proposal for a school of information management and systems

8/19/2019 Proposal for a School of Information Management and Systems

1/16

PROPOSAL FOR A SCHOOL OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Information Planning Group

Institute Of Southren Punjab Multan

Introduction

The Institute Of Southren Punjab Multan has an opportunity to pioneer in the development of an emerging

professional field of critical importance. Information is now one of the world's most important and rapidly

changing resources. Rapidly growing capabilities in computing and telecommunications, the increasing

importance of information in the professions, in scholarship and research, and in daily life, the expanding

and multidimensional information industry, and the developing information infrastructure have created major

new challenges and opportunities.

The issue now is often less the availability of information than its overabundance, and access to quality

information for diverse users and uses. The challenge is to filter what is most useful out of the vast quantity

of information available to select, evaluate, describe, store, retrieve, manipulate, and present information in

all its forms, including text, still and moving images, sound, and numeric data. The goal is to provide, not

simply data, but information that enhances understanding.

!e propose a program that will advance, through teaching and research, the organi"ation, management and

use of information and information technology, and enhance our understanding of the impact of information

on individuals, institutions, and society. This mission has both a technical component, concerned with the

design and use of information systems and services, and a social sciences component, concerned with

understanding how people see#, obtain, evaluate, use, and categori"e information. The proposed program

will use the approaches of several social sciences and professional and technical disciplines to address a core

set of information$related issues.

The primary educational mission of the program will be to prepare professionals for corporations,

government agencies, and the academic world who can develop improved approaches to handle information,

to design and manage information functions, and to merge them with other aspects of the organi"ation.

%vidence strongly suggests the existence of a very large demand for such professionals in business,

government, and the academic world.

The research mission of the program will be to explore the design and operation of information systems and

services, the nature and properties of information, and information$related behavior at the individual, group,

and societal levels.

There currently exists no academic structure & at ehaly !ala or elsewhere & of the specific sort that we

are proposing. !hat is unique about this program is the focus on the use and management of information

through the merger of the technical and social sciences approaches( and the broad scope, addressing

applications that cut across disciplinary and organi"ational contexts. !e believe that )er#eley can lead in

this area and that other universities will follow.

It is estimated that private industry is now spending *+ million a year on investment in new information

technologies .


2/16

ne of the strengths of this proposal is that it is conservative, in recogni"ing that at this moment this new

field must be multidisciplinary, drawing in elective courses from other programs. -et it also concentrates

enough faculty resources on a core research program to drive the definition of this new field. This #ind of

economic power will inevitably generate a new field, and only a research Institute Of Southren Punjab

Multan stature has the resources to provide the context for its definition, that context being the strengths of

its various professional schools and disciplinary departments.

ultan is an ideal place to address this challenge, given our strength in such allied disciplines as computer

science, business administration, cognitive science, and public policy( the existence of a substantial

foundation from the current /chool of 0ibrary and Information /tudies( the proximity of leading firms in the

information industry( and ultan ability to attract an eclectic group of outstanding scholars.

Structure and Name

The organi"ational structure is that of a professional school. ther organi"ational structures were considered

but are felt to be less appropriate( they are discussed in a subsequent section. 1ossible names are /chool of

Information, /chool of Informatics, or /chool of Information anagement and /ystems.

Mission

The proposed school has as its focus the organi"ation, management and use of information and information

systems, operating at the interfaces between information technology, producers of information, and users of

information.

The /chool will graduate professionals who are highly sought by corporations and government operations

covering a wide variety of areas. 0ibraries are among the employers, but are not dominant. 2 list of potential

classes of employers is attached 3see 2ppendix I4.

The /chool's faculty and 1h.5. candidates will carry out forefront research that defines and leads the field

intellectually. 2 list of possible areas for research is attached 3see 2ppendix II4. The faculty will be drawnfrom diverse disciplinary bac#grounds.

