Generic elements in an undergraduate course in information study

Abstract

The aims of education and professionalism should not be confounded, as they are inherently incompatible. Over-ex clusiveness of information professionalism may have allowed areas at the periphery of information work to be taken by, say, marketing and computer science. Portable knowledge, applica ble throughout information work, would suffice for about half an undergraduate course, in which information study (IS) would be offered synergically with another subject and independently of professional accreditation. The range of other subjects would depend on the needs of the broad information industry, seen as including, say, technical publishing or investigative journalism. Generic or trans-disciplinary elements for IS are organised into 5 parts, ranging from fundamentals to job-oriented aspects. Elements emphasised include: theories of information, IS and related concepts; information creation; the human information system; concentric 'shells' of information work, reaching out to, say, plant management, R&D and law; and development of the career mode of the information manager. The elements cover all Sections of the Criteria for Information Science, except Sources of Information. Nature of Information and its Users is the most emphasised. Some elements extend outside the in tended scope of the Criteria.