| Extended Course Description: | Catalog Course Description
Introduction to the users of information systems and the information resources that can be accessed through these systems. Users are considered in terms of their information needs, communication and information seeking behavior, and information processing capabilities. Print and electronic information resources are considered in terms of both their content and structure.
Pre-requisites and Co-requisites
No specific prerequisite
Curriculum Role
This course is required for students in the BSIS and BSIT programs. Typically, this course is taken in freshman year or fairly early in the program. The course aims to sensitize students to the cognitive and behavioral aspects of users and how users seek and use information resources. Understanding users and information resources is an important foundation for other courses in system design.
Course Rationale
In order to design systems that people will want to use, and be able to use successfully, an understanding of the users’ mental model is needed. This entails understanding how people acquire knowledge, how they communicate, their perceptions of information systems, and their information seeking behaviors. In order to design useful information systems, an understanding of the range of relevant information resources is needed, as well as how those resources are structured and organized for effective access.
Course Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:
• Recognize and describe the general processes of knowledge acquisition, integration, and retention
• Recognize the role that human language and communication plays in the development of users’ mental models and in the design of information systems and information resources
• Express differences in users’ information needs and in their information seeking behavior
• Explain why requirements analysis is an important component of resource selection and system design.
• Demonstrate the principles for evaluating information resources and the key choices that affect usefulness of resources from the user’s point of view
• Describe how classification and indexing systems are designed to provide access to information resources
• Recall the basic principles of the design of controlled and uncontrolled vocabularies for information retrieval
• Search print and electronic resource collections and compile a carefully selected and annotated set of exemplary resources on a particular topic
Course Content
Principal topics and the approximate number of weeks devoted to each are:
• Introduction to the generic information system (.5)
• Knowledge, information, communication and the development of users’ mental models (3)
• Information needs and information seeking behavior (2.5)
• Types and structures of information resources (3)
• Subject access and knowledge representation (1)
Presentation
Note: Presentation method may vary somewhat from section to section.
Lecture, group exercises, and class discussion.
Assessment
Note: Assessment method may vary somewhat from section to section.
Assessment is by exams, homework assignments, a term project, and class participation
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