Talk:Information science

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Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)


Removed the following, which appeared a week ago. I don't believe its a significant event in the history of information science or informatics. If reincluded, it belongs in a more specific article.

"Although courses in Informatics are now available in universities such as in the Informatics department of Buffalo University, the first known educational course was established as long ago as 1983 in an Elementary School in Australia. The teacher there, Mr. Kevin Nicholas, had tremendous future-vision and taught the whole school information handling, even surfing an existing web (London Times Database) before the World Wide Web existed. Kids were exposed to a wide range of activies from information handling, publishing and storage to problem confidence. People visited the school's Informatics Centre from all over Australia and New Zealand, but people are only now catching up with the need to educate children in Informatics."

Jihg 02:35, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Informatics is synonymous with Information Science?

I do not agree with the equivalence of Informatics and Information Science in general. They might be used syonymously in some contexts, but in my experience they are considered different but related fields. I'm not going to make any edits to the page until I can back up my statements here with some sources to cite, but I wanted to bring this up. I am an "informatics scientist" in a global pharmaceutical company, and the group that utilizes the "information science" skill set is separate with distinct tools, methodologies, and responsibilities. Also, the Journal of Information Science does not purport to cover the realm of "informatics".

I understand how others might disagree with the distinction I make here, but it is a matter of evolving terminologies. For instance, about every 5 years, the term "bioinformatics" takes on a slightly different shaded meaning. What I do for a living is better characterized as "biological informatics" than either the general "informatics" or "bioinformatics", in the same sense that "medical informatics" is a disciplinary narrowing if the general "informatics" area. Following from this, I doubt that "medical informatics" could be considered synonymous with a "medical information science" field (which I've not heard of to date). Even more drastic is that, according to a colleague in the UK, former IT departments are re-branding themselves as Informatics departments .. though I have no idea how prevalent this is.

Perhaps we can discuss this here at some length, but I really do need to get some time-appropriate information cited here to support my statements here. The reason why I bring up the peer-reviewed journal example, by the way, is that the scope of a journal tends to shift to the generally accepted meaning of the title over time, or the title changes to reflect changed terminology for a scope that the editors wish to retain. Journals evolve at different rates, of course.

Courtland

I agree, for British usage at least. There are three meanings:
  1. The old usage: a generalisation of "library science", used to be synonymous with information science (e.g. medical informatics).
  2. The new usage: the study of natural and artificial computational systems, a union of computer science, AI and cognitive science. This is the sense used by bioinformatics, or the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh (see link on page).
  3. The international usage: computer science.
The article kind of covers this, but should to be rewritten to make it more explicit. Personally, I think (2) is now the dominant meaning, but some information scientists may disagree. Jihg 08:53, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)


It is the first of your meanings that is prevalent in the United States it seems, but broadened to include all manner of indexing and meta-data organization related to the organization and collection of documents, regardless of the topic those documents deal with or the medium they utilize. In the broader sense, it seems that the scope of Knowledge Management (an even fuzzier, more disputed term) sometimes includes information science in the sense I've noted here.
Courtland 2005-01-28 USA 22:00 EST

Perhaps we should go so far as to 'demerge' this article and informatics (currently just a redirect here)? At any rate it needs to be clarified to reflect the two senses considerably. Alai 07:07, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Some of this stuff is covered in 'The origins of infomration science', A.J. Meadows (ed.),1987 It seems that 'Informatics' (equiv. Information Science) was studied in the Soviet Union. In Europe, Informatics meant the study of information transfer (only a part of information science). The term 'Informatics' is also used by people, referring to information science, who (perhaps rightly) do not think that it warrants being called a science.

Anyway, I think this page is due for a major overhaul--surely we have more to say about information science than this!?