The /chool will attract the involvement of, and joint research with, numerous other academic units on

campus. ther units will feel that collaboration with /chool faculty is important to their research, and will

also value the professional contributions of the /chool in improving their own information management and

systems.

Degrees

The /chool will offer a new professional masters program. The degree to be awarded by this program will be

substantially different from the current degree, reflecting the broader mission of the new /chool. Rather, it

will serve as a model for the development of accreditation criteria for the emerging discipline upon which the

/chool is focused.

The /chool will sponsor a strong 1h.5. program focused on the following objectives

• 5efining and leading the intellectual development of this emerging field.

• 1roviding support for the faculty in their creative endeavors.

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a1http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a2http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a2http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a1


3/16

• eeting the strong mar#et demand for such a degree, both in academic settings and in the private

and government sectors.

The program will encourage and facilitate dual and concurrent graduate degrees, and possibly also joint

36raduate 6roup4 degrees, in addition to graduate degrees entirely within the new program.

Curricuum

)oth the asters and 1h.5. programs will center on a core curriculum that combines the perspectives of

both information technology disciplines and the social sciences. 7omputer science and communication

technology will be prominent among the information technologies upon which the core is constructed(

applications$oriented social sciences, such as those dealing with human factors will play a leading role, but

not to the exclusion of the study of cultural, economic, and societal systems and contexts in which

information is created, distributed, organi"ed, and used. !hile the core draws from these related disciplines,

it will be intellectually distinct from them.

This curriculum will be taught primarily by faculty in the /chool and required of all students in the programs.

5ue to the interdisciplinary nature of the /chool, and the need for speciali"ation in a particular area,electives will constitute a significant portion of the overall programs. 7ourses in other departments are not

generally part of this core. 8owever, students in the programs will be strongly encouraged to ta#e such

courses, either as electives or, perhaps, to fulfill the requirements of various program speciali"ations.

oreover, students in the programs will be encouraged to ta#e courses in other departments primarily

targeted at students in those departments, with the goal of providing students in the new program with a

deep, multidisciplinary bac#ground.

7ourses will be structured and designed so that many will be attractive to students in other fields 3for

example, )usiness, 9ournalism, 7omputer /cience, and a wide range of disciplines in which information

management is a significant concern4. 7onsideration will be given to using faculty teams from the /chool

and these other units to teach some of these courses collaboratively.

6raduates of the new asters program will in general have broader and deeper technological competence

than those from the old program( in addition they should have a broader exposure to both the policy issues

and social science based analytic tools necessary for evaluating the effects of technological decisions. :inally,

the new program also places emphasis on the opportunity to develop complementary depth of expertise in

another scientific or scholarly discipline as well as in more general information management methods.

Facut!

The faculty of the /chool will conduct a substantial program of research that will be expected to set the tone

and direction of the field internationally.

7ollaboration and interaction with other academic units on campus will be encouraged through a variety of

means, including but not limited to joint appointments of faculty members with other units, joint teaching of

courses with other departments, and participation of /chool faculty members in research projects with

members of other units. 8owever, both the primary teaching responsibilities and the intellectual agenda for

the /chool will be carried out principally by faculty members of the /chool. 5ue to the significantly different

intellectual focus of the /chool , existing faculty do not provide the full range of expertise necessary for the

success of this enterprise. Recruitment of a dean and then other core faculty is required. /ome current

faculty may transfer to other units. :aculty in other units on campus may see# affiliation of various types

with the new /chool, including transfers or joint appointments.


4/16

2 viable program will require a total of at least *; ladder :T%s in the steady state, counting faculty coming

in from the previous /0I/.

The following are brief characteristics of some of the intellectual activities that might be pursued by

researchers in the areas described above. These particular descriptions are for areas that are li#ely to be

central to the /chool. 8owever, they by no means subsume all of the wor# that will be conducted under its

auspices, nor can our descriptions provide very precise portrayals of whole disciplines, each of whose

internal structure is itself complex and demanding of variegated speciali"ations.

