LIS meets the EIP Jette Hyldegaard, Associate Professor (
[email protected]), Haakon Lund, Associate Professor (
[email protected]) & Piet Seiden, Associate Professor (
[email protected]) Department of Information Studies, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen. Keywords: curriculum development, Intranet, enterprise portals, LIS professionals
ABSTRACT To meet a perceived need for information professionals engaging in projects on document and knowledge management, a new course on Enterprise Information Portals (EIP) and Intranets has been established at the Royal School of Library and Information Science (RSLIS). The aim of the course has been to provide the graduates with a better understanding of fundamental theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of developing and implementing an EIP. This paper addresses the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical aspects of developing the course and how or whether the expected learning outcome has been reached.
INTRODUCTION Within the library and information studies (LIS) community a broad consensus has emerged that the information world is undergoing fundamental changes, and that both the LIS profession as well as the studies concerning LIS must respond to this fact. LIS is engaged in a struggle with other professions and academic disciplines for jurisdiction over information functions traditionally subject to LIS as well as new information functions brought about by changes in technology and society. The primary reasons for this struggle are twofold: firstly, changes in computing and telecommunications, and secondly, the increasing strategic importance of information in our economy and in society in general, 1
where the role of information in creating power and wealth is attracting the attention of powerful new players, including other professions such as computer science and business administration (Van House, 1996). Both the professional and educational components of LIS are facing this new competition. According to Abbott (1988), the environmental changes that drive professional evolution include the creation of new problems and new knowledge systems, and therefore of new tools and solutions of these problems. A profession may work to retain jurisdiction over its problems, to extend or change its jurisdiction over newly-created problems, or to preempt the jurisdiction of other professions. The strongest claim of jurisdiction over a problem within a profession is that its knowledge system is effective in practice. In Denmark the LIS profession is now challenged by an increasing demand for information professionals engaging in activities related to document and knowledge management as well as user interface design and evaluation. An increasing number of LIS graduates from the Royal School of Library and Information Science (RSLIS) that get employed in the private sector, now obtain employment in companies and organizations where the traditional role of the librarian has evolved into knowledge or content managers, web and Intranet designers, system developers, etc. (Schreiber, 2000). This implies that LIS graduates are faced with new problems that should be solved in each area which again calls for new kinds of skills and competence – or in other words, it calls for new ways of combining the core disciplines of LIS in order for them to be used succesfully within these new contexts (McQueen & DeMatteo, 1999). To address this issue, this paper describes the theoretical foundation and the methodological and pedagogical considerations of a new course on Enterprise Information Portals (EIP) and Intranets that were developed at the RSLIS in September 2000. The aim of the course was to increase the students (bachelors) understanding of fundamental 2
theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of developing and implementing an EIP. Besides focusing on how to organize and retrieve different kinds of information in a company in the best way, the course also emphasized the students understanding of the basic principles underlying today's Intranet technology. The paper discuss the results obtained – how or whether the expected learning outcome was reached and which experiences were gained so far.
THE COURSE ON EIP EIP is a concept that according to a study performed by Merril Lynch published in 1998 can be defined as "applications that enable companies to unlock internally and externally stored information, and provide users a single gateway to personalized information needed to make informed business decisions" (Finkelstein, 1999). From a technological point of view EIPs are based on Internet standards just as Intranets, but the major difference is that where Intranets are often defined as a tool used internally by employees in a single organization, the EIP is, as Detlor (Detlor, 2000) writes, "corporate portals [that] differ from Intranets in that a portal's primary function is to provide a transparent directory of information already available elsewhere...." and “...provide access not only to the underlying network but also to the information content, services, and applications built on top of that network infrastructure...”. To facilitate access and information retrieval, different tools from the LIS domain are used; e.g. enterprise taxonomies or classifications, supporting the organization of content, search engines, capable of indexing a multitude of file formats and metadata to enrich documents. The emphasis on integration of both external sources (i.e. Internet) and internal sources provided an ideal testing ground for our course strategy which was aimed at providing a theoretical as well as a practical understanding of the various aspects involved in 3
designing and implementing a corporate information service. This strategy had two main objectives. Firstly, we wanted to integrate and build upon the skills of building highlystructured information repositories and of searching and evaluating information sources that are taught in the first two years of the LIS studies. Secondly, we wanted to provide the students with a knowledge of the essential information technology (IT) terminology relevant to EIP solutions, thereby qualifying them in a better way to participate actively in development teams with technical staff.
