courses (typically taken in sequence of two courses each semester for the first year of the masters program) students choose specializations from an array of topics in which the faculty are well positioned to train them. The school has defined eight specialization areas, and masters students are required to combine two or three of these areas to complete the degree. The current list of specializations (which undergoes review by the faculty every four years) includes:

• Human-centered design
• Telecommunications and networks
• Information retrieval and metadata services
• Archival preservation and records management
• Library systems and services
• Information economics, policy, and law
• Social computing and community informatics
• Cyberscholarship and cyberinfrastructure

Since all masters programs are now two years in duration and require 48 credits, students are also expected to earn a minimum of six credits through professional engagement and field experience. Most students earn these credits through high-profile internships pursued during the summer between the first and second year. Students also have the option of pursuing a capstone project or thesis in their final semester.

To provide a unique opportunity for professional skills development, the iSchool has worked in collaboration with the Katz School of Business and Deloitte Consulting to develop a certificate of advanced studies as an optional fifth/third year to the undergraduate and masters programs. In the interest of producing graduates of the highest professional competence in the information fields, this additional year focuses on developing advanced skills in management, consulting, information economics, forecasting, modeling, and budgeting - all through curriculum developed with a specific focus on the application of these topics and techniques to information–intensive environments.

The doctoral programs have also changed and converged to require first-year doctoral students to complete a two-semester Foundations sequence that introduces them to the broad scope of topics in the information science field. This initial experience imparts unto the students a vocabulary and set of theoretical constructs for them to continue collaboration as they specialize in their own research interests. Doctoral students are also required to take a new course, “Theories and Models in the Information Sciences” in addition to a course on “Research Methods in the Information Sciences”. Beyond these specific courses, all doctoral students must fulfill requirements of at least one specialized methods course in their area, as well as statistics through a graduate level of multivariate analysis. In order to fulfill pedagogical requirements, doctoral students are required to spend two semesters as a teaching assistant for one of the core courses at the masters level. While students may be asked to teach beyond minimum requirements based upon need, the faculty actively works to ensure that the majority of doctoral student time and funding is fueled by research money, and that doctoral students typically carry a .5 appointment (20 hours per week) as a Graduate Research Assistant.

In addition to campus–based programs, the iSchool has advanced its online programs and offerings. To take advantage of the larger university infrastructure and resources, iSchoolOnline@Pitt is delivered through the existing Pitt Online program (http://www.online.pitt.edu/), and iSchool faculty and students have become known as leaders across campus and in the larger field of online education by bringing information science expertise to bear on developing the university’s role in Open Educational Resources. The Pitt iSchool has joined the ranks of MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Michigan, and UC-Berkeley as an exemplar of providing high quality, research–based, and innovative instruction online. The iSchool has also worked with government institutions to make a specific and targeted effort to provide online education to deployed military service members, which has grown the online program to over 3000 students, and provides a significant source of additional income for the school.

Admissions, Student Services, & Career Placement
To cultivate student support at the Pitt iSchool, the student services program has been expanded and repositioned. The school’s unification efforts made the logic clear for streamlining the admissions process at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. Now, well-articulated and consistent criteria govern the admissions process, setting a high bar for all prospective students. Admissions statements and designation of intended specialization(s) from graduate program applicants allow the faculty to compose incoming student cohorts that represent a good distribution of interests and expertise. An added requirement that applicants have at least one year of post-undergraduate work experience has shifted the class profiles to a more prepared professional orientation. As the 2015-2016 school year ends, the upcoming cohort of students, reviewed and selected by a large committee of faculty members, embodies strong mathematical, verbal, and technical skills and experience before arriving to graduate school, and the admitted class looks promising to engage the interdisciplinary education the school is positioned to provide.

The faculty and administration, upon reviewing the financial profile of the school, also made a decision to grow the undergraduate and masters programs with the goal of 500 undergraduate majors and 300 master students in the 2016 campus-based programs. At the same time, the iSchool decided to become more elite and focused in doctoral education, and scaled-back admissions to bring the size of the overall doctoral program to 50 students. Attrition and graduation in the large cohorts starting in 2011 proceeded as normal, but the admission of incoming students became far more selective, only admitting truly exceptional students with a high level of preparation, clear focus on doctoral studies, and the ability to master the broad range of information science topics while developing deep expertise in an area of topical interest. The general increase in research grants procured by the department, in combination with a smaller number of doctoral students, has allowed the iSchool to offer all doctoral admits five years of guaranteed funding - a distinct advantage in recruiting top candidates for our program.

Student Services & Career Placement has undergone changes as well. The staff has expanded to provide exceptional services to students at each phase of their experience in the program. Three staff positions focus on admissions and administration for the masters and doctoral programs, respectively (two for masters, one for doctoral), working closely with faculty who provide academic advising to students and making sure that all students are kept on track. Another staff position is dedicated to helping students with internships, professional portfolio development, job searching and application, and developing skills for placement on the job market. This staff member is also responsible for a school-wide workshop series on developing students’ identities as information professionals. Each year, the Student Services & Career Placement staff produces a publication-quality report on internship and professional placement, representing a minimum of 80% of the graduating class (and aiming consistently for 100%). Like the faculty who pursue excellence and innovation in their teaching and research, the Student Services & Career Placement staff is expected to develop and implement new and innovative programs that enhance the student and faculty experience within the school.

