The University of Texas at Austin

School of Information

INF 382C Understanding and Serving Users

Fall 2005

Unique # 25795

Instructor: Hsin-liang (Oliver) Chen

Phone: 512-232-9219

Office: SZB Room 562B

Email: chen@ischool.utexas.edu

Office hours: 10:30-11:30 AM, Wed and Thur
or by appointment

URL: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~chen

 

Course time and location: 6:00-9:00 PM, Wednesday (SZB 468)

Description:The goal of this class is to understand the relationship among information, institutions, and users. The instructor will assist students to apply different approaches and research methods to analyze how users seek for, use and evaluate information within different institutions. Several topics will be covered in this class: the nature of information, human information processing, organizational behaviors, information services, research design, and data collection and analysis.

Objectives:

  1. To develop critical awareness and insights into users' behaviors
  2. To help shape improved information systems
  3. To pursue more advanced studies in evaluation and user analysis

Competencies:

  1. Understand and apply theoretical concepts to user studies.
  2. Use research methods and tools to conduce user studies.
  3. Develop and manage user-centered information services

Grading:

Presentation I (15%; 5%-oral and 10%-written)

Presentation II (15%; 5%-oral and 10%-written)

Presentation III (15%; 5%-oral and 10%-written)

Final presentation (25%; 5%-oral and 20%-written)

Class discussion (10%)

Course attendance (10%)

Group and self-evaluation (10%)

A: 100-95% A-: 94-90% B+: 89-85% B: 84-82% B-: 81-80%C+: 79-75% C: 74-72% C-: 71-70% D+: 69-65%

Listserv:

Send a message to: listproc@lists.cc.utexas.edu

In the body text:

subscribe INF382C FIRSTNAME LASTNAME

Reading Materials:

Textbook: Bishop, A. P., Van House, N. A., & Buttenfield, B. P. (Eds.). (2003). Digital library use: Social practice in design and evaluation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Course Package: Available at UT Duplicating Business School Branch (GSB 3.136, phone: 512-471-8281)

Week 1 (08/31)

Henczel, S. (2001). The information audit: A practical guide. Munich: Saur.

--Ch. 10 Case studies

Week 2 (09/07): Users I: Cognition and Learning

Farnharm-Diggory, S. (1992). Cognitive processes in education. (2nd ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

--Ch. 3 The structure of cognition

--Ch. 4 Learning processes

Textbook

--Ch. 1

--Ch. 4

Week 3 (09/14): Users II: Contexts and Environments

Dillon, A., & Morris, M. (1996). User acceptance of information technology: theories and models. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology. Medford NJ: Information Today; 3-32.

Taylor, R. S. (1991). Information use environments. Progress in communication, 10, 217-255.

Textbook

--Ch. 6

--Ch. 7

--Ch. 8

Week 4 (09/21): Users III: Organizational Changes

Textbook

--Ch. 9

--Ch. 10

--Ch. 11

--Ch. 12

Week 6 (10/05): What is Information I

School of Information Science, University of Pittsburgh. Knowledge Lost in Information: Report of the NSF Workshop on Research Directions for Digital Libraries. Published by the School of Information Sciences, available at: http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~dlwkshop/report.pdf

Textbook:

--Ch. 2

--Ch. 3

Week 7 (10/12): What is Information II

Pettersson, R. (2002). Information design: an introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

--Ch. 1 Message Design

--Ch. 5 Cognition

Week 9 (10/26): Services I

Henczel, S. (2001). The information audit: A practical guide. Munich: Saur.

--Ch. 1 The changing role of the corporate information unit

--Ch. 2 Planning

Textbook:

--Ch. 5

Week 10 (11/02): Services II

Henczel, S. (2001). The information audit: A practical guide. Munich: K. G. Saur.

--Ch. 3 Data collection

--Ch. 4 Data analysis

--Ch. 5. Data evaluation

--Ch. 9 Bringing it all together

Week 12 (11/06): Research Methods

Vicente, K. J. (1999). Cognitive work analysis: Toward safe, productive, and healthy computer-based work. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

--Ch. 3 Normative approaches to work analysis: "The one best way?"

--Ch. 4 Descriptive approaches to work analysis: "What workers really do?"

--Ch. 5 Toward a formative approach to work analysis: "Workers finish the design"

Course policies:

  1. The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY.
  2. Students must use the APA writing style to present their written assignments, must clearly identify all citations, and must use their own words to present any concepts and ideas from other publications.
  3. All assignments must be written in a gender-inclusive language.
  4. All assignments must be typed in a 12 point font, double spaced and single sided.
  5. Submit all your assignments on time. Late submissions will not be accepted unless an emergency is involved. In the event of an emergency, the student must contact the instructor as soon as possible.
  6. The instructor will provide any assistance upon the student's inquiry. However, the student is responsible for his/her own effort to complete the assignments.
  7. Students are required to attend class and to be on time. Any absence or lateness will affect the class participation grade.
  8. The instructor reserves the right to issue a course grade of F if any assignment is not completed.
  9. The instructor welcomes feedback from the class. 

Course assignments:

There are four assignments in this class. The four assignments consist of the oral and written presentations. The final assignment is a research proposal in the format required by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Texas at Austin. The instructor will provide an example in the beginning of the class. The students should also visit the Office of Research Support and Compliance's Web site to obtain detailed information (http://www.utexas.edu/research/rsc/humanresearch/).

The students finish the different components of the research proposal in the first three assignments and integrate them into the final assignment, the research proposal.

Due to the size of the class, several students will work together to finish the assignments. First, they have to choose one information provider/organization as their research target. Second, they must examine the information provided by the provider/organization, investigate the organization's users and envrionment(s), select research parameters and appropriate research methods, and evaluate the services provided by the organization.

1. Presentation 1 (Users and environments) due 09/28

The following questions must be answered in this assignment:

2. Presentation 2 (Information) due 10/19

In this assignment, the students must answer the following questions:

3. Presentation 3 (Services) 11/09

This assignment must consist answers of the following questions:

4. Final presentation (Proposal) 12/07

The students will integrate the first four assignments into this final assignment, a research proposal in the proposal in the format required by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Course Schedule (Subject to revision)

Week

Topic and Reading Assignment

Assignment

1

(08/31)
  • Course introduction and policies
  • Writing style and format for assignments and presentations
 

2

(09/07)
  • Users I: Cognition and Learning

 

3

(09/14)
  • Users II: Contexts and Environments
  

4

(09/21)
  • Users III: Organizational Changes
  

5

(09/28)
  • Presentation I: Users

 

Oral and written presentation I due

6

(10/05)
  • What is information I

 

7

(10/12)
  • What is Information II

 

 

8

(10/19)
  • Presentation II: Information

Oral and written presentation II due

9

(10/26)
  • Services I

 

10

(11/02)
  • Services II

 

11

(11/09)
  • Presentation III: Services
Oral and written presentation III due

12

(11/16)
  • Research Methods
 Discussion of reseach instruments

13

(11/23)

Thanksgiving

 

14

(11/30)
  • Final Presentation
  

15

(12/07)
  • Final Presentation
 Final presentation (oral and written) due