MIT 144F Course Outline

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(Week 1) Sep. 9 - Introduction to Course.

Informal discussion on students' concerns and understandings about information and information retrieval.

Lab #1

No labs this week.

(Week 2) Sep. 16 - Information and the Information Age.

Definitions of information.
Information in society.
Introduction to information-seeking behaviour.
Analysing information needs.
General theories of information seeking.

Lab #2

(Marked): Use of the critical incident technique to find out about socio-personal information seeking. Using Caucus and email.

Required Readings:

Buckland, Michael. (1991). Knowledge and information. In Information and Information Systems (pp. 39-54). New York: Greenwood.

Forester, Tom. (1992). Megatrends or megamistakes? What ever happened to the information society? The Information Society 8, 133-46.

(Week 3) Sep. 23 - The Information Search Process as a Component of Research.

Developing a mental map of your search options
Planning a personal information-seeking strategy for your research.
Introductory sources and reading broadly.
Narrowing the topic and use of specific sources.
Understanding your own ISP.
Communicating information effectively.
Identifying your audience.
Developing goals and objectives for your project.
Identifying your assumptions.

Lab #3

(Pass/Fail): Citation lab

Required Readings:

Fink, Deborah. (1989). Critical thinking in the information society. In Process and Politics in Library Research (pp. 17-30). Chicago: ALA.

Leckie,Gloria. (1996) Desperately seeking citations: Uncovering faculty assumptions about the undergraduate research process. Journal of Academic Librarianship (May), 201-208.

For the Lab:

Arnzen, Micheal A. (1996, Sept.). Cyber citations: documenting Internet sources presents some thorny problems. Internet World 7 , pp. 72-74.

Fadell, Jeff. (1996). Reading citations: is this a journal article or a book or what? In Marilyn P. Whitmore, (ed.), Empowering Students (pp. 191-192). Lancaster, Penn.: Library Instruction Publications.

(Week 4) Sep. 30 - The Information Universe.

Models of the information universe.
Unpacking the organization of information.
Sources of information and their usefulness.
Print vs. electronic information.
Developing a personal schema of the information universe.
Critical evaluation of information and information sources- (format, scope, authority, accuracy etc.)

Lab #4

(Pass/Fail): Examining and evaluating general reference sources. Introduction to HTML Assistant to construct a Web page.

Required Readings:

Wurman, Richard Saul. (1989).The non-information explosion. In Information Anxiety (pp. 31-50). New York: Doubleday. Rivers, William L. and Harrington, Susan. (1988).

Evaluating facts. In Finding Facts: Research Writing Across the Curriculum (2nd ed., pp. 19-32). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

(Week 5) Oct. 7 - Introduction to Database Searching.

Issues in access to information.
Basics of database searching.
Known item searching.
Controlled vocabulary vs. natural language or keyword searching
Boolean operators, limiters etc.
Problems in the retrieval of electronic information.

Lab #5

(Pass/Fail): Basic electronic searching exercise.

Required Readings:

Cleveland, Donald and Cleveland, Ann. (1990). Vocabulary control. In Introduction to Indexing and Abstracting (2nd ed., pp. 77-99). Englewood, Co.: Libraries

Meloche, Joseph. (1994). Basic searching strategies. In Introductory CD ROM Searching (pp. 13-27). New York: Haworth.

(Week 6) Oct. 14- Introduction to the Internet.

History, components and organization.
Organization of information on the Net.
Basics of Net searching
Problems in Net searching.

Lab #6

(Marked): Searching and evaluating government information sites on the Internet.

Required Readings:

Leiner, Barry M. et al. (1997). The past and future history of the Internet. Communications of the ACM 40 (2), 102-108.

Alexander, Jan and Tate, Marsha. (1996). Checklist for an informational Web page. Chester, Pa.: Wolfgram Memorial Library, Widener University Also available: http://www.science.widener.edu/~withers/inform.htm
Also examine: http://www.science.widener.edu/~withers/webeval.htm

Grassian, Esther. (1996). Thinking critically about World Wide Web resources. Los Angeles: UCLA College Library. Also available: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/instruct/critical.htm

(Week 7) Oct. 21 - Searching on the Net.