Facilities & Resources
Due to the clearer articulation of who we are, what we do, and where we are going as a School of Information Sciences, the faculty and administration easily agreed that the building at 135 N. Bellefield was not ideally suited for the direction of our scholarship and teaching. Realizing that we need to move into a more updated building, but also aware of the constraints in garnering resources from the university at large, the Dean began conversations with selected departments to propose a new building that would house scholars with work complementary to our own. Through these discussions, the School of Information Sciences, Department of Communications, Department of Computer Science, the Intelligent Systems Program, the University Library, and CIDDE developed a joint proposal for the new facility and presented in 2014 to the Chancellor and Board of Regents. In 2016, the proposal has undergone several rounds of refinement, and the university has placed the construction of the new building on a list of high priorities. Expectations are high that a new building will be ready for occupation in 2020.

Outreach & Campus Connections
The iSchool community has begun to engage outreach programs to provide leadership to a wider audience in promoting information science as a field. The faculty and graduate students serve as active commentators, public intellectuals, and advisors on information-related issues to various campus office and groups. The Pitt IRB, Office of General Counsel, CIDDE, and CSSD routinely approach faculty, iSchool graduates, and graduate students for guidance on the formation of new information policy and sociotechnical implementation.

Thinking forward to the sustainability and succession of the field, the iSchool has also moved the successful i3 program, now beyond its initial funding from the Mellon Foundation, to an ongoing activity within the undergraduate major, encouraging underrepresented students to enroll in courses and identifying promising candidates for further graduate study. The iSchool has also developed an outreach program to local high schools, piloting a program at the Pittsburgh Academy of Science & Technology, located three blocks away from the iSchool building. The high school program engages faculty and students providing occasional lectures and workshops, involving of high school students in summer research, and educating teens about contemporary social and technological issues. By 2016, the iSchool has begun to see the impact of these outreach efforts with an enrollment of 150 undergraduate majors in informatics who state that their decision to major was sparked by exposure to the field while still in high school.

Cory Knobel

Other iSchool pieces at Pitt?

Just to keep the conversation about the iSchool vision going on, there are several units at Pitt (or parts of units at Pitt) that perhaps should be in an iSchool. Outside of the CS department, the following units deal with "information" at various levels. I list some sample publications of some units as examples.

Learning Research and Development Center - LRDC:

Please see this project at LRDC and the following publications:

Marlouis, S. J., & Gomez, L. M. (in press). Does "connectedness" matter? Evidence from a social network analysis within a small school reform. Teachers College Record.

Richards, K., & Gomez, K. (under review). Toward an understanding of affordance networks by indentifying the intentions and goals of an online curriculum-integrated social networking site. International Journal of Learning and Media.

Chein, J. M., & Fiez, J. A. (2010). Evaluating models of working memory through the effects of concurrent irrelevant information. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 139(1), 117-137.

Coburn, C. E., & Russell, J. L. (2008). District policy and teachers' social networks. Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 30(3), 203-235

Davidson, A. L. & Schofield, J. W. (2002). Bringing the Internet to Schools: A case study of educational and technical professionals' collaboration for change. The Information Society.

Davidson, A. L., Schofield, J. W., & Stocks, J. E. (2001). Professional cultures and collaborative efforts: A case study of technologists and educators working for change. The Information Society, 17, 21-32.

The Department of Biomedical Informatics:

Revisiting breadth vs. depth in menu structures for blind users of screen readers
Hochheiser H, Lazar J. Revisiting breadth vs. depth in menu structures for blind users of screen readers. Interacting with Computers Epub doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2010.02.003. 2010. (in press)

Department of Health Information Management in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

The ISP Program is another example of an interdisciplinary program that has several components of the iSchool.

Prashant Krishnamurthy

Is College Worth It?

There have been several recent articles about the higher education bubble that have been circulated by Martin and others. Here is a recent Pew survey and analysis that was summarized as a graphic in the latest issue of Time magazine. Among other things, about 86% of college graduates still feel that the education was worth it, while there is disagreement about the current status.

Prashant Krishnamurthy

What sort of place is the iSchool?

Human-created information systems have been around--leaving their traces, changing the way we behave--for eons. The iSchool is the place where a select group of active and engaged minds have the privilege to come together and discuss what it means for humans to interact with these ever-changing information technologies that they have so continuously and actively constructed.

How do the systems that we ourselves create change the way we behave? Conversely, how do the ways we behave inform our construction of the systems? What broader implications does this interaction have for our own humanity? Such are the questions belonging to the iSchool, and they can best be answered by a diverse group of information-focused scholars committed to an open conversation about the similarities and differences in their related research agendas.

The community within an iSchool includes those who focus on the technical creation of contemporary information systems. What do we demand of our infrastructure today? How are we meeting those needs? It also includes those who investigate the ways in which the information is written, organized, encoded and stored by these systems. What effect does the standardization of data values have on our intellectual endeavors? How does what we put in affect what we get out? It also includes those concerned about the security of these systems, the distribution of these systems, the longevity of these systems...all of these topics are closely intertwined, and they can interact with one another, as well as provide new understandings, in an infinite array of possibilities.

The domain circumscribed by the creation of information systems and the ways in which these systems interact with humanity is the domain of the iSchool.