*. Net"or#ed In$ormation S!stems% Researchers in this area will wor# on developing and applying

the technology for large scale networ#ed information systems. /uch wor# includes the design and

analysis of protocols for networ#ed information location and retrieval, performance analysis of such

architectures, protocols and algorithms, and the analysis of how different networ#ing structures will

impact the flow of information in organi"ations. ther research topics pertaining to networ#ed

systems are the development of methods of resource discovery and distributed search strategies

that will enable people to find, synthesi"e, deliver and present information from multimedia

#nowledge stores across global networ#s, the development and application of cryptographic

technology and protocols for authentication and privacy, and the study of content standards and

content encoding methods as they pertain to the delivery of information to clients in a

heterogeneous distributed computing environment.

+. &ser inter$aces'(uman $actors% The primary concern of researchers in this area is designing

information systems that are efficient and effective, easy to learn and to use, and powerful in their

ability to allow users to express their information needs.


5/16

In the steady state, about ?; 1h.5. and @; asters students will be in residence at any one time. The

program will be initiated at a more modest level, and ramp up to these goals is subject to the constraints

imposed by faculty recruitment and the quality of program enrollees and applicants.

/tudents will come from a wide variety of academic bac#grounds. /ome may enter the /chool's programs

immediately after obtaining an undergraduate degree. In addition, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the

degrees to be offered by the /chool, and the need for subject area expertise, it will not be unusual for

students to enter these programs after already obtaining a asters or 1h.5. in another field.

The /chool will offer undergraduate courses that will be of interest to a significant number of students, and

thereby enrich the multan undergraduate experience.

Funding Sources

1ossible funding sources and their nature are described in 2ppendix III. This list is included to underscore

the many avenues for support of research and curriculum development.

Aternati)es

2lternative structures to the /chool that have been considered and found wanting include the following

*. 7losure and o /ustained 2ctivity. ultan would have no program in the information field. In the

view of the Information 1lanning 6roup, this is unacceptable given the real and growing importance

of this discipline both in its own right and its close interactions and complementary nature to a wide

variety of existing activities and disciplines representing major strengths of the )er#eley academic

programs today.

+. /tatus Auo. The status quo has been found wanting by the recent 6raduate 7ouncil review, /enate

committee reviews, and the 2cademic 1lanning )oard.

>. 2 6raduate 6roup. :or the degree programs we outline to succeed, a number of factors are critical.

:irst, it is necessary to have a critical mass of researchers who see this mission as central to their

intellectual life. /econd, these researchers need to be located together, so that program activities

can crystalli"e around them, an esprit de corps can be created, and a coherent interdisciplinary

subject matter can be forged. Third, expertise is required in the major subdisciplines. :ourth,

training of professionals requires faculty interaction with wor#ing professionals and a locus for

courses taught by professionals as part$time instructors. :or these reasons and because success

requires an infusion of talent not currently available on campus, a graduate group does not appear

to be an effective avenue. The campus as a whole lac#s sufficient expertise in information retrieval

and access, networ#ed information systems, information policy, and human factors=user interfaces.

In addition, while some of the related expertise, for example, that in 7omputer /cience, can

contribute to these efforts, such units would not be li#ely to do so given their present enrollment

and budgetary situations. 6iven the lac# of a clearly identifiable core currently on campus, it is

difficult to envision how a successful whole could be constructed.

?. 5epartment. The staffing and support requirements for a department of Information B-C would be

essentially the same as for a /chool. 6iven the clearly professional nature of this endeavor, /chool

status seems preferable.

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a3http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a3http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/history/1993proposal#a3


6/16


7/16


8/16

D. 8ospitals and other medical organi"ations

II. I:R2TI :E7TI/ I R62IC2TI/ T82T 2R% T 1RI2RI0- I:R2TI

R62IC2TI/

2. 5esign and management of information systems, paper and computer$based, for organi"ations of all

#inds and si"es including ban#s, manufacturing, insurance.

