PREREQUISITES:
MLIS and Dual: Completion of MLIS Core
MAS: completion of MAS Core and permission of iSchool Graduate Advisor
GOALS:
- Explore and integrate relevant theories, models, and academic/professional research about information seeking and use in diverse environments and/or with specific groups of people.
- Promote learning and reflection, and an evidence-based orientation to understanding and evaluating user needs.
- Foster an understanding of the theoretical and applied nature of human information interaction in relation to your future endeavours as information professionals.
OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this course you will be able to:
- Identify, analyze, and assess the information needs and practices of individuals, communities and organizations through research literature, primary source materials, and interactions with a research participant [1.1]*
- Apply an understanding of human information interaction to how information resources, services and systems are designed, used and evaluated, both within and beyond memory institutions [1.1]*
- Synthesize the research and professional literature to identify and analyze significant theoretical and practical questions in the area of human information interaction [4.1]*
- Design and execute a small research project informed by relevant theory, methods, and prior research [4.1, 4.2]*
- Exemplify principles of ethical conduct in the design and conduct of a research project that involves a human participant [5.1]*
- Communicate your research project in an oral or poster presentation and journal article-style report [2.1]*
* Course objectives are stated in terms of student learning outcomes and reference the iSchool Statement on Graduate Competencies.
CONTENT:
- Human information interaction
- Constructs, models, theories, and approaches in human information interaction
- Information needs
- Strategies for interacting with information (e.g., browsing, searching, encountering)
- Information needs, behaviors and seeking of individuals and user groups
- Assessment and evaluation of information needs, seeking and use
- Human information interaction and the design of services, programs and systems
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