Alison Langmead

Different iSchool Flavors

We have talked about iSchools and how we are an iSchool. Somehow in that discussion, I get a sense that there is a foregone conclusion that an iSchool should have one single unified degree or program. While this is the case in some iSchools, a perusal of other iSchools indicates that more than one model is being followed and this may be worth looking at as we formulate our vision. Indiana University appears to have two iSchools! Our vision, hopefully will make us the preferred model.

Links to some different types of iSchools:

Michigan's iSchool
UC Irvine's iSchool
Georgia Tech's iSchool
Indiana's iSchool 1
Indiana's iSchool 2

Prashant Krishnamurthy

Final Thoughts as SIS Council Chair

Rather than take up too much time at the Council meeting on Friday May 20th, I decided to post my final thoughts here.


Final Thoughts, SIS Council Chair

I have been associated with SIS Council since its establishment five years ago, the first three as LIS Program Chair and, of course, the last two as Chair. I have found the work on this Committee to be interesting (it provides a unique steady view of School-wide activities), frustrating (it continues to evolve in scope and as a topic for debate, sometimes as if we had no hand in its creation), and satisfying (it enables anyone involved with it to have an important role in the School’s annual planning process and other related tasks). This may be the most important venue for participating in the School's governance.

As I have made clear in the past (although not in a completely satisfying way perhaps), I believe first and foremost that SIS Council is the most important forum for faculty governance and the best mechanism for continued unification of the School. And I am more than convinced that faculty governance is very important, more so than the notion that what is good for me is good for our School. We need to have individual research and scholarly agendas, but I also think that a commitment to a unified School (perhaps where there are no individual programs, all faculty meet together regularly, and faculty supporting specialized curricular tracks work together as needed) is essential to supporting such agendas and encouraging collaborative research and teaching projects.

A perusal of The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education in just the past few days ought to convince us of why we need to work together more effectively and with greater imagination. Dan Berrett (“In for Nasty Weather,” Inside Higher Education, May 16, 2011, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/16/life_for_college_professors_is_no_longer_what_it_once_was) argues that life is getting more challenging for faculty: “While the current state of affairs is, in one sense, a reflection of the wider economic shocks that have hit other workers, many of the problems now surfacing pre-date the financial crisis. The erosion of status, stature, and prospects for a future that much resembles the past has occurred for complicated reasons, experts say, including long-term, systemic, external and ideological ones as well as more recent political and economic developments, and some self-inflicted wounds.” He comments on issues such as the disappearance of tenure, increasing teaching loads, loss of collective bargaining rights, “tempting targets” with copied and heavily edited lectures, economic cuts, a growing reliance on adjuncts, and a bottom-line management confused with accountability.

On the same day as Berrett’s essay appeared, Jack Sripling reported in the Chronicle that the “deteriorating number of tenured positions in higher education is a common source of concern for faculty, but few college presidents seem perturbed by the trend” (Jack Sripling, “Most Presidents Prefer No Tenure for Majority of Faculty,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 16, 2011, http://chronicle.com/article/Most-Presidents-Favor-No/127526/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en). Will we get to have a voice in whether tenure gets to stay in our School? What will the School be like if there are no tenured faculty? The only way we can contend with such matters is if work together more effectively and efficiently. Not only do we have the barriers of the Programs, we have that of the building we work in. William J. Mitchell notes that the Media Lab building "was originally laid out as a collection of carefully tailored zones for particular research and production activities, with meticulously worked out areas and adjacencies. But it did not stay that way for long. Technologies and research agendas rapidly changed, and the researchers repeatedly tore the space apart and reorganized it, eliminated old uses, and took over areas for new uses as short-term necessity demanded. The process was much like that of fragmentation of disk space, and the interior quickly lost any semblance of architectural coherence. Even worse, some fundamental design assumptions became obsolete; the deep, artificially ventilated and lit interior spaces had been designed on the assumption that computers occupied fixed locations and required highly controlled environments, but the emergence of robust, portable, wireless laptops with screens bright enough for use in daylight changed all that. The lesson was that detailed programs of architectural requirements -- based on the immediate needs of the first occupants, and frequently demanded by managers as a justification for building and as a way of checking the architect's work -- do not provide a rational basis for planning a research building that will operate for many decades in a highly dynamic environment" (William j. Mitchell, imaging MIT: Designing a Campus for the Twenty-First Century [Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2007], pp. 106, 108). Think about how little our building has changed in the past quarter-of-a-century, especially in how it has segregated the various programs into their own spaces.

Everywhere we look, we see dangerous trends. Yesterday, I read a call for papers for the journal TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies on the theme of “Out of the Ruins: The University to Come,” noting, “After decades of chronic under-funding and restructuring, public universities have ceded the university’s public role in a democracy and embraced “academic capitalism” as a “moral” obligation. Acting as venture capitalists, they pressure academics to transfer and mobilize knowledge and encourage research partnerships with private interests; acting as real estate developers, they take over neighborhoods with callous disregard for established communities; acting as military contractors, they produce telecommunications software and light armored vehicles for foreign governments; acting as brand managers, they open branch plant campuses around the world and compete for foreign students who can be charged exorbitant fees for access to a ‘first world’ education.” Now, some of you might say, where do I sign up? But my argument is that in times such as these, we need to work on our collective vision, and that such work is not a luxury but a necessity. As the TOPIA CFP continues, “In addition to external influences such as globalization, technoscience, corporatization, mediatization, and higher education policy, internal managerial initiatives, bureaucratization, deprofessionalization, structural complicity between administration and faculty, and intellectual subjectivities must also be analyzed. All of us, no matter what our political position, must take the time to reflect on the broad questions raised by these changes. Is the site of the university worth struggling over or re-imagining? Can the neoliberal university be set against itself? Is it time for reform or exodus? What other practices of knowledge production, interpretations, modes of organization, and assemblages are possible?” Over the past two years we have discussed a variety of such issues in Council, although not always with convincing or reassuring results (and certainly not with the Cultural Studies framework represented in this journal’s call for papers – yet, if we are truly interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary [or want to be] then we could use a little of this perspective sprinkled in for seasoning).