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  • I suggest deleting Informatics (currently a redirect here), moving this article there, and redirecting Information science to Library and information science. Thoughts? --Alan Au 15:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, it's been just over a month with no opposition. Unless I hear otherwise, I'm going to go ahead and get this started then. --Alan Au 20:34, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
      • The two don't seem, to me, particularly synonymous. Could you explain further? --User:Emrysk 16 April 2006
        • see below (Categorization of Information Science) --Alan Au 18:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

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  • For what it is worth, here is a small sampling of how informatics is found used when you do a Google search:
    • Univ Strathclyde has a dept of computer and information sciences with a graduate school of informatics
    • The journal INFORMATION SCIENCES: Informatics and Computer Science Intelligent Systems Applications published by Elsevier has as its intended audience "Workers pursuing basic investigations in the areas of information science focusing on informatics and computer science, intelligent systems, and applications."
    • The Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology has published these articles with "informatics" in their title:
      • Community Informatics: Integrating Action, Research and Learning
      • Social Informatics
      • Social Informatics in Practice: A Guide for the Perplexed
      • Museum Informatics: Collections, People, Access, Use
      • Biologital Informatics
      • Biological Informatics and Neuroinformatics
      • Social Informatics
    • The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering has a program called "Science and Engineering Information Integration and Informatics"
    • The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has Social Informatics as one of its four major areas of research. Social Informatics is defined as "Community informatics; distributed communities; collaboration systems for online work, learning, and knowledge distribution; E-Learning in university and corporate settings; organizational and social informatics; information technology applied to societal problems; participatory action research; social justice in the information professions; community information systems; new literacies; collective practice; evaluation of emerging technologies; social impacts of technologies"
    • The Laboratory of Computer and Information Science, one of the laboritories of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Helsinki University of Technology has the mission "...to conduct research and provide education in the area of adaptive informatics...a field of research where automated learning algorithms are used to discover the relevant informative concepts, components, and their mutual relations from large amounts of data."

Dfletter 21:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

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  • I've created an informatics page expanding on use 2 above, and attempting to introduce references other uses (expansion needed). I think this makes some material under information science superfluous - and some of the material there should be moved and merged into informatics. Information science needs expanding.
  • I suggest demerging the talk pages too.

Michael Fourman 21:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] False interwiki

The revision at 18:36 of 20 February 2005 seems to be an interwiki copy from computer science which made false interwiki updates on many languages messily. Could someone recover this? -- PaePae 17:32, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] New school of Informatics at University of Manchester

For anyone who might want to include it, The University of Manchester now has a school of informatics, http://www.informatics.manchester.ac.uk/

--RickiRich 01:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization of Information Science

Currently Computer Science is listed as a sub-category of Information Science and Information Science is listed as a sub-category of Computer Science. Is there general agreement that Information Science is a sub-category of Computer Science? If not, then should we make it a sibling of Computer Science? Dfletter 21:04, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

  • There does seem to be a major problem with consistent terminology. Probably the two should be made siblings, since CS tends to deal with the more technical/system-centered aspects while IS tends to focus more on social/user-centered issues. Informatics is about integrating the two, which just adds to the confusion. --Alan Au 23:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Informatics (US) / Information science (EU) evolved out of computer science, just like software engineering. Therefore sujects studied by computer scientist a decade ago, like human-computer interaction, are now studied by information scientists. For that reason I think it would be best to leave information science as a subcat of computer science. The other way around, information scientists do study databases and programming, however this might not warrant including CS as a subcat of IS, however I don't think it would hurt if it was. Another problem is that CS and IS don't have a clear parent category that would identify them as siblings. —R. Koot 18:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup no longer needed?

I recently spent some time cleaning up this article. Do we still need the cleanup tag? If so, what remains to be done? MaxVeers 05:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

well, it has more lists of links than article. compared to good articles it should be quite a bit longer and generally more descriptive and extensive. rfight now the article is little more than an extensive definition. check it against other disciplines to see what kind of content it could have. --Buridan 12:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I still think the article has been "cleaned up" (proper formatting, clear organization, no spelling or grammer mistakes) and we can remove the tag. I agree that this article needs to be expanded, but expansion is different from cleaning up. A tag like {{Expert}} seems more appropriate than the current one. MaxVeers 16:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
"no spelling or grammer mistakes" <-- Such as spelling "grammar" incorrectly? ;) Brolin Empey 18:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Informatics in Computer Science

I added a little information relating to the use and origins of informatics in computer science. Unfortunatly I didn't realize that I wasn't logged on. I agree with the above posted comment about differetiating between the three uses of the word. If only someone would take on such a project! Take a look at the french language entry for informatique, it's huge.Elmers 13:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC):

