University of Michigan School of Information

Infobox_University


name = School of Information
established = 1969
type = Public
dean = Martha Pollack (2007)
city = Ann Arbor
state = Michigan
country = USA
students = 317
faculty= 66
campus = Urban
website= [http://si.umich.edu/ si.umich.edu] The School of Information (SI) or iSchool at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is a graduate school offering both a Master of Science in Information (MSI) and a Doctor of Information (Ph.D.).

Its field of study is information: how it is created, identified, collected, structured, managed, preserved, accessed, processed, and presented; how it is used in different environments, with different technologies, and over time. The school's stated mission is "connecting people, information, and technology in more valuable ways."

The School of Information is part of a growing list of i-schools devoted to the study of information as a discipline. These institutions have varied histories, some being newly created, others developing from earlier schools or departments focused on library and information science (as with SI), computer science, communications, or information technology. The school was the first of these institutions to relabel itself a "school of information".

Master's degree

The Master of Science in Information (MSI) degree is a 48-credit hour professional degree built on a core curriculum of "foundations" courses that synthesize content and methodology from library and information science, computer science, the humanities, and the social sciences. A signal aspect of the program is its focus on real-world engagement: all MSI students are required to complete internships or mentorships in the field.

The program is also highly interdisciplinary as it features faculty from a wide range of academic fields. It also draws students from dozens of undergraduate majors ranging from arts and humanities to sciences and engineering.

Master's students can specialize in one of the following areas, or they can tailor their own curriculum under the advice of a faculty member.
*Archives and Records Management
*Community Informatics
*Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
*Incentive-Centered Design
*Library and Information Science(LIS)
*Info Analysis and Retrieval
*Information Policy
*Preservation of Information
*Social computing

Doctoral degree

The school's doctoral program is a full-time course of study, typically four years post-baccalaureate, leading to the Doctor of Information (Ph.D.). The program is designed to enable students to engage in advanced study and research in a various information fields such as the economics of information, human-computer interaction, library and information services, organizational issues, archives and records management, new systems architecture, digital libraries, information systems management, and digital documents/digital publishing.

Faculty and research

Faculty at the school are drawn from an unusually wide range of academic backgrounds including linguistics, public policy, computer science, library and information science, management, law, business, economics, psychology, history, and communications.

The school's faculty and students are active in research, pursuing projects in various areas and methods. Their stated goal is to develop an integrated understanding of human needs in relation to information systems and social structures, searching for unifying principles that illuminate the role of information in computation, cognition, communication, and community.

The school's infrastructure includes a range of research facilities and equipment. Researchers also have access to a number of off-campus research sites. Projects are often collaborations with researchers from other units at the university.

Established and emerging areas of research at the school include:
*archives and records management
*collaboratories
*community informatics
*community technology
*digital libraries
*digital preservation
*documenting cultural heritage and social memory
*electronic commerce
*health informatics
*human-computer interaction
*human-information interaction
*incentive-centered design
*information access
*information analysis and retrieval
*information and organizational systems
*information architecture
*information behavior and use
*information diffusion
*information economics
*information filtering
*information infrastructure
*information policy
*information retrieval
*information systems
*information use in communities
*information visualization and representation
*knowledge management
*library and information services
*library science
*natural language processing
*network theory
*organizational learning
*organizational productivity
*pervasive and ubiquitous computing
*social capital
*technology-mediated collaboration
*telecommunications policy
*trust and recommender systems
*user-centered design

External links

* [http://si.umich.edu University of Michigan School of Information]
* [http://si.umich.edu/research/centers.htm Research Centers at SI]
* [http://si.umich.edu/people/faculty.htm SI Faculty]
* [http://si.umich.edu/phd/ SI Ph.D. Program]
* [http://si.umich.edu/msi/ SI MSI Degree]
* [http://si.umich.edu/courses/ SI Course Catalogue]
* [http://siwiki.wetpaint.com/page/Blogs: An index of blog posts by people (mostly students) associated with the School of Information]
* [http://www.ischools.org The i-Schools Project]