School of Information

The University of Texas at Austin

Spring 2003

In-class overhead slides are linked on the schedule page

To download a Word version of the complete syllabus, click here

Updated 01/16/2003

LIS 382.20, Understanding and Serving Users, is animated by our field's dedication to the success of the user. It serves as the gateway course to the third functional area of the Master’s curriculum at iSchool, and there are no prerequisites for the class other than LIS 180J, Introduction to Information Studies, which may be taken concurrently.

Students in LIS 382L.20 will study major elements of the information lifecycle and will identify and evaluate major strategies that LIS and other disciplines have used to understand how it is that people look for and use information, including how they evaluate and synthesize it. The course will focus on individuals, larger epistemic and social concerns, and important user communities. How it is that we learn and know as members of communities, in particular, situated circumstances, will be a prominent theme throughout the semester.

Students will actively engage the literatures of many disciplines and fields; these include LIS, communication, cognitive psychology, education, sociology, cultural studies, intellectual history, anthropology, philosophy, usability, and information utilization. Besides considering these approaches, we will look at three modes of understanding and serving users:

• Empirical studies of users of all kinds; these studies will include the use of human, paper-based, and digital information systems and will be drawn from a wide variety of sources.
• The practice of the information professions, especially the provision of reference services both in-person and digitally; this set of readings will prominently feature LIS-based research.
• Examining and generating theory related to understanding users and their use of information; this set of readings will be based on LIS as well as a wider set of disciplinary perspectives.

Plainly, these sets of literatures and practices are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one of the major goals of the course is an increased awareness of major similarities and differences among various disciplines with regard to information users’ behavior. Efforts to understand users’ information-related behavior have evolved from system-centric to user-centric perspectives, an important and essential step in the maturity of information-based disciplines. Such efforts, however, have tended to limit our understanding of users in important ways, e.g., regarding them as largely cognitive and atomistic beings. While we will examine this perspective closely, we will also use more recent social, community-, and practice-based approaches to knowledge and learning to give us a more holistic understanding of users.

Structurally, the course comprises four units:

• Unit 1: Modeling information and users
• Unit 2: Providing information services
• Unit 3: Investigating specific information services
• Unit 4: Ethics, equity, and presentations of students’ research.
  

While all of the topics we address this semester deserve more attention than we can give them, there are a number of ideas that are especially pertinent that we cannot explore in any depth: browsing, resistance to technology, genre studies, versioning, anomalous states of knowledge (ASK), problem-solving and bounded rationality, information overload, boundary objects, information and referral services, reading studies, marketing, and social informatics. Students are encouraged, however, to engage these and other topics as their interests and professional goals dictate.

EXPECTATIONS OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE

• Attend all class sessions; if a student misses a class, it is his or her responsibility to arrange with another student to obtain all notes, handouts, and assignment sheets. The assignments presume that students are familiar with all material discussed in class.
• Read all material prior to class; students are expected to use the course readings to inform their classroom participation and their writing assignments. Students must learn to integrate what they read with what they say and write. This last imperative is essential to the development of professional expertise.
• Educate themselves and their peers. Your successful completion of this program and your participation in the information professions depend upon your willingness to demonstrate initiative, creativity, and responsibility. Your participation in the professional and personal growth of your colleagues is essential to their success and your own. Such collegiality is at the heart of professional practice. Some assignments in this course are designed explicitly to encourage collaboration (the presentation and annotated bibliography on user communities).
• Spend at least 3-4 hours in preparation for each hour of classroom instruction, i.e., about 10-12 hours per week for the course
• Participate in all class discussions
• Hand in all assignments fully and on time -- late assignments will not be accepted except in the particular circumstances noted below
• Be responsible with collective property, especially books and other material on reserve
• Ask for any explanation and help from the instructor or the Teaching Assistant, either in class, during office hours, on the telephone, through email, or in any other appropriate way. Email is especially appropriate for information questions, but please recall that I do not do email at home and that I try to stay home two days a week. It may be several days after you send email before I even see it.

Academic or scholastic dishonesty, such as plagiarism, cheating, or academic fraud, will not be tolerated and will incur the most severe penalties, including failure for the course.

If there is any concern about behavior that may be academically dishonest, please consult the instructor. Students are also encouraged to refer to the UT General Information Bulletin, Appendix C, Sections 11-304 and 11-802 and the brochure Texas is the Best . . . HONESTLY! (1988) by the Cabinet of College Councils and the Office of the Dean of Students.

Main | Schedule | Assignments | Texts & Grading |
Standards for Written Work | References | Discussion Board