Volume 3 Number 2
2000
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31-39

Information Systems Executives: The Changing Role of New IS/IT Leaders

Petter Gottschalk 
Norwegian School of Management

Leadership in information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) has changed in fundamental ways over the past decade. While interest in the topic has increased in recent years, little empirical research on IS/IT leadership has been conducted. This study compares leadership roles, individual characteristics and position characteristics of newly appointed IS/IT executives (those who have been in their position for two years or less) with established IS/IT executives using a survey conducted in Norway. Survey results indicate that new leaders spend more time in the informational role and in the change-leader role than established leaders. New leaders have worked a shorter time in the organization and a shorter time in IS/IT than established leaders. New leaders have less responsibility for computer operations, communication networks and technical infrastructure than established leaders.

Teaching Information Management to Honors Degree Students: The Information Challenges Approach

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of what the authors believe to be a useful approach to teaching Information Management concepts and skills at honors (Hons) degree level. With Information Management being a somewhat diverse area, incorporating a number of areas and skills, one of the potential problems is considering how the subject can be taught to honors degree students in a flexible and meaningful way, while keeping abreast of new developments and thinking from academia and industry. The authors helped develop and deliver one possible approach to teaching Information Management at honors degree level that will be discussed in this paper, namely Information Challenges.

Informing Science Special Issue on Information Science Research

Amanda Spink
The Pennsylvania State University

The papers in this Special Issue of Informing Science highlight research areas in the interdisciplinary field of Information Science. Key research problems for Information Science include: (1) how to model and effectively support human information behaviors, including information seeking and use behaviors, and interaction with information retrieval (IR) technologies, (2) how information should be organized intellectually in IR technologies for more effective human information retrieval, and (3) the organizational, social and policy implications for the information society of human information behaviors. Information Scientists are concerned with how people's information problems can be resolved. In this way, information science is an important part of the "informing sciences". Information Science has largely borrowed theories and approaches from other disciplines - but is now attracting attention from other disciplines as a generator of theory and models that delineate key areas of human information-related endeavors. As humans struggle to seek and use information within the plethora of information sources increasingly available via the Web, Information Science research is taking center stage. Each paper in this special issue is written by an expert in their area of Information Science research.

Human Information Behavior

T.D. Wilson
University of Sheffield

This paper provides a history and overview of the field of human information behavior, including recent advances in the field and multidisciplinary perspectives.

Interactive Information Retrieval:
Context and Basic Notions

David Robins
Louisiana State University

This paper provides an introduction to interactive information retrieval--the study of human interaction with information retrieval systems. Interactive information retrieval may be contrasted with the "system-centered" view of information retrieval in which changes to information retrieval system variables are manipulated in isolation from users in laboratory situations. The paper elucidates current models of interactive information retrieval, namely, the episodic model, the stratified model, the interactive feedback and search process model, and the global model of polyrepresentation. Future directions for research in the field are discussed.

Image Information Retrieval: An Overview of Current Research

Abby A. Goodrum
Drexel University

This paper provides an overview of current research in image information retrieval and provides an outline of areas for future research. The approach is broad and interdisciplinary and focuses on three aspects of image research (IR): text-based retrieval, content-based retrieval, and user interactions with image information retrieval systems. The review concludes with a call for image retrieval evaluation studies similar to TREC.

Relevance: An Interdisciplinary and Information Science Perspective

Howard Greisdorf
University of North Texas

Although relevance has represented a key concept in the field of information science for evaluating information retrieval effectiveness, the broader context established by interdisciplinary frameworks could provide greater depth and breadth to on-going research in the field. This work provides an overview of the nature of relevance in the field of information science with a cursory view of how cross-disciplinary approaches to relevance could represent avenues for further investigation into the evaluative characteristics of relevance as a means for enhanced understanding of human information behavior.

73-76

Toward a Theoretical Framework
for Information Science

Amanda Spink
The Pennsylvania State University

Information Science is beginning to develop a theoretical framework for the modeling of users’ interactions with information retrieval (IR) technologies within the more holistic context of human information behavior (Spink, 1998b). This paper addresses the following questions: (1) What is the nature of Information Science? and (2) What theoretical framework and model is most appropriate for Information Science? This paper proposes a theoretical framework for Information Science based on an explication of the processes of human information coordinating behavior and information feedback that facilitate the relationship between human information behavior and human interaction with information retrieval (IR) technologies (Web, digital libraries, etc.).

Applications Of Informetrics To Information Retrieval Research

Dietmar Wolfram
University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee

A non-technical overview of two primary areas of study within the discipline of information science, information retrieval (IR) and informetrics, is presented. Informetric properties of IR systems as the basis for understanding IR system structure and generalizing human information seeking in electronic environments are discussed. Applications of informetric study of IR systems for more efficient and effective design and evaluation of IR systems are also presented.

Representation and Organization of Information in the Web Space: From MARC to XML

Jian Qin
Syracuse University

Representing and organizing information in libraries has a long tradition of using rules and standards. As the very first standard encoding format for bibliographic data in libraries, MAchine Readable Cataloging (MARC) format is being joined by a large number of new formats since the late 1980s. The new formats, mostly SGML/HTML based, are actively taking a role in representing and organizing networked information resources. This article briefly describes the historical connection between MARC and the newer formats for representing information and the current development in XML applications that will benefit information/knowledge management in the new environment.

Social Informatics in the Information Sciences: Current Activities and Emerging Directions

Social informatics refers to the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that takes into account their interactions with institutional and cultural contexts. Social informatics research may be done at group, departmental, organizational, national and/or societal levels of analysis, focused on the relationships among information, information systems, the people who use them and the context of use. In this paper we outline some of the central principles of a social informatics perspective. In doing this we provide an overview of the intellectual geography of social informatics relative to work in the information sciences and discuss the contributions that this perspective and literature provide.