The Informulary

Being a graduate student of Knowledge Management at OU-Tulsa as well as a semi-professional event planner I am afforded the opportunity to help with some of the planning and background work for the 2008 Knowledge and Project Management Symposium to be held here in Tulsa this August 19-20. The event is put on by the Green Country Knowledge & Information Professionals in concert with the Tulsa Chapter of Project Management Institute and this year is going to be fantastic. I highly recommend attending and registration is online and easy (I know because I set it up). Check out the symposum web site and then register for HERE.

We’ll see you in August.

So ends my first semester as a graduate student in Knowledge Management at OU-Tulsa. Well, tomorrow when I turn in my last final it will be.

The 5033 course met in person once a week supplemented by online resources including discussion boards. The platform is called Desire 2 Learn and OU uses this platform both as a supplement the way we used it in 5033 and for courses offered entirely online like 5263, the other course I had this semester.

Last week I noticed that the discussion threads were printable and since I have a PDF writer I decided to print each thread to a PDF and save it. It was easy and so I offered it to my classmates upon which some interesting exchanges took place. Dr. Martens blogged about the it here and my responses are there as well so look at it for more details if you want them because I want to focus on one question that fell out which is the question of why I offered to share these files with my classmates in the course that met in person without thinking to make the same offer to my classmates in the course that met totally online. This is the question that Dr. Martens mused over because the online course discussions contain much more (in fact all of it for 5263) content while 5033 has this as only a supplement to meeting in person. I briefly took up this question in the responses at the above link but I have further considered it and I think I have arrived at something important…empathy.

Because I met my classmates and instructor in person and we shared the experience of the course together in real time, I developed a sense of empathy for each of them and with it a desire to help them if I could. In fact the spirit of 5033 that I will remember is that we all seemed willing to assist or even rescue the others in our class. Nothing like this developed for me 5263 leading me to conclude that for me at least, empathy requires personal interaction.

Now this may be a quirk in my personality unique to me, but when I spoke to Dr. Hawamdeh (who teaches the 5263 course and who is also my advisor whom I meet in person upon occassion) several weeks back he and I agreed that we both prefer a measure of face-to-face interaction in the learning process for reasons that I think are very consistent with the idea of empathy. Further, when I went to SLISebration to hear Any Dillon from the University of Texas he noted that the iSchool at UT does not offer online courses at all and his talk was centrally about keeping in high touch with people which I think again is consistent with being empathetic. This leads me to conclude that there is something worth looking into here so I did and found very little scholarly work on the issue of “depersonification” for lack of a better word and in particular found nothing addressed to the information professional.

I wish I had some flamboyant ending to this post but I don’t. All I have are questions and none very clearly defined. Suffice it to say that given the way that the discussion about discussions, D2L and online learning went, along with the personal interactions I *did* have, I am more skeptical of the efficacy of online courses than I have ever been…not likely to be a popular opinion.

On the last day of 5033 we each took the ATLAS (Assessing The Learning Strategies of Adults) test to determine learning style. This test is Copyright 1999 Gary J. Conti and Rita C. Kolody and you can do the online version here. Of the 3 Groups to fall into I of course am a “Problem Solver” and of the 2 subgroups, I am in the second where my style is described as, “Learners who rely heavily on all strategies in the area of critical thinking…concerned with assuring they use the most appropriate resources for the learning task.” That description all by itself pulls together so much of why I came to this program and what have blogged about up to now. I care about how people should reason (i.e. critically) and I care about judgement of relevance of information sources (i.e. finding those sources most appropriate for the learning task).

Surprise! I am interested in the ways in which I myself and others like me approach information and learning. But the most interesting part is that I am turning my style on itself. I am not content with my *own* method and therefore constantly put it to the test. Am *I* reasoning critically AND correctly? Why do *I* prefer one source over another? I am as critical of my own thinking and methods of learning as I am of anyone else’s and that can be tricky at times. It often leads to a very somber and occasionaly even frightening uncertainty.

But the upside is that because I recognize my tendencies and because I look critically at them, I have begun to work on noticing when the problem solver strategy is not the best for the situation. I’m not very good at employing other strategies but I know that they are there and that they might work better.

I have learned many things of value this first sememster but I have to say that this is the best of it for me so far…

Today I turned in my book review for 5033 of Danny Wallace’s book titled Knowledge Management: Historical and Cross-Disciplinary Themes. I have never done a book review before but I have to say I enjoyed the process. I think a course around this book might be a good idea except that Wallace’s preference for the connection to library and information science is so thick that some other historical and cross-disciplinary connections are left out. I didn’t mention in my review of the book because it was not obviously relevant but I am not sure the connection is as strong as Wallace and others might like it to be. It is probably less that KM and LIS are connected than to say that they share common ancestry and may get together on holidays. Even so I wouldn’t be in favor of seeing KM in the business school or overtaken by Org Psych or something. I do feel like KM has something unique to offer but in truth I simply cannot articulate what that may be and while I really enjoyed Wallace’s book I was a bit let down that after 227 pages he couldn’t either.