Course Constraints The course (15 ECTS) was optional and situated in the fifth term of the Bachelor of Library and Information Science Studies. Besides the overall aim of he course it was specified by the syllabus that the course should provide the students with the opportunity for an in-depth study of a chosen subject. Both intentions were didactically and pedagogically challenged in different ways. Firstly, the students outcome of the course should be measured by an oral examination at the end of the course with a specified examination requirements of approximately one thousand pages. An examination based on a project might have been a better evaluation method for a course aiming at specialization. In relation to that, we believe that a didactical approach, fully problem based with theoretical and practical sessions relating to a subject or project work throughout the term, is a better way of obtaining the specified skills and knowledge of EIP. Secondly, since the students are allowed to assemble a multifaceted individual curriculum on their fourth and fifth term, we could not expect the students to enter the course with equal qualifications in relation to EIP. And thirdly, it turned out that the interests and expectations among the 20 students admitted to the course [1] differed a lot and also made it difficult to choose only one or two aspects to study in depth. At our first meeting with 4
the students, they were asked to write down their expectations for the course and present them for the class. The varying field of interests could be categorized into five groups:
?? ?? ?? ?? ??
Improved technical skills i.e. advanced HTML, XML, Database publication User-interface design Communication, Knowledge management Site design System analysis
In addition to these statements from the students, an independent interview study were made investigating three of the students' expectations of the course [2]. This study also indicated that their expectations were influenced by their knowledge of the IT-specific domains of EIP and Intranets – the more basic knowledge of the area, the more specific expectations were expressed. With the aim of the course and these constraints in mind, the didactical and pedagogical challenge was to combine the requirements of specialization with the requirements of a general understanding of EIP problems and solutions implied by the oral examination.
Course Structure Instead of providing the students with a course on only one or two aspects of EIP, e.g. Internet technology and search engines, we chose a “buffet” model covering different aspects related to developing an EIP that also was meant to motivate the students’ specialization later on (Fig. 1.). The figure below illustrates the structure of the course: “Take in Figure 1” The course was divided into three parts: 1) lectures by us and guest lecturers 2) project work, and 3) student presentations. To relate theory to practice and facilitate a discussion of the practical aspects and implications of developing an Intranet, a case study on the
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development of an Intranet at RSLIS was introduced at the beginning of the course; and it was used whenever appropriate for the lesson given. Though the course did not allow for a completely project based strategy, the students were given the opportunity to engage in a minor project to assemble a better understanding of some of the subjects introduced during the theoretical part of the course. Within a three weeks period, the students should study a EIP related problem and take the theoretical as well as practical considerations into account. The subjects of the projects were "Evaluation Methods for Intranets", "The use of XML in Office 2000 in Relation to Document Management", "Personalisation of Intranets", "Competence Databases", "Usability and Intranets" and "Specifications and Design Suggestions for the Student Related Segment of an Intranet at RSLIS". Each project was presented by the students. At the end of the term we all went on a study tour to London to attend the exhibition "Online Information 2000" and to make a visit to Factiva [3]. Throughout the course, we used a real-life Intranet at Intranets.com [4] as our course web, which in the same time was an opportunity for the students to get familiar with Intranets from a user's point of view. All materials, announcements, and discussions were published and communicated through the Intranet. Examining the log statistics of the site we have found that all of the students have visited the site, many of them between 15-30 times. It should not come as a surprise that most of the activities in the discussion forums were initiated by the study tour to London. We also used other Intranet tools for study purposes such as SiteScape Forum [5]
