|
|
 |
Home > About SI > News > Article
News of SI
SI adds six new specializations to master's program
(Mar 2007) The University of Michigan School of Information is responding to fast-paced changes in the information professions by offering students six new specializations, including social computing, incentive-centered design, and community informatics.
With nine specializations total in the Master of Science in Information (MSI) program, the School of Information is unique in preparing students for careers in such a broad range of long-established and newly emerging fields.
"Our specializations give students more choice and more flexibility than ever before," says Judy Lawson, director of academic and career services.
"They also respond to the needs of organizations in hot fields like social computing. Employers want graduates with a deep understanding of how to manage information and at the same time make it easily accessible to users. SI is staying ahead of the curve."
The six new specializations are all areas in which the School has built expertise and curriculum for a number of years. They are as follows:
- Social Computing - The force behind Web 2.0, Social Computing analyzes online social interactions and recognizes opportunities in social computing technologies.
- Incentive-Centered Design - Teaches the art of designing systems or institutions to align individual incentives with overall organizational goals. It draws deeply from economics, psychology, and sociology, with computer science as a unifying thread.
- Community Informatics - Prepares students for positions as public interest information professionals and technical leaders for nonprofit organizations, government agencies, community development agencies, and entrepreneurial social ventures.
- Information Analysis and Retrieval - Teaches how information is stored in computer systems, how it is searched and analyzed, and how humans access it.
- Preservation of Information - Identifies preservation challenges and standards-based preservation practices and responds to the urgent need for expertise in preservation, digital curation, and Web archiving.
- Information Policy - Prepares students for analysis and design of information policy, at both the organizational and general public policy level.
In addition, the School continues to offer specializations in
- Library and Information Services - Prepares students for all aspects of librarianship. Students may also choose a track for careers in K-12 school media.
- Archives and Records Management - Teaches concepts and techniques to manage historical materials as well as methods that can be applied in information systems design to support integrity, authenticity, access, and long-term preservation of records.
- Human-Computer Interaction - Educates the professional who designs and develops technologies that fit the organization and work practices, the work to be done, and the capabilities of the user.
IEMP Specialization Expanded
The School has grown its specialization in information economics, management and policy into several distinct areas. Information policy will be its own specialization, and information economics will be a primary focus of the incentive-centered design specialization. Information management is an area the School has deemed so central to the skill set of an information professional that it has incorporated it as a core component of the entire MSI program. Students currently specializing in IEMP will have the choice of continuing to specialize in the full range of areas or focusing on one or two of the newer specializations.
Added Flexibility for Master's Students
The new specializations bring added flexibility for master's students at SI, who can now complete an MSI with two specializations. A number of master's courses can be counted for more than one specialization (see the diagram below).
"The evolution of these new specializations at SI marks the evolution of the information field as a whole," says Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Judith S. Olson. "It validates the trail we have blazed for more than a decade now as the School of Information."
New Specializations, Ongoing Work
Though these six are newly identified as specializations at SI, they are all areas in which the School has been building expertise and curriculum for a number of years.
Two of the new specializations -- information analysis and retrieval (IAR) and incentive-centered design -- have matured from earlier academic clusters within the School.
The community informatics specialization recognizes the foresight of the School's Community Information Corps, or CIC. Established in 2001, the CIC has led nationally in the development and professionalization of what's now a widely recognized career track -- the professional who deploys information and communication technologies in service of the public good. Additional recognition of the establishment of this area was the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's decision last fall to endow a new professorial chair in community informatics at the School.
The new specialization in social computing also develops from this focus on communities and information, while the preservation of information specialization grows from the School's unique strengths in archives and records management.
The multidisciplinary School of Information has a rich history of innovative teaching and path-breaking research. The School also offers dual master's degrees in business, law, medicine, nursing, public policy, and social work, and a Ph.D. in information.
Visit the School of Information News Archive
Home > About SI > News > Article
|
|
|
|
|
|