Search engines, advantages/disadvantages.
Kinds of sites.
Navigating and wayfinding.
The Net as a component of your information-seeking strategy.

Required Readings:

Lynch, Clifford. (1997, March). Searching the Internet. Scientific American, pp. 53-56.

Venditto, Gus. (1996, May). Search engine showdown. Internet World 7, pp. 72-86.

Lab #7

(Marked): Search engine evaluation.

(Week 8) Oct. 28 - Libraries, Library Catalogues and Networks.

The academic library as a reflection of scholarly research.
Relationship of library networks to campus information systems and to the Internet.
The Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC)

Catalogue interfaces.
Content and internal structure of catalogue databases.
Retrieval features, types of search options.
Developing a search strategy for the catalogue.
The role of browsing and legitimate shortcuts as part of information seeking.
End-user failure in OPAC searches - research findings.

Lab #8

(Marked): Developing a successful search strategy using the library catalogue.

Required Readings:

Wallace, Patricia. (1993). How do patrons search the online catalog when no-one's looking? RQ 33, 239-52.

Wolf, Carolyn and Wolf, Richard. (1993). Online public access catalogs, and Subject headings. Basic Library Skills (3rd ed., ch.3-4). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

(Week 9) Nov. 4 - Access to Periodicals.

Indexing as a commercial activity.
Types of indexing and abstracting tools.
Periodicals in the academic library.
Developing citation searching strategies.
Critically evaluating citations retrieved.
End-user problems with CD-ROM searching - research findings.

Lab #9

(Marked): Developing a successful search strategy using CD-ROM indexes and thesauri.

Required Readings:

Catlett, B. Diane, Collins, Donald E., & Collins, Bobbie L. (1987). Periodicals in libraries. In Libraries and research: A practial approach (pp. 59-73). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall-Hunt.

Hawkins, Donald T. and Waters, Robert. (1982). Online bibliographic search strategy development. Online 6 (3), 12-19.

(WEEK 10) Nov. 11 - - IN-CLASS TEST - -

Lab #10

(Pass/Fail): Retrieving and evaluating articles from popular magazines.

(Week11) Nov. 18 - The Production and Communication of Information. (part 1)

Models of information production.
Information as part of a research process. Meanings of 'research'.
Scholars as producers of information.
Approaches to research across the disciplines.
Communication of research results.
Models of the scholarly communication cycle.
Possible Guests - Two scholars, from different disciplines, talk about their research processes.

Lab #11

(Pass/Fail): Examining electronic journals on the Net.

Required Readings:

Hult, Christine. 1995. Research in the disciplines. In Researching and Writing Across the Curriculum (pp. 1-25). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Wellborn, Victoria. (1991). The cold fusion story: a case study illustrating the communication and information seeking behaviour of scientists. Science & Technology Libraries 11 (3), 51-57.

(Week 12) Nov. 25- The Production and Communication of Information. (part 2)

Journalists as producers of information.
The work of journalists.
The role of research in the work of journalists.
Sources of information used by journalists, criteria for judging information.
Products of the journalists' research process.
Comparison to products of scholars.
Possible Guests: Journalists talk about their work.

Lab #12

(Pass/Fail): Retrieving and evaluating material from electronic newspapers.

Required Readings:

Bjorner, Susanne. (1996). Where in the world is the New York Times? Database 19 (June/July), 28-40. Also available: http://www/onlineinc.com

Cumming, Carman and McKercher, Catherine. (1994). Fundamentals of reporting. In The Canadian Reporter (pp. 9-28). Toronto: Harcourt, Brace.

(Week 13) Dec. 2 - Review & Case Study - Retrieving and evaluating information on a specific topic.

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Page creator: J. Stephen Downie
Page created: 5 September 1997
Page updated: 6 September 1997