Seems that even tho informatics and information science have been de-merged the talk pages are till the same, so all you information science editors please disregard that prvious comment :D Elmers 22:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] informatics merge failed

you do know that the merge with informatics the other day failed and that someone has already recreated an informatics page. it might be best to move information science back to information science and informatics back to informatics. in the u.s. many people see them as fundamentally different things. --Buridan 10:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you right now, people all over the world see them as fundamentally differnet things :D Seriously informatics should have its own page, even if only in the context of computer science. Elmers 01:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
This articles describes the information science which is related to computer science not the one related to library science. Both MW and AHD say that the term Informatics is "chiefly British", so I suspect that the term information science is used to refer to the computer science related field. Also, I study at the department of "informatica en informatiekunde" in the Netherlands and this is always translated into Englsh as the department of "computing and information science". Here the "computing science" refers to computer science and information science to information science as described in this article. —Ruud 13:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
it really doesn't matter.... what matters is that it didn't take and it likely will not take. --01:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't really understand why this page was split, as the unsplit informatics is nearly identical to the start of this page. I moved it here during a page history merge, so I don't really have an objection to move it back to informatics, but I prefer to have this article at the most commonly used name. —Ruud 01:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I personally think the pages should be re-merged. That said, there's really nothing wrong with having separate articles if there's enough distinguishable content. Otherwise, it just seems like a lot of effort to maintain two separate articles that say mostly the same things. *shrug* --Alan Au 22:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
it seems the community or at least some people thought that informatics was a separate thing. if those people are maintaining and developing that article, there is no necessity for you to maintain it. --Buridan 15:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
See also User talk:Michael Fourman and User:R. Koot/Informati. Pretty much every encyclopedia and dictionary lcaim they are equivalent, however there is a movement in Britain that is trying to define "informatics" as a term referring to the collection of computer science, software engineering, cognitive science, ..., information science, while reserving the term "information science" for an actual academic discipline. I find this split of terminology a bit artificial (especially considering that both "science" and "-ics" mean knowledge) and don't think that splitting would help the reader here. The various subtly different definitions should be expalined in one article. —Ruud 15:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
the problem is that the people who think they are doing social informatics know very well that they are not doing information science for the most part, though perhaps museum informatics might be closer to information science. in short, informatics is perhaps thought of as applied information technology, whereas information science is thought of as the management, application, and research of information. --Buridan 20:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Example of Informatics

While all these definitions are nice, it might help to have some sort of example of the sort of question addressed in Informatics, and how they differ from questions in related fields. -Finn

Do you mean giving examples of how informatics differs from information science ? Elmers 12:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bad Interwiki Links (ComputerScience vs. Informatics vs. InformationSciences)

There are ton of misclassfied interwiki links between the international wikis alternately pointing to informatics, information science, and computer science. Anybody interesting cleaning this up? --Alan Au 18:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

the problem seems to be that the German word Informatik relates to CS while in the US information science (aka. library sciences) is a subset of informatics which is a scientific branch in the making - covering social, political, technical, economical and health aspects of information systems and their use. Given this confusion it will be really difficult to maintain coherence. By the way, I object to merging information sciences and informatics. Linking the two should be sufficient - the battle goes on. Iancarter 18:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
For me it is still not 100% clear what the exact difference is? Can please anybody make this difference very clear. Otherwise I do not see how we can solve the linking problem. JKW 21:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
i don't think you will be able to define this issue away by spurious construction of differences. the interwiki problem is probably best solved by having a disambiguation link at the top of the appropriate pages that encourages people to look and see the differences for themselves--Buridan 09:42, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Buridan. The problem with trying to define 'information science' is that it is such a new field. Unlike computer science, it has only been around for a few decades -- and the interdisciplinary nature only complicates things. If you took all the people who consider themselves 'information scientists' in the world, put them in a room and told them to come up with a definition, they would never come out. Everyone in the field has a different idea of what information science is and should be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think that we should be hesitant to merge two topics simply because there is confusion between the two. Rather, by providing two separate pages with links between them, those who are really interested can take the time to compare and contrast themselves.TooManyEggs 19:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] lis/is/informatics