There is another reason for why we need to work together on a unified vision and how we govern ourselves. There are indicators we are not particularly healthy, no matter how well each of us individually believes he or she is doing. In just one week, I observed a Commencement where a very small portion of faculty participated, prompting graduating students and their families to wonder where we were; the funeral of a dear colleague, where the faculty was also light in their attendance; and a simple online survey about communication requested by a consultant where most failed to complete it (at least without multiple requests). Now all of us will say I am just too busy, and many are very busy. For me, the most telling indictment of this notion comes in Sherry’s funeral where we learned things about her none of us knew, suggesting to me, at least, that we do not know each other very well (and this harms us in many ways). Is it any wonder, then, that we struggle to bring the School together? And I include myself in this (especially since I sit in an office across the hall from her old office). I function as a humanist, one who wants to be left alone in the archives making discoveries in the most serendipitous and unscientific fashion, examining and touching materials that probably will never be digitized (as Nancy Lusignan Schultz just wrote about in her essay, “Serendipity in the Archive,” The Chronicle Review, 20 May 2011, B16-17). I am not saying this to chastise anyone, although I am sure some will see it this way; I am stating this to criticize myself for having failed to operate even at the most basic level of human interaction. I know we can do better (as can I).

If you have been following the blog “Creating a Pitt iSchool Vision,” you will understand that we have many visions, but that there is some encouragement to be taken in that a quarter of us have posted something about what we think (with even some commenting on each other’s posts). If you paid attention to the recent elections to SIS Council, you also understand that we are split evenly down the middle about whether we want to bother with a unified School. Now if you think I am just some kind of true believer in the iSchool concept and a vision that moves us past curricular tracks, programs, and laments about the loss of departments, then you haven’t read my The Demise of the Library School: Personal Reflections on Professional Education in the Modern Corporate University (Duluth, MN: Library Juice, 2010). In that book, I worry about what we might lose or have lost already in the transition from the L to the LIS to the I-School. We need to figure out a way to capitalize on our diversity of knowledge, expertise, and perspectives. We have a long way to go, especially as we dwell in caves scattered through our building (my cave has gargoyles, paintings, and a lot of those stone age information sources -- books). I like it, but I need to come out every then and again.

We have work to do.

In that vein, I have only three recommendations to offer to the next class of SIS Council, and the recommendations have nothing to do with the substance of what Council deliberates (the Dean has offered us a good list of topics to be considered in addition to the normal budgeting and planning work). I want to address the process (although in this process you will see my own sense of the School’s vision). Donald Norman, in his latest book, writes, “Just as the owner of a cluttered desk sees order in its structure, we will see order and reason in complexity once we come to understand the underlying principles” (Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity [Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011], p. 4). I think we have work to do on figuring out the principles guiding us.

First, I urge Council to be more aggressive in taking the lead in faculty governance. Except for the budgeting and planning responsibility, Council has waited for matters to trickle up to it. I believe Council needs to be more energetic in proposing back to the faculty new programs, new directions, collaborative projects, and other actions strengthening and uniting our School. At times, it needs to make a decision or offer a recommendation to the Dean and report what it has done back to the various academic programs. My reason for suggesting this is simple -- Council is the group who generally considers issues from a School-wide perspective (whereas the various programs do not).

Second, I recommend Council meet with the faculty as part of the three All Faculty meetings, normally held each academic year, in order to discuss matters arising and concerns and issues related to the direction of the School. This should strengthen considerably the issue of communication, a topic that emerges every few days or so (or at least it seems). The logistics of this can be worked out in short order. Council can bring everyone up-to-date about what it is deliberating, and the faculty can provide commentary on these topics as well as raise other issues.

Third, and finally, I recommend Council hold one meeting in which all staff members are invited to discuss topics of concern to them (perhaps the same should be done with the SIS students as well). Such meetings can improve the knowledge of Council about the overall health of the School, as well as foster a better sense of openness in the governance of the School. And, besides this, the staff members often possess many insights about important issues facing the School.

You are probably disappointed in the simplicity of these recommendations (although they might require some SIS bylaws tinkering). You also may be wondering why I didn’t implement these during my two-year stint as Council Chair. Honestly, I thought we would naturally evolve to this operational mode, but I did not count on the resistance to a unified School with a stronger vision to support such collaborative work and communication. I believe this is essential to our future, and I leave it in the good hands of the new Chair and Council. Best wishes. It has been fun.

Richard J. Cox

iSchool Vision

Hi folks,

A few notes before I add in my 2c. First - I have not tried to synthesize across the very interesting perspectives that are in. Second, a personal peeve. Could we avoid tripping over the word 'science'? It does not advance our discussions one way or another when we use the term, but does ruffle feathers - for example, I refuse it and others need it; and despite that I can feel in fundamental agreement with those who really need it and I hope vice versa.

geof

VisionThe iSchool at Pittsburgh's understanding and teaching of information ecologies is the premier in the world.