Last Saturday I attended the OU SLIS alumni event in which Dr. Andrew Dillon, Dean and Professor of the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin delivered an interesting and stirring speech about the future of information studies/science. For a good look at all of the finer points of his talk look at Linda Summers’ blog.

While I was enthralled by much of what he said the most interesting point to me was his belief that information study, policy and method of delivery ought to reflect the way people actually think and reason. I essentially agree and because I was lucky enough to have had Dr. Martens in my corner to arrange it I was able to sit next to Dr. Dillon at dinner and visit a bit about this. As we were talking someone at the table brought up something like the possibility that focusing on the way people think and reason is too subjective and that operating in this way would serve to leave out certain learning styles.

Even though the question was directed at Dr. Dillon, me, being the buttinski that I am I rushed to defend the position saying that the proposal was to focus on the *structure* of reason and thought rather than the content and that the former must be relevantly similar between humans or we couldn’t communicate. Dr. Dillon’s reaction suggests that I am on track with what he has in mind and if fact I think some areas of information study already do this, research into artificial intelligence and the semantic web for example.

Having thought more about the question of the subjectivity of human thought though, I would add a normative wrinkle to stretch beyond how humans *actually* think and reason to include how humans *ought* to think and reason. Why should we do this? Because the study of a method of reasoning that we can *all* use (no matter where we come from or what langage we speak) is more objective thus keeping us from some of the problems the questioner above was considering.

I don’t believe that the “ought” question is really resolved but since we’re reaching across disciplines to neuroscience, cognitive science and others to find evidence for the way it “actually is” we might as well reach out to those studying how it “should be.” And which discipline studies the way humans *should* reason? Philosophy.

After Monday’s class I have been thinking about some LIS buzzwords those being “Information Overload”, “Information Anxiety” and “Digital Divide.” I have been thinking of these buzzwords for two reasons. First, do they describe something real? There seems to me a lack of sufficient scholarship to support that there exist legitimate phenomena to which these buzzwords refer. I could be wrong about this of course, I am just thinking. Second, assuming that they ARE real phenomena, information overload and information anxiety may provide at least partial reasons for the digital divide. Overload and anxiety would I suppose tend toward keeping some people away from certain methods of information acquisition, particularly where those methods require new learning just to gain access, like teaching my grandfather to use a computer, let alone internet searching. Thus I think some part of the digital divide might be intentional, some people might just be happier ”over there.”

As promised in my last post here are some kinds of definition. This is not an exhaustive list and ost of what I am discussing here can be found in “Introduction to Logic, Eleventh Edition” by Copi & Cohen.

Four types of definitions discussed include, STIPULATIVE, LEXCIAL, PRECISING, and THEORETICAL.

A STIPULATIVE definition of a word is, “a definition that arises from the deliberate assignment of a meaning.” In this case the author or speaker specifies what is meant by his or her usage of a term in a context. The definition in these cases is not previously established.

A LEXICAL definition of a word is a definition which is already established. A dictionary definition for example.

A PRECISING definition of a word is a defnition that serves to reduce vagueness. (NOTE: Vagueness and ambiguity are not identical. A term is vague when the meaning of the term is not clear. A term is ambiguous when there is more than one lexical definition and the context does not make clear which is intended).

A THEORETICAL definition of a term is, “a definition that attempts to formulate a theoretically adequate or scientifically useful description of the objects to which the term applies”. Theoretical definition is what we have been working with in 5033 as we attempt to define the term ‘information’ among others.

The reason for bothering to post about definitions is not gripe that definitions are not adequate, this is true for nearly any field of study, it is to illustrate what appears to be an identity crisis in information studies. This crisis is between the “applied” discipline and the “theoretical” discipline, again this dichotomy holds in many fields.

Those most interested in applications tend to want lexical definitions or at most stipulative. They just want to learn the terms and go to work. Those most interested in theory may work with all types of definition but spend their efforts largely on theoretical definitions. Precising definitions are used by everyone (one hopes).

So this illustrates the possibility, an almost intuitive one, that those working in the applied discipline are in a different linguistic sphere than those in the theoretical.

If you’ve read through my previous posts it is probably clear to you that I have some affection for formal logic. In fact I am committed to the study of formal logic and its limits and I think formal logic should be a required college course. Especially now that I am in the MSKM program where there are courses with names like “organization of Information”, “indexing and abstracting” and “database management” I am at least a little bit shocked that a class or an undergraduate background in formal logic is not required.

Even in 5033 I notice areas in which my study of logic is helpful, though I admit it can sometimes be a block too. But as I said, I am as concerned with the limits of logic as I am with logic itself. The area of logic that I have in mind in 5033, and this material can be found outside of logic which may be why it’s not required, is discussion of definitions.

