September 2008 Archives

My advior is Dr. Zhang Xiaolong. Here, I would like to talk about his research work. His research area is in Information Visualization. Information Visualization is to help people underand and analyze data by using graphical techniques. Different from scientific visualization, information visualization focuses on abstract data, like text, and high-dimensional data. His representative research is multiscale visualization. Multiscale visualization means visual representation changes as user pans and zooms. It helps users to navigate and understand data at different levels. In the future, Dr.Zhang will explore information visualization by involving more intelligent elements, like machine learning, to help users to understand data more easily.

 

IST is an abbreviation of information science and technology. Several universities has a college of IST, such as PennState University, Drexel University. The college of IST in PennState was setup in 1999.

DIfferent from some other I-School from other traditional programs like library science, IST in PennState is a new built inter-disciplinary program which investigates information from all angels: technology, people and society. In such an context, information is not alone research object, and is placed into a triangle of information, people and technology.

The reseach in IST is around the core element information from different levels and different angles. Research at theory anlge of information is more close to philosophy, like philosophy of information. Research at technology anlge of information is focus on how to store and retrieval information efficiently and precisely. Research at people angle of information is focus on how people use information easily and efficiently. Other than on different angles, research can be done from different levels, such like from individuaul level, group level, organization level and national level, to investigate relationship between information and people from these levels.

IST is still in developing. With the development of our society, the research of IST will include more rich and intersting areas.

I-School is an abbreviation of Information School. Just as the name implies, I-School is a school at first. Educating people for the development of our society is always the most important task of a school. Hence, educating people is an important aspect of nature of I-School. However, the key point is what kind of people to educate for I-School.

I-School is a product of information age, which is a result of the global economy's shift from the production of goods to the manipulation of information. Hence, I-School needs to eductate people who can make contribution to the information age. More specifically, I-School need to mainly cultivate three kinds of people: scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. Scientists cultivated by I-School are to develop theories for our information society, help people to understand the information age and predict the future of our information society. Engineers are to develop tools which make people life easier and better. And entrepreneurs are to build informaiton companies to lead the development of our information society.