Mission
To research, teach and propagate creative use of information technology for the greater good.

Strategic GoalsTo achieve a world leadership position, we must:

• integrate our School so as to create research and teaching which is responsive to the complexity of information problems;
• agree on two or three areas of research and teaching which the School specializes in;
• overhaul our Masters programs so as to reflect our integration and for them to be best prepared for the emerging job market;
• create interdisciplinary working conditions (lab space, shared grants and so forth) for our doctoral students to be creative leaders;
• move into a central position on campus for all information policy decisions.

Geof Bowker

Vision for the School of Information Sciences

Statement

Vision
To foster a world where digital information is used optimally to advance the information age and improve the human condition.

Mission
To conduct research that advances our understanding of information and knowledge in all forms and across all operations; and to produce professionals who can guide individuals, organizations and society in the use of information to the betterment of humanity.

Strategic Goal
To advance our research and scholarship, so as to become world class, in the following areas of information science: information assurance, archival science, wireless communication, school librarianship, distributed systems, cyber-scholarship. (The areas selected are somewhat arbitrary and should be modified to reflect faculty consensus.)

Operational Goals

• To provide the tools and infrastructure necessary for the faculty and PhD students to implement preliminary research studies in areas of strategic interest and a proposal preparation and review process that enables these studies to be successfully implemented as externally funded research projects.
• To provide the tools, training, and infrastructure required to mount educational programs that prepare individuals for roles as information professionals and scientists.
• To represent the profession and science in public, professional and scientific forums in such a way as to advance the vision, mission, and strategic goal of the school.

Background
In order to understand the vision and mission for the School of Information Sciences put forward above, it is useful to reflect on what we mean by information, profession, and science. The School has made a conscious decision to say that it the home of more than one science of information. At the same time, we have been lax in defining exactly what those sciences are – or defining the combinations of professions and sciences that are involved. What follows makes no judgments about the particular sciences, but it does endeavor to provide some definitional perspective on information, profession, and science.

What is Information?
There are both informal and formal definitions of information. Conversationally, a message communicated from one person to another is said to contain information if the message content was not already known to the receiver. If the message was known to the receiver, it contains no information or at very least no “new” information. This raises the question of whether recorded data can be defined as containing information apart from some person. We commonly say that containers like dictionaries, encyclopedias, or books “contain a lot of information”. It might or might not be information to you. These informal definitions suggest two things. First, information is intimately tied to the human experience and information is in some forms personal. What is information for you may not be information to me. This is a separate matter from the veracity of an assertion or message. Second, we recognize that information may be collected and organized in a variety of forms. We are able to form impersonal judgments about these collections as being rich or poor.

Is it possible to "inform" an ant, building, computer, or automobile? I am not quite sure. While information is tightly bound to the human experience, some would argue that ant scent trails contain information, and that computers produce information displays -- sometimes regardless of whether they are used by humans. It is clear to me that computer programs make more and more use of information to make decisions about data collected from the real world. It seems likely that an informal definition of information will likely grow to include many types. The argument here is simply that information is an artifact of human efforts and is closely tied to the human experience.

In terms of more formal definitions of information, Claude Shannon’s work on cryptography at Bell Labs during World War II led to a mathematical definition of information. Put in the simple terms Shannon suggested that the greater the uncertainty (entropy) in a message, the more information required to transmit the outcome. Again, at the risk of oversimplification, communicating the outcome of some event where there are a dozen possible outcomes required more information than an event with only two possible outcomes. Working for Bell Labs, Shannon was interested in how much bandwidth was needed to communicate a message, or how much space was needed to store a message. With the advent of digital computer using binary units to store a message, it became useful to think about how many binary digits would be required to store a message. Shannon proposed a measure of information was "I=log (1/probability of the message)". We can thus say that if information is to be stored as an array of binary digits and the probability of the message is .5, we would need log2 (1/.5) bits to store the message. The base 2 log of (1/.5) (i.e. 2) is 1. When the probability of a message is 50/50, I can record the message as a 0 or 1 using only one binary digit. If the probability of a given message is .00390625 I would need log2 1/.00390625 or 8 bits. In this case, the “magic” number of .00390625 is 1/256. What Shannon is saying is that if I wish to be able to have a message that can be any one of 256 different symbols, I would need 8 bits to represent it. A rich analysis of information is possible based on a measure of information as the probability of a message. It opens the doors to computation, transmission, encryption, compression, correction of messages stored in digital form. It provides a simple yet rich mathematical theory that allows us to do all sorts of things, and it is generally consistent with the informal definition of information.

Given these simple definitions of information, numerous additional questions emerge. For example, what it is that makes something information to one but not another? Messages contain information when the message is about something not already known to the receiver. Again, informally speaking, what I know, the knowledge I have, acts as the mediator of whether a message contains information. This leads us to ask if knowledge is different from a store of information. What we know may be partitioned into domains. We may know a lot about chemistry, a little about mathematics, and nothing about anthropology. It would seem safe to suggest that knowledge is generally thought to be more organized and structured than information.

This discussion began with the notion that we received information in messages. Is that the only source of information? It would seem not to be the case. Humans are able to derive information from signals processed from the environment. The smell of smoke might lead us to conclude that a fire is burning. The sound of footsteps might lead us to conclude that a person or other creature is nearby. Signals, when informed by some mechanism that allows them to be interpreted, may contain information. There is much to be discussed about how signals are transformed to a pattern of data and then to information. It has a lot to do with the knowledge we bring to bear on the signals. Signals that make no sense – that form no pattern – are commonly referred to as noise.