we have 3 pages for what is likely two topics. i suggest we delete the information science page, put the informatics content on the informatics page and forward information science to LIS. --Buridan 09:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

veto information sciences is not LIS, it would more likely be informatics since it encompasses CS and IT issues as well which LIS clearly does not. --Iancarter 09:53, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
LIS encompasses plenty of CS where CS deals with information.--Buridan 10:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Buridan is correct. Iancarter obviously does not know much about library science or information science academically. Contact accredited universities iancarter and talk to library science and information science instructors, instead of saying things with no facts. library science encompasses CS and IT issues.

[edit] Cues-filtered-out theory

I was looking for sources to back up the Virtual community article and I found quite a bit out there about Cues-filtered-out theory which I redirected to social informatics. The theory deals with social cues (gesture, facial expression, voice tone, etc.) being filtered out in "computer-mediated communications". Proponents of the theory are concerned that text-based social networks such as newsgroups, forums and chatrooms foster anti-normative behaviors. See also: Community informatics, m:Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization • CQ 08:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We got blogged

We got blogged. —Ruud 01:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Image:Messagebox_info.svg‎

Please see: Portal:Library and information science

{{helpme}} User:Ruud Koot keeps removing "‎" from this page. It was on the Portal:Library and information science, but he's removed it from there too. He claims it's not accurate for information science, but there are information science schools [1] that use silimar symbols. If this symbol is not accurate, then what is!?

I don't think {{helpme}} is appropriate here. Please discuss the issue with Ruud Koot directly. You could also consider positn on WP:3O. CMummert · talk 18:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I see little resemblance between the symbols and even if there was it is in no way a universally accepted symbol for the discipline of information science, meaning it adds no encyclopaedic value whatsoever. —Ruud 19:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Information Science - article slanted?

In my opinion, this wiki article is slanted toward a 'soft science' interpretation of Information Science. Please consider the following...

Here's the description for Penn State's MSIS degree:

"The Master of Science in Information Science (MSIS) prepares professionals to design and manage information systems. The program offers a balance of information systems and management courses offered through the Management and Engineering Divisions. The program includes

   * the role and management of emerging information technologies
   * system design
   * software engineering methodologies
   * information ethics and management
   * contemporary IT architectures

" http://gv.psu.edu/Current_Students/Academics/Engineering___Information_Science/


Also, here's a link to University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute. From their site:

"ISI research divisions and groups cross traditional disciplinary boundaries to investigate a broad range of advanced topics in computer science, information technology, and electrical engineering."

http://www.isi.edu/research/

Then, there's Stanford's Quantum Information Science Group:

"The group conducts the basic research on quantum optics, semiconductor mesoscopic physics, nuclear and electron spin resonance, with emphasis on quantum information system applications."

http://www.stanford.edu/group/yamamotogroup/

As I initially stated, I believe this wiki article is slanted toward a 'soft science' view of Information Science. Even the opening paragraph equates Information Science with Information Studies. I don't think they are the same; the latter should be a (soft science, strictly non-technical) subset of the former.

I would suggest that Information Science encompasses a much wider range of topics, which include limited aspects (=only those aspects which pertain to the physical components and processes of the infomation system itself) of mathematics, physics, engineering, computer science... But also soft science topics such as HCI, user psychology, etc.

Hence, Information Science should be used as an all-encompassing term to describe ALL aspects of storing and processing information---everything from analyzing the user's perspective, to the wires and semiconductors that comprise the machine. In my opinion, this definition would match how the term Information Science is currently used, in practice.

84.179.245.70 17:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Kristian


I quite agree. Compare for example the list of research topics with the account of methodology in Information Science. Methodology is stated as being "like in other social sciences", but research topics include bibliometrics, knowledge engineering, data modelling and XML, all of which are natural parts of information science but they are certainly not topics that are to be addressed using the listed social-science-oriented methods.

Manjaro 15:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article request

Hi there, I'd like to suggest a new article on the full history of information handling/management/techonology (details). I'm not knowledgeable enough to do it myself, but contributors here probably are. Thanks, JackyR | Talk 18:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)