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Course Elements In the following, a short presentation of each course element will be given, with an emphasis on the goals for the element, the skills to be obtained and the pedagogical considerations behind. Knowledge management touched upon the difference between data, information and knowledge in relation to different generations of Intranets.Though there seems to be a general consensus in many organizations that knowledge is a core ressource, many Intranets still fail to reflect this. The concept of information ecology was introduced (Drucker, 1997) and important constrains (cultural, political etc.) and opportunities for handling knowledge were discussed (Davenport & Prusak, 1998) and related to design of EIP and Intranets (Detlor, 2000). Network topology was provided as an introduction to the technology underlying web browser-based applications, namely TCP/IP, HTTP, and DNS. The concept of information travelling in packets was introduced, HTTP as the main web browser / web server protocol used was mentioned, and an explanation of the Domain Name System (DNS) was provided. The purpose of this session was to familiarize the students with these topics, since knowledge in this area is important when communicating with IT staff in connection with EIP or Intranet development. We chose to use mainly literature available on the Internet for this part of the course, covering TCP/IP and DNS using excerpts from an IBM Redbook (Murhammer et al., 1998) and a short popular description of important Internet protocols giving an introduction to HTTP and its most apparent problem, the lack of state information (Richmond, 2000). Mark-up languages was the title of a session discussing the value of structured documents in relation to EIP construction. The basic principles behind the mark-up process were 7
described, using as starting point Microsoft Word. Focus was on the various formats available with this omnipresent word-processing software, such as ASCII text without formatting, Rich Text Format (RTF) that embeds typographic formatting instruction in the text, and HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) used in conjunction with XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) (Flynn, 2000) so as to provide both formatting mark-up as well as structural information about the document. Especially, the differences between structural mark-up and formatting mark-up are discussed, with an emphasis on the use of XML as a better method to structure documents for indexing and subsequent retrieval than HTML (Finkelstein & Aiken, 1999). Again, the intention was to provide the students with a background for participation in the more technically-oriented discussions. In a more narrow context, we believe that inclusion of these more technical modules could provide a starting point for those of our students wishing to delve deeper into the technology behind the EIP. As the subjects were of a rather theoretical nature, the teaching was confined to lectures introducing and discussing the concepts. Search engines for Intranets provided an introduction to the specific features and functionality that are required for Intranets compared to search engines on the internet. (Fichter, 1999). E.g. it should be able to index and retrieve different types of documents and formats (Microsoft Office documents, PDF files, multimedia files). The RSLIS Intranet case was used here to make the students formulate the requirements that were absolute for a search engine for the RSLIS Intranet. Database publication provided an introduction to the concept of dynamic or database driven publication of data to a web-based application. The session gave a short introduction to Active Server Page technology (ASP) and the methods of connecting to a back-end database server using either CGI-BIN Scripts or Open Database Connectivity 8
(ODBC) with the new development towards OLE-DB. The module was a combination of an introduction by the teacher followed by exercises based on Microsoft Frontpage 2000 and Microsoft Access 2000. User interface design provided an introduction to Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and usability issues in relation to designing an user interface for an EIP or Intranet. This was compared to user interface design on the internet – in what sense does it differ and why (Head, 2000; Nielsen, 2000). This also implicated a discussion on the personalized webtop, e.g the handling of various user profiles in a company and the concept of personalization contra customization. Accordingly, different ways of ensuring usabillity were discussed, e.g. the involvement of users (or employees) during the development process and after the implementation by using focus groups, interviews, usability testing (based on metrics or “ think aloud-testing”) and log analysis (Head, 1999). Web publishing was aimed at discussing topics relevant for the assembling of a portal or Intranet application. In particular aspects imposing constraints on an web application, such as access rights, document structure, required functionality etc. were discussed. The session was also an attempt to pull together all the threads, stressing the importance of adopting a multifaceted approach when designing an EIP. This session marked the end of the theoretical part of the course, to be followed by the project work.