Information is an artifact of human effort. Frequently, messages are used to transfer information between individuals. Humans may glean information from signals gathered from the world. A message in a symbolic form may be aggregated in an information store. One measure of the information in a message is the log or the inverse of the probability of the message. Information may be mediated, both in production and acquisition by the knowledge state of a recipient. There are evident properties of knowledge that require clearer definition such as validity, applicability, coherence, etc. Similarly, there are evident properties of information that must be clearly defined, such as its value, its clarity, its validity, etc.

Profession and Science
The academic disciplines, humanities and sciences, and the professions, medicine and engineering to name two, are sometimes viewed as being the same. While there are similarities, there are also important differences. Where the disciplines are an expression of human imagination, professions are a response to human need. While both have a systematic method and theory, in a discipline, knowledge, theory, and process are mastered to develop a more systematic or comprehensive syntactical and conceptual structure for the discipline — the purpose of the discipline is the pursuit of knowledge. Professions, on the other hand, use theory and knowledge to serve — to respond to vital needs of individuals. Holzner and Marx (1979) put it this way:

Professionals differ from scientists in their reliance on applied rather than formal theoretical knowledge. Thus, practicing professionals tend to use general principles to deal with concrete problems in order to test, elaborate, or arrive at general principles. Since professionals must focus on the practical solution of concrete problems, they are characteristically more concerned with applying knowledge than with creating or contributing to it. (Holzner, B., and J. Marx, 197 Knowledge Application: The Knowledge System in Society. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. p. 407)

King and Brownell (King, A.R. and Brownell, J.A., The Curriculum and the Disciplines of Knowledge: A Theory of Curriculum Practice. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966) discuss the characteristics of a discipline. These include both fundamental characteristics – a domain of inquiry, a mode of inquiry, a conceptual structure – and more descriptive characteristics – a community of persons with a literature, a tradition in an instructive community and a specialized language. The three characteristics identified as fundamental are worthy of a more careful exposition.

It is pretty clear that the domain of physics is the physical universe, the domain of biology is living organisms, the domain of literature is writings, etc. At gross levels, these domains are difficult to constrain, but as we talk about astrophysics, or vertebrate biology, the domains seem to become a little more sharply defined. Sometimes, they get fuzzier -- e.g. molecular biology, or social psychology. What is the domain of information science? One less than satisfying answer is everything is information and the domain of information science includes all the other disciplines. Some suggest that we don't need to define or circumscribe the definition of information to have a science of it. Lacking a reasonable definition of living organisms would make it very difficult to define what biology is about. We don’t need to be perfect – every domain has outliers. While vertebrates and plants are clearly living organisms, there are surely fringe entities that lack one or more of the attributes we use to define living organisms. When it comes to information, it seems we only want to argue about the fringe of the domain and ignore the 99% that is at the core. So what is the domain of information science? A broad definition of information has been provided above that may serve as a starting point.

Ok, we are coming to grips with what we want to study. What is the conceptual structure we overlay on the phenomenon? In physics, we have had a number of conceptual models of the physical world, at both microscopic and macroscopic levels. Newtonian mechanics worked for a long time. Quantum mechanics takes another view, not necessarily contradictory, but in some situations, more explanatory. The Newtonian conceptual structure provides principles like force = mass * acceleration. This concept is not a part of the domain of inquiry, it is a part of the conceptual structure that is overlaid to explain something about the domain. So, what is the conceptual structure of the science of information? Some might suggest that it is Claude Shannon's conceptualization of information as the log of the sum of the inverse of the probabilities of the components of the message. While Shannon’s formula for the measure of information has some important uses, it is way too thin – the conceptual framework that needs to be defined for a science of information is much larger. As in other disciplines, that conceptual structure will evolve and face radical points of evolution over time. There are lots of bits and pieces waiting to be pulled together and organized – coding theory, data structures, logic, entropy theory, network theory. Within these domains, there are bits of specific named theories that are emerging Shannon’s Theorems, Nyquist’s Theorem, Zipf’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, Moore’s Law, etc.

What is the method of inquiry? At the current time, there are a variety of different methods employed by people who call themselves information scientists. Viewed from a developmental point of view, many disciplines have evolved from an early period in which the primary mode of inquiry was simple observation and classification to a more evolved mode that was more formal and which enabled assessment of the validity of the conceptual model via replicable evaluation. For most sciences, this more formal method has become some variation of the scientific method. I suspect that the maturity of the science of information is such that the current period is one of observation and classification to build a base of concepts that we may later be able to relate. Eventually the work of Shannon, Zipf, Hamming, Metcalfe Nyquist and many others will be woven into a more coherent framework.

One clue about how to proceed in building a science of information was provided by Herb Simon in his 1969 “The Sciences of the Artificial”. In this book, he discussed the differences between natural and artificial sciences. He encouraged the development of a new paradigm for conducting research in the “design sciences.” He suggests that the sciences of artifacts are different than the sciences of the natural.

