Dubin facets
From GSLISWiki
[edit] Facets for Classification of Courses in the Master's Program
(an advising document prepared by Dave Dubin)
This was never an official GSLIS document, and it represents no consensus of opinion on our MS curriculum. The author no longer has any advisees in the MS program, and so it's not even a current advising document. But I have updated the course references to reflect the new numbering system.
[edit] Introduction
It's usually possible to situate courses with respect to a subset of the following facets. I've tried to make them as independent as I can, but they're not strictly orthogonal.
[edit] The Facets
[edit] I Curriculum Area
These are broad areas of the curriculum, representing four key dimensions that the faculty have identified as important.
- Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services
- Information Organization and Access
- Management and Consulting for Information Systems and Services
- Access -- People and Collections
See the MS program web pages for more detailed explanation of the areas. This facet does not admit specialization: it doesn't make sense to specialize in one or another of them (which is to say, they are not areas of concentration). All students, whether they choose a particular professional focus or not, should ensure that none of these four areas receive too little or too much attention in the courses they select.
[edit] II Career Focus
Within the broad, diverse, information professions a number of specific careers are recognized both in and out of libraries. Some of the most popular courses at the master's level provide a focus on the skills, problems, and responsibilities associated with one of these careers. For example:
- The work of a cataloger
- The work of an indexer
- The work of a reference librarian
- The work of an archivist
- The work of an independent consultant
This facet does admit specialization, but students often enroll in these courses, even if they don't intend to make a career in the particular specialty.
[edit] III Information Life Cycle
Courses often provide a focus on a particular stage of the information life cycle, or two or more closely related stages.
- Information storage
- Information retrieval
- Information use
- Information processing
- Information access
- Collecting or gathering resources
- Information analysis
- Archiving
- Publication and dissemination
- Oral presentation
- Reading and literacy
- Long term preservation
- Instruction
- Assistance
[edit] IV Community Focus
Many of our courses provide a focus on the needs of particular communities (which may be very broadly defined or very specific).
- The general public
- Members of academic communities
- Business and industry
- Users of information
- Children
- Young adults
- Adults
[edit] V Resource Genre
Some courses provide a focus on particular (broadly or narrowly scoped) genres of resources, such as:
- Business records
- Research Data
- Documents
- Government documents
- Fiction
- Serials
[edit] VI Resource Medium
Some courses focus on particular resource media such as:
- Resources in digital/electronic format
- Books
- Audio/visual media
[edit] VII Disciplinary focus
A number of courses provide a focus connected with a particular academic discipline or disciplines, such as:
- Economics
- The Humanities
- Social Sciences
- Business
- Sciences
- Religion/theology
[edit] VIII Regional/Linguistic focus
Some courses focus on a geographic region, language, or language family:
- The African continent
- East Asia
- Arabic
- Slavic languages
[edit] IX Architectural Focus
Some courses identify and study either the overall architecture of information systems and services, or else specific important components of that architecture, such as:
- User interfaces
- Buildings
- Policy
- Online services
- Libraries as institutions
- The World Wide Web
- Standards and standardization
[edit] X Features and Qualifiers
Certain categories do not create facets in their own right, but are identified with a feature or qualifier. These include:
- Foundational Course. These courses provide a foundation or grounding, usually associated with one of the other nine facets. Such courses place particular emphasis on theories and models, rather than careers, skills, systems, etc.
- Information Technology Experience. Such courses provide hands-on experience with information technology.
- Provides prerequisite: Such courses set the stage or satisfy a particular prerequisite for more advanced coursework.
- Targets undergrads, masters, or PhD students. Some courses are open to students in more than one degree program, but were nevertheless designed from the beginning to target students at a specific level. For example, a class might be open to students in the MS program, but be primarily intended for students in the undergraduate minor.
None of the categories identified with these four qualifiers and features admit specialization. For example, while it is highly desirable to gain hands-on experience using information technology, a student would never specialize in "technology courses," any more than he or she would specialize in courses that serve as prerequisites to other courses.