*. Internal information

+. %xternal information

). 2pplication of information technology & evaluation, selection, applications design.

7. Research and information$gathering, synthesis, and evaluation & libraries, competitive intelligence units.

5. Records anagement.

III. 6


9/16

5esigning information systems

• designing, evaluating, or choosing information content, database structures, indexing and

#nowledge representation, interfaces, networ#ing, technology

anaging information systems

• maintaining the integrity, quality, currency of the data

• updating, modifying, improving the system

• operating the system

Information resources management

• managing organi"ational information resources to support organi"ational missions and for

competitive advantage

Training

anaging information technology

• evaluating, purchasing, maintaining software and hardware $ networ#ing

Information agencies

• acting as information consultants or guides for clients advising, training, guiding on information,

information sources, information use

• acting as an agent on behalf of the client gathering, evaluating, analy"ing, synthesi"ing,

summari"ing information for a clients

7ompetitive intelligence

7ustomer relations for information systems=technology

• acting as intermediaries between clients and information system designers

• translating client needs into functional specifications

• sales

5esigning and producing information services and products

• publications, databases, information systems

• multimedia products


10/16

• entertainment

rgani"ational information policy analysts

• designing corporate, organi"ational information policies, access, quality control

• maintaining proprietary information

6overnment information policy analysts

• formulating government policies at all levels regarding such issues as the information infrastructure,

access to and use of government information, intellectual property, privacy( public=private roles in

information creation, dissemination and use, government acquisition of information and information

technology

Information technology for education

• design and implementation

2rchives and records management

APPENDI1 II 2 RESEARCH OPPORT&NITIES

The following list is intended to give some sense of the enormously broad range of important research

opportunities rather than to serve as a prescription of those on which the program should focus. It is drawn

from our interviews with people active in the field.

I3 Organi0ation5 Storage5 and Retrie)a o$ In$ormation

2. rgani"ation and Retrieval of Information.

*. %xtraction of information from graphics, audio, visual, video materials.

+. Retrieval algorithms, e.g., weighted indexing, relevance$feedbac# systems, etc.

>. nowledge representation.

?. Indexing and 7lassification systems.

). /torage and 1reservation of Information.

*. 7hoice of information to be preserved.

+. 5igiti"ation of information currently stored in other formats, e.g., print, photographs, film, analog,

video $ standards, methods, interoperability.

7. 1resentation of Information.


11/16


12/16

*. 7osts, pricing, mar#ets, property rights.

+. Information as a commodity.

>. The information industry.

?. 5eveloping services, products, and organi"ations 3e.g., publishing, newer products and newer

services4.

5. Information and 1ublic 1olicy.

*. 1rivate=public sector roles in design, management, financing control, and policy for information

infrastructure.

+. 1rivacy, data security, encryption, government access=control.

>. 2ccess to government information.

?. Intellectual property.

D. International policy for transborder data flows 3e.g., security, intellectual property, etc.4.

III3 Studies o$ In$ormation

2. ature and properties of information resources.

). Information and meaning, content, translation. Identity of information in different forms, media, guises,

e.g., synonomy, antonymy.

7. Information and communication informing, educating.

5. 7onditions of reception information and comprehension, understanding, belief, acceptability.

%. Information and conceptual framewor#s.

:. Auality of information information, misinformation, disinformation, accuracy, authority, truth, credibility,

timeliness, datedness. 8ow to evaluate credibility of information.

6. Relevance and usability of information.

I63 Conte7t8de*endent In$ormation Needs5 Ser)ices5 Products 9E7am*es:3

2. Information management the information function in organi"ations.

*. Roles of information=#nowledge managers in the networ#ed environment.

+. 8ow to assess impact of new information technology and decide when and how to implement it,

e.g., everything from storage technology to new methods of organi"ation.