My dictionary defines “artificial” as “Produced by art rather than nature; not genuine or natural; affected; not pertaining to the essence of matter.” It proposes, as synonyms: affected, factitious, manufactured, pretended, sham, simulated, spurious, trumped up, unnatural. As antonyms, it lists: actual, genuine, honest, natural, real, truthful, unaffected. Our language seems to reflect man’s deep distrust of his own products. I shall not try to assess the validity of that evaluation or explore the possible psychological roots. But you will have to understand me as using “artificial” in as neutral a sense as possible, as meaning man-made as opposed to natural. (2nd edition, page 6)

And:

… hence we can set the boundaries for sciences of the artificial:
1. Artificial things are synthesized (though not always or usually with full forethought) by man.
2. Artificial things may imitate appearances in natural things while lacking, in one or many respects, the reality of the latter.
3. Artificial things can be characterized in terms of functions, goals, and adaptation.
4. Artificial things are often discussed, particularly when they are being designed, in terms of imperatives as well as descriptives.(2nd edition, page 8)

Information is an artifact of the human effort to communicate. Thus, information science is an artificial science, and not a natural science. Natural sciences endeavor to describe and explain the natural world around us where the natural world is a given. Artificial sciences endeavor to improve the design of the artifacts that we create. A science of artifacts or the artificial is a science of the things we build. In academia, there is strong pressure to do good research. Many times this is equated to descriptive and explanatory research focused on the natural world around us. We can’t make a pulsar something it is not. We simple try to explain it. In their research, engineers would be like physicists and doctors would be like biologists. Maybe we need to rethink the paradigm of our science, more focused on the matter of our science – artifacts – than on the paradigms of those who study nature.

As a simple example, if we find that we can’t communicate what we wish to via the existing symbol set, we can change the symbol set. As another example, if we find a sequenced set of symbols does not provide adequate facility to manipulate and control a document, we can define document as a directed acyclic graph of elements over that symbol set. This might allow us to do partial locking and structural analysis. We could take the example further and introduce attributes and metadata to the model to give us additional capability. This kind of design science is very different from the descriptive natural science that says a document is what it is and it is our goal to describe it in its natural form.

Michael B Spring, May 18, 2011

2016 - The year of the first real information scientists

It is May 2016 and it is the commencement of the first class of the 4-year BSIS program started in the Fall of 2012. They are the most competitive candidates in the job market since they are able to understand all the aspects of the information processing:

* Information storage (LIS program)
* Information retrieval (IS program)
* Information diffusion / transmission (Tele program)

They do not only know the concepts only in high level but they also understand the science behind them. They have a set of uniques skills after exploiting the diversity of the faculty comprising the school. For example, they are able to understand the structure of social relationships, as well as model and analyze them with their math skills which are not weak anymore. They are the first real information scientists that understand all aspects of information processing after its generation.

Doctorate students of each of the three programs are able to collaborate with their peers in the other programs efficiently, showing the breadth required in 2016's job market. While they are specialized in LIS, IS or TELE, they can adapt and work on different areas. They are eager to go over their limits and they are able to think out of the box showing enthusiasm for the unknown. They have set their minds that PhD means learning and not applying things that you already know. Mainly, their advisors learn from them and not the opposite. TELE students in particular are also in position to compete with their top peers in other closely related departments (such as EE and CS).

Master students (both Master of Arts as well as Master of Science in Information), not only have specialized through the master courses in their area of interest but they have also been exposed to basic research principals through their involvement in small projects, helping the doctorate students with their research. This also gives another required skill for the PhD students; that of mentoring!

Konstantinos Pelechrinis

Another vision for the iSchool

It is I-Fest in October 2016. The day is packed with presentations and demos from the senior projects of the first cohort of BSIS students who were admitted into the 4-year BSIS degree in Fall 2013 directly from high schools. I-Fest is supported by companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google and additionally serves as a shadow career fair with a number of local and national, small and large companies with representatives present in various capacities – as advisors to the iSchool’s BS program, sponsors of i-Fest, or sponsors of the senior projects. A unique feature of the senior projects is that the projects are looking at solutions to real world information related problems. Graduating seniors are expecting to be hired in various capacities such as information managers, librarians, graphic system analysts, information architects, network analysts, information analysts, application developers, and data modelers.

Since 2013, top graduating high school students have applied, been admitted, and successfully enrolled in Pitt’s BSIS program with total number of BS students hovering around 300. Pitt’s BSIS program is known for its excellence in managing, securing, storing, archiving, retrieving, curating, and transporting massive amounts of information in almost all areas of life.

These students are mastering one or more overlapping areas of information science:
1. User centered design
a. Graphics
b. User-centered design
c. Web programming
d. Art, media, and technology
2. Information Handling and Management
a. Records and information management
b. Data mining and analysis
c. Information visualization
d. Librarianship
3. Information Systems
a. Information systems design
b. Geographic information systems
c. Mobile applications and cloud computing
4. Information Assurance
a. Computer and information security
b. Network Security
c. Securing digital records and data provenance
5. Networks
a. Applications of computer networks
b. Computer networking laboratory
c. Network management
d. Social, biological, and other networks

These specializations are built on a strong analytical foundation in mathematics, programming, databases, networks, and human factors. There is an emphasis in the program on values, ethics, and impact of technology on society by inculcating these in many classes and through a required class. Classes are taught by a mix of research active faculty, who bring state of the art research ideas into the classroom, and faculty practitioners with extensive industry and library experience, who bring the ability to teach the right skills to enter the workforce. The program benefits from a state-of-the art computing lab and a state-of-the art network and infrastructure lab. In the former, students get hands on experience in visualizing and analyzing massive amounts of data, in media and arts in technology, in managing digital archives, and in programming skills as needed. In the latter, students learn to build, deploy and manage the infrastructure needed to transport, store, and secure information.