[edit] Examples of Classification
Here are examples of how some GSLIS courses may be classified:
[edit] LIS456 Information Storage and Retrieval
- Curr. Area: Information Organization and Access
- Life Cycle: Information storage, information retrieval
- Res Medium: Digital/electronic format
- Features: Foundational, targets MS students, prerequisite for 556
[edit] LIS556 Implementation of Information Storage and Retrieval
- Curr. Area: Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services
- Life Cycle: Information storage, information retrieval
- Res Medium: Digital/electronic format
- Features: provides IT experience, targets MS students
[edit] LIS452 Foundations of Information Processing in LIS
- Curr. Area: Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services
- Life Cycle: Information processing
- Res Medium: Digital/electronic format
- Features: Foundational, provides IT experience, targets MS students, prereq for 556 and 590DP.
[edit] LIS451 Introduction to Network Systems
- Curr. Area: Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services
- Archit: Computer hardware, operating systems, computer networks
- Features: provides IT experience, targets MS students, prereq for 454
[edit] LIS590EP Electronic Publishing and Information Processing Standards
- Curr. Area: Management and Consulting for Information Systems and Services
- Life Cycle: Publication
- Res. Genre: Documents
- Res Medium: Digital/electronic format
- Archit: Standards and standardization
- Features: provides IT experience, targets MS students
[edit] LIS590DM Document Modeling
- Curr. Area: Information Organization and Access
- Life Cycle: Information Analysis
- Res. Genre: Documents
- Res Medium: Digital/electronic format
- Features: Foundational, provides IT experience, targets MS students
[edit] LIS590DP Document Processing
- Curr. Area: Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services
- Life Cycle: Information Processing
- Res. Genre: Documents
- Res Medium: Digital/electronic format
- Features: provides IT experience, targets MS students
[edit] Guidelines for Choosing Courses
1. Make it a goal that when you've completed your coursework, you will not have ignored or overemphasized any one of the four curriculum areas. When it comes time to choose courses for your next semester, see if you can identify a useful or interesting course in an area that you haven't yet taken.
2. Although it's reasonable to choose courses with an eye toward specializing in a particular career path, you'll probably find that few courses are explicitly identified with the particular career that you have in mind. Ask yourself and discuss with your adviser which particular stages in the information life cycle, which communities, which resource genres and media are important to the kind of work you see yourself doing.
3. If you have identified a facet or facets for specialization (e.g., "digital documents" or "children and young adults") select courses that provide as much variability as possible on the other facets. The problem, for example, with taking too many resource and bibliography classes (522-4, 530A-M) is that there's too little variance on all but a single (disciplinary or regional/linguistic) facet.
4. Do not neglect the courses that focus on the foundational theories and models in our discipline. Reading too many job advertisements promotes an unwholesome preoccupation with skill sets and fashionable buzzwords. In the long run, you'll be better served by courses that prepare you to learn and adapt in the face of change.
5. Pay close attention to the degree program to which a course was originally targeted. It may be possible to enroll in a course that seems at first glance to be highly relevant to your professional goals. A closer look, however, reveals that its primary orientation is toward students at a different stage in their professional development than yours. For example, the school offers a course on search engines (490SE) that was originally conceived for the undergraduate minor. If you are a student in the MS program, it's a much better idea to enroll in LIS456 (Information Storage and Retrieval) and LIS556 (Implementation of IR).
6. Avoid the Morlock Fallacy. Some students seem to think that certain courses at the masters level are aimed at so-called "traditional" librarians (also known as the Eloi) while other classes are intended for so-called "technologists" (the Morlocks). Don't you believe it! It's true that some classes provide more opportunities for hands-on experience with information technology than others. A few classes (such as 556 and 590DP) require some skills and background as prerequisites. But even those prerequisites are nothing more than the basic foundational skills and concepts that any professional working in a library or other setting should aspire to master. The question is not whether you belong in those classes, but simply whether you're ready for them. If you're not, then you should enroll as early in your studies as possible in courses offered with the express aim of getting you up to speed: LIS451 covers computer hardware, operating systems, and networks; LIS452 covers digital representation and information processing methods.