OUTCOME AND EVALUATION During the course we did conduct several evaluation sessions. The initial assessment presented in the beginning of this paper indicated a wide range of expectations, some of which related to the subjects touched upon during the theoretical part of the course. The on-going case study on the development of an Intranet did act as a kind of benchmark on the students’ activity level. The students were not obliged to present their findings 9
resulting in a low level of student response in relation to the case study. To assess if the students had grasped the central ideas presented during this period, a simple test based on six questions was performed as a mid-term evaluation. The questions were aimed at specific answers , e.g. "What is understood by the term Mark-up language?", thereby sampling the students abilities to give a concise answer when challenged on a very specific topic. This qualitative test showed us that the students generally gave satisfactory answers to the questions, except for those relating to the more technical topics, such as mark-up languages and DNS. This did not come as a complete surprise, as these topics were new to most students and perhaps only appealed to the more technically-inclined students. The students' presentations based on their projects were generally of high quality, indicating that they had been able to apply the theories to a specific problem case. As the presentations marked the end of the course, we asked the students to evaluate the course by requesting them to anonymously fill out a questionnaire and by participating in a class room discussion. We did not receive as many filled out questionnaires as we had hoped for, only 9 were returned, but this did give us some indications of what the students felt they had learned at that moment. "Take in Table I." To determine whether the areas of interest had shifted due to new knowledge obtained, we asked the students to indicate their areas of interest. The results, shown in Table I, indicates that the main interest at the end of the course was in compound subjects such as Intranet Design and Knowledge Sharing. The students were also asked to assign a score to each of the course elements, a score that should reflect their overall satisfaction with those particular elements. As the sample is small, we have plotted the median scores in Figure 2. Having particular areas of interest is not necessarily reflected in the score obtained for the 10
corresponding course element which may indicate that some of the course elements should be re-designed in the future. A very encouraging point made by this survey was the fact that the project phase of the course was given high marks. This corresponded well to our expectations that this subject is best suited by a project based approach. "Take in Figure 2" A better statistical foundation for establishing a succes criteria could be found in the results of the final examinations held in January 2001 (Figure 3). This ultimate test showed us that the students grasp of both the theoretical part of the course as well as their ability to expand upon the subject chosen in the project phase was well above average (Score 8) with a resultant average score of 9.2. "Take in Figure 3."
DISCUSSION With this course on EIP, we have tried to introduce a new element in the Danish LIS curriculum. Our objective have been to familiarize the students with the most important elements and processes involved in designing and implementing an EIP. We believe that a theoretical knowledge and practical and technical skills in this area will provide a good ballast for librarians and information professionals heading for employment, e.g. in the private sector of the Danish job market. To provide these skills we have throughout the course centered upon an analytical approach to various problems within a given organizational context, problems relating to the categorization and presentation of information that are relevant processes to a LIS approach to information management. We believe that this strategy has been correct the constraints given. The high scores achieved at the oral examinations do indicate a good understanding at the theoretical level. But when it comes to how well we have suceeded in providing the students with an 11
understanding at the practical level, we should point to some factors that we believe are paramount in this perspective. The requirement of specialization and oral examinations do not seem to be an appropriate combination in this relation, and do not provide an ideal framework for implementing a strategy like a “buffet” model either. Since all the literature that was used during the theoretical part of the course was mandatory, the students tended to get very frustrated when they could not arrange all the different subjects into a meaningful context. This became apparent when we debriefed the students, by asking them to fill in a questionnaire and during a class discussion the last day. Many expressed frustration over the wide range of subjects presented in the first part of the course, even though it was acknowledged that the final part of the course had given them a possibility to reflect on the theories and methods that had been presented and to choose those most relevant for their problem. Many of the students also felt that some of the subjects had not been given the in-depth treatment they deserved. They were quite right in this, since another problem was the time schedule that only allowed short introductions to some of the more "alien" subjects. But this also showed us that our students apparently expected the in-depth analysis to be performed by the teachers and not so much by themselves. This was also confirmed by the lack of student activity concerning the case study. It seems that the students expected a high degree of teacher involvement while we were expecting a higher level of initiative from the students. This indicates that expectations between students and teachers should be better attuned in the future. Alltogether, the experiences gained so far present a strong case for carefully considering whether the formal requirements for a course structure can impede a successful application of the didactical and pedagogical approaches chosen. We would rather recommend a completely projectbased strategy for a course like this that would allow for the required specialization and the opportunity of working in depth with theoretical as well as practical problems. 12
Furthermore, it also seems to be a better way for motivating the students engagement, when the learning outcome is measured in relation to the students qualifications and interests rather than determined by a general understanding of the topic. To sum up, we believe that this strategy would have been a better way to contribute to the evolvement of the LIS skills and compentence to be used in the context of designing an EIP.
CONCLUSION From the discussion above, our final conclusion must be that the subject of EIP and Intranets has proved to be a good vehicle for communicating the analytical and traditional LIS skills that will be of importance to LIS graduates in the changing world of document and knowledge management. Though the course elements should be re-designed, we do believe that the overall structure of the course based on a “buffet” model in combination with a project work is sound. But to deduce from the experiences gained, the project work must be the basis for the final examinations in the future.