The day after i-Fest, the iSchool board of visitors and some members from the companies that sponsored i-Fest attend a research symposium with a mix of posters and short 5 minute presentations and demos from doctoral students in the three Ph.D. programs in the school. Many of these posters and presentations have themes cutting across two or all of the traditional areas of library science, information science and networking where students from each area are working on a common collaborative project spanning these disciplines. Research projects in single areas also exist but illustrate the innovations that can emerge from an iSchool. There is a palpable energy in the room as doctoral students, faculty, members of the board and companies exchange ideas and potential solutions for information problems of the future. The doctoral students are publishing in highly selective conferences with a majority funded on research projects. The school is known for three signature areas of research with foundations again in managing, securing, storing, archiving, retrieving, curating, and transporting massive amounts of information. Research active faculty teach doctoral seminars and advanced classes in various areas in support of the three doctoral programs. The Ph.D. programs are supported by research labs where research work is implemented and doctoral students interact and are administered by faculty members in Library and Information Science, Information Science, and Networking focus areas. I quote from Dean Larsen's vision here: “The exceptional diversity of iSchool faculty provides the exciting opportunity and the means to conduct scholarship in new and creative ways, and this is explicitly explored, encouraged and facilitated through colloquia, workshops, and interdisciplinary research proposals, and augmented with investment in post-doctoral research fellows.”

The iSchool also offers a Master of Arts and a Master of Science in Information. Both degrees cater to students seeking to enter professions in the Information field. While there are some classes specifically at the Masters level, students typically take upper-level BS classes, obtain hands on laboratory experience, and take some introductory Ph.D. level classes to complete their Masters degrees.

Prashant Krishnamurthy

Studying the Digital Future

It is May 2016, and a senior faculty member is putting the final touches on the third volume of the SIS Studies in the Digital Future published by MIT Press. This particular volume is on the “Future of the Archive.” The first volume, published in 2012, was on the “Future of the Database”; the 2014 volume was on the “Future of the Book.”

Each volume includes a dozen essays, some singly authored by a SIS faculty member, others jointly authored by SIS faculty and doctoral students. Each essay is presented from a particular disciplinary perspective (computer science, cognitive science, library and information science, history, etc.) reflected by the backgrounds and orientation of the faculty. The essays probe the theme and reflect different perspectives. Each volume includes one essay by either a masters or doctoral student deemed to be the best student paper on the book’s theme prepared that academic year. There is a summary essay and a bibliography for supplemental reading. The volumes are not highly technical but are aimed at an educated public, policymakers, and other information professionals.

The essays have been formed by a collaborative faculty process extending over two academic years. A SIS-wide doctoral seminar has been offered on the theme, with guest appearances by SIS faculty. The faculty has been encouraged to offer assignments in masters courses and other doctoral seminars on the particular theme. A colloquium series has been offered with four to six outstanding experts on the theme to offer their insights and to stimulate the continuing conversations (one of these guest lectures has been featured in each of the three books in this series). There are new experiments in team-taught, School-wide courses. The Doctoral Guild is featuring presentations on the theme of the next book.

The series volumes have been reviewed in The New Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review, along with the usual array of professional and scholarly journals. The reviews have been both positive and provocative, and, as a result, a major foundation has just approached the School to prepare a series of three books on other “future” topics, including additional funds to expand the post-doc program to support this series and to host an annual conference at the School. This has led to the iSchool Conference wishing to focus one its meetings on a common theme, with other sessions critiquing the previously published volumes.

Richard J. Cox

Exhibiting Collaboration

It’s the end of the summer 2015 term and Masters students in the Archives, Preservation and Records Management specialization are gathered in the University Art Gallery to celebrate the opening of an exhibition of their capstone projects. While some of these are the result of more traditional uses of archival collections to support an individual research question, some are collaborative projects organized with the cooperation of institutional collections in the region to showcase archival collections held in those institutions and provide awareness of them through innovative access to these materials. Others have created collections out of scattered digital materials created by individuals, whether associated with the University or not, which are consistent with the University Archives’ collecting goal of documenting Western Pennsylvania. Students, faculty and public representatives of the collections on display mingle in this gala public information event.

Recognizing the ephemerality of both the physical and virtual exhibitions, students have also proposed schemes for the preservation of this content, in a variety of print and electronic media through collaborations with the University Press and the Archives Service Center. Also recognizing the fragility of the original materials, students have worked within the grant-funded budget allocated to the capstone projects to identify and contract for appropriate conservation measures ranging from item-level restoration to rehousing in order to retain selected items in their original formats.

In these collaborative projects, students have worked through the realities of long-term access and preservation, determining selection criteria, negotiating with rightsholders about the terms of access, and writing specifications for the information systems to manage this content. Internal collaborations, particularly with students and instructors in the Information System Management specialization, have helped to identify possible infrastructures and specific applications to support these projects. Throughout, students take responsibility for actual collections, demonstrating their grasp of the underlying theories of information management and organization.

All involved can derive satisfaction from the design and implementation of the projects. Students now have specific projects to add to their portfolio. Additional archival collections have been identified and interpreted. New opportunities have been created for the public to connect with archival collections of potential interest to them.

Bernadette Callery