13/16

>. 7omplex business needs integration of different #inds of information for both strategic and day$to$

day decisions.

). edical Information, )iomedicine.

*. 5iagnostic systems.

+. 1ublic and personal health information systems.

>. edical records.

?. edical image processing=telemedicine.

D. 8ealth care claim processing.

7. useum Informatics.

• rgani"ation, description, retrieval, dissemination, networ#ing, user interface, etc., for descriptionsof museum objects.

5. 0arge /cientific %nterprises.

%. %nvironmental and geographic information systems.

• /ystems development for local governments.

:. 0egal Informatics.

APPENDI1 III 2 POSSI4LE F&NDING SO&RCES

I3 FEDERAL

The federal government has shown interest in funding research and development in information technology

and information as a means of

*. Improving 1a# competitiveness and productivity through a strong information infrastructure

+. improving the efficiency of government operations, and

>. supporting 1a# industry by funding dual$use, non$mission$based technology 3as opposed to

traditional defense funding, for example4.

These are long$term goals that are li#ely to result in continual new and renewed funding initiatives.

7urrent federal RH5 funding initiatives have been identified in the following areas

2. 5evelopment of networ#ed access to electronic information.


14/16

*. 8igh 1erformance 7omputing and 7ommunications 1rogram 381774 and ational Research and

%ducation etwor# 3R%4.

The goal is to design a research agenda to extend leadership in high performance computing and

networ#ing technologies. ne program component is the ational Research and %ducation etwor#,

which includes access to electronic information Federal agencies and departments shall work with

private network service providers, state and local agencies, libraries, educational institutions, and

others, as appropriate, in order to ensure that researchers, educators, and students, have access,

as appropriate, to the etwork! "he etwork is to provide users with appropriate access to high

performance computing s#stems, electronic information resources, other research facilities, and

libraries! "he etwork shall provide access, to the e$tent practicable, to electronic information

resources maintained b# libraries, research facilities, publishers, and affiliated organi%ations!

+. %lectronic 0ibraries Initiative.

The goal is to support research and development on economically feasible capability to digiti"e

massive corpora of information from heterogeneous and distributed sources( then store, search, and

retrieve information from them in a user friendly way. Ep to F awards of up to *,+;;,;;; per year

for up to ? years.

). Improved access to information collected by federal agencies and=or with federal funding.

7. 5evelopment of the ational Information Infrastructure 3II4

The government role is defined in the II 2genda for 2ction as including committing important government

research programs and grants to help the private sector develop and demonstrate the technologies needed(

to promote seamless, interactive, user$driven operation( to ensure information security and networ#

reliability( to protect intellectual property rights( and to provide access to government information. 2n

2pplications 7ommittee has been created, which coordinates 2dministration efforts to develop, demonstrate,

and promote applications of information technology in manufacturing, education, health care, governmentservices, libraries, and other areas. It is li#ely that research opportunities will emerge in such areas as

technology, standards, government policy regarding information and the II, and the organi"ation of and

access to information of various #inds, including government information.

II3 PRI6ATE SECTOR

2. Industry.

*. The major development of the II will be the responsibility of the private sector, according to the

II 2genda for 2ction. This will require extensive RH5 in such areas as networ#ing, digiti"ation of

information, user needs and preferences, interface design, standards for interconnectivity and

interoperability.

+. Independent of the 2dministration's II, the information industry has been moving toward

electronic delivery of information. /uch recent events as the )ell 2tlantic=T7I merger indicate trends

in the telecommunications industry. 2gain, extensive RH5 will be needed, some of which should

translate to contracts and grants for research suitable to the ultan campus resources and mission.

). :oundations


15/16

2 number of foundations have expressed interest in such areas as social impacts of new information

technology and the uses of information technology to improve education and citi"en participation in

democratic processes. The following are some examples


16/16

proposal for a school of information management and systems

Documents