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NOTES [1] 50 students of a total of 120 applied for the course originally. Of these, 20 were selected randomly [2] Valgfags popularitet (2000). Henriette Nissen og Cecilie Kyndesen, årg. 2000 (internal, unpublished). [3] Factiva is a Dow Jones/Reuter company delivering Intranet and enterprise portal solutions. [4] http://virksomhedsportaler.intranets.com [5] http://www.sitescape.com
REFERENCES Abbot, A. D. (1988), The system of professions – an essay on the division of expert labour, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Davenport, T. and Prusak, L. (1998), Working knowledge, Harvard Business School Press Boston. Detlor, B. (2000), "The corporate portal as information infrastructure: towards a framework for portal design", International Journal of Information Management, Vol 20, pp. 91-101. Drucker, P. (1997), "The best of all worlds: Information ecology". in Davenport, T.H. (Ed.), Information ecology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 28-45. Fichter, D. (1999), "Choosing an Intranet search engine", Online, Vol 24 No 3, pp. 47-53. Finkelstein, C. (1999), "The emergence and potential of enterprice information portals (EIPs)", The Data Administration Newsletter, No 10.0, September. Available http://www.tdan.com/i010fe02.htm
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Finkelstein, C. and Aiken, P. (1999), "XML and corporate portals", excerpt from Finkelstein, C. and Aiken, P. (1999), Building corporate portals using XML, McGrawHill, New York. Available http://www.wilshireconferences.com/xml/paper/XMLPortals.htm Flynn, P. (2000), "Frequently Asked Questions about the Extensible Markup Language: The FAQ", World Wide Web Consortium's XML Special Interest Group, version 1.6. Available http://www.ucc.ie/xml/ Head, A. J. (1999), "Web redemption and the promise of usability", Online, Vol 23 No 6, pp. 21-32. Head, A. J. (2000), "Demystifying Intranet design: Five guidelines for building usable sites", Online, Vol 24 No 4, pp. McQueen, H. and DeMatteo, J. E. (1999), "Intranets: New opportunities for information professionals", Online, Vol 23 No 1, pp. 14-22. Murhammer, M., Atakan, O., Bretz, S.,.Pugh, L., Suzuki, K. and Wood, D. (1998), TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview, IBM Corporation, Armonk. Available http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/gg243376.html Nielsen, J. (2000), Designing web usability: the practice of simplicity, New Riders Publishing, Indianapolis, pp 264-94. Richmond, A. (2000), "HTTP Explained". Available http://serverwatch.internet.com/articles/protocols/ Schreiber, T. (2000), "Bibliotekaren og det private arbejdsmarked". Available http://www.bf.dk/lon/Privat/Rapport%20om%20bibliotekaren%20og%20det%20private% 20arbejdsmarked.pdf Van House, N. (1996), "The panda syndrome: an ecology of LIS education", Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, Vol 37 No 2, pp. 131-47. 15
Figure 1. Structure of the EIP-course. October -December Theory - knowledge management - real life experiences - network topology - mark-up languages - search engines for Intranets - database publication - user interface design - web publishing
Students' projects - subjects chosen by the students
Students' projects - presentations - course evaluation
Online Information 2000
Figure 2. Median scores for individual course elements in final evaluation. 1= lowest score. 5 = highest score. Figure 2
Case study Study tour Project phase
Course elements
Web publishing User interface design Database publication Search engines Mark-up languages Intranets in practice Network topology Knowledge management 1
2
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4
5
Median score
Figure 3. Scores obtained at the final examinations in January 2001.The scale is a closed scale with 13 as the highest score, a score of 8 is given for an average result, and a score 8 below 6 denotes failure to pass the examination. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
16 13
11
10
9
8
7
6
Possible score values
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Table I. Ranking of areas of interest in final evalutions. Highest rank is highest value. Subject Rank Intranet design 10 Knowledge sharing 10 Web design 8 Databases 8 Usability 6 XML 6 Indexing 5 Evaluation methods 2 Search engines 2 Practice 2 Theory 1
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