With all of the theories we are studying in 5033 and the (or at least my) constant hang up on what is meant by terms, most notably the term ‘information’ I think it is worth considering the matter. It is also worth considering it because in our writing we are expected to present logical arguments and without good definitions of terms ambiguity and vagueness can creep in and the argument appears incoherent. For example, suppose I argue as follows:

Premise 1: Fear is a threat to American society

Premise 2: Aliens are a cause of fear

Conclusion: Therefore aliens are a threat to American society

Before one accepts or attacks this argument it is necessary first to decide what is meant by the terms, notably the term ‘Alien.’ The argument may be questionable either way but the way one questions it turns on whether ‘aliens’ means ‘humans ‘from other countries’ or whether ‘aliens’ means ‘extra-terrestrials.’

In the same way for an argument about what constitutes information overload and how to deal with it to be expedient, we need to understand the terms. In this case it may be that reducing to the individual terms ‘information’ and ‘overload’ separately is the way to begin or maybe we should just concentrate on the combination, ‘information overload.’ Either way though, it doesn’t work to just let the reader fill in the meaning because if the reader equivocates on terms (i.e. thinks “humans from Mexico” when the writer means “extra-terrestrials”) the reader will have missed the whole point. And besides, when the reader is free to fill in meaning then it’s no longer the writer’s argument. This is why much academic writing begins with definitions and why legal contracts often begin the same way. It’s also why so many students reflexively start papers with “Webster’s defines the term ‘alien’ as…”

So, now that I suggested that logic is important, and shown that logic and argument are reliable only when terms are well defined I will, in my next post, talk about different types of definitions.

Doc Martens recommended that I read the recent publication by Danny P. Wallace (also on the OU-SLIS Faculty) entitled Knowledge Management: Historical and Cross Disciplinary Themes. Fed-Ex showed up with it last week and began reading it immediately. I expect the rest of the book to hold my interest as captive as what I have read so far. I won’t say more in the way of review since I have only read the first chapter; instead I want to touch on the part of that chapter dealing Michael Polanyi’s “The Logic of Tacit Inference.”

Wallace discusses Polanyi’s notion of “tacit knowing” in which, “The possessor of a skill (Polanyi uses the example of riding a bicycle) or talent, such as innate artistic ability, may find it quite literally impossible to explain the nature or processes of that skill or talent.” (Wallace 2007, p. 1

I interpret this “tacit knowing” to often be that which underlies intuition. And thinking of it this way reminds me of a friend and former professor who is studying how humans come to absorb the ability to parse the logic inherent in the use of language. The idea is that when a child is learning language they are tacitly picking up certain logical rules along the way. Most two-year-old children don’t study logic or grammar but still manage to learn both through some sort of absorption. The question is how this happens.

My point is to suggest one example of the sort of “tacit knowing” that I take Wallace to be showing from Polanyi’s work. If it is a relevant example then the work done in trying to answer how children learn the ability to parse logic should be of value for KM because it may suggest methods for the transfer of tacit knowledge which Wallace, with a lot of support from the KM literature, suggests is a real problem to be solved.

In my previous post I laid out my view of rationality as a hybrid between coherence internal to the system and correspondence to the World outside of the system. The system in that case was the individual person, their system of beliefs and desires and the connections of those beliefs and desires to the World around them, this latter being commonly referred to as evidence.

David Hume suggested that for an individual to be truly rational he or she must proportion his belief to the evidence. Another way of saying this is that an individual is rational when his system of beliefs is alterable (and that it is in fact altered) in light of new information.

If information is evidence in the sense of supporting beliefs then that in concert with these views on rationality suggest potential new ways of thinking about issues of concern to information professionals. The concerns that immediately come to my mind include information anxiety, information overload, information choice, information sourcing, information literacy, information education and so on (nearly) ad infinitum.

One idea relates to information overload. If one is rational in both senses noted above then when new information comes in, the belief system goes on high alert to fit the new information. If the belief formed by the new information is coherent with the system as it is, the belief is accepted (believed), if it does not cohere to the system as it is, then either the new belief is rejected (dis-belief), or held in stasis (i.e. a state of non-belief) until enough of the system has changed to fit the new information or until more relevant information comes along that connects that belief to the system (or possibly both). The interesting thing on my very fast and loose notion is in the non-belief category.

My theory is that when one is in a state of non-belief with more and more information coming in he or she begins to experience at least one version of information overload. There is just too much information for the system to sort through without stopping to work out what to assimilate, what to reject and what to put on further hold.

Anyway, I have not done any research, I am just ideating. The main point is that the field of information studies can benefit from thinking about its issues in terms of rationality. I haven’t established this nor did I really intend to in this venue so thanks for indulging me.

TTFN