Analysis of I-Schools

I-Schools are interested in the relationship between information, technology and people (ITP), characterized by a commitment to learning and understanding the role of information in human endeavors. By bringing together faculty from a range of more traditional disciplines (e.g. computer science, library science, sociology, psychology, business, etc.) to conduct multidisciplinary research, I-Schools aim to provide efficient solutions to problems that require skills of various disciplines. Thus, they help improve understanding of the users and users of information, as well as information technologies and their applications, so as to maximize the utility of information technology to benefit people and the society. For example, the mission of the School of Information in UC Berkley is to "explore and develop solutions and shape policies that influence how people seek, use and share information to create knowledge" (http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu). IST in Penn State is also a leading information school whose foundation is "in research and education that revolves around the creation, implementation, and impact of information technology by drawing from multiple theories, methods, disciplines, and perspectives" (http://www.ist.psu.edu).

The fundamental assumption of information schools is with the proliferation of internet and new technology, the new merging problems become more complex and difficult to solve with knowledge only from one discipline. The perspective of one discipline is always limited because the traditional discipline is not willing to find intersection with others. Computer science only cares about technology and sociology only concerns people and society. Thus, for new the merging complicated problems, a new lens integrating skills and knowledge from multiple disciplines is needed to address them.

The most remarkable thing about the I-Schools is the variety of their origins and the broad embrace of their intellectual interests. The rising of I-Schools in the following three principle ways bring different challenges to the establishment of I-School identity (King, j. L., 2006): from the repurposing of pre-existing schools; from the merging of pre-existing but disparate academic programs; and from the creation of altogether new programs by hiring faculty primarily from outside the institution. The most prominent is the balancing of endowment identity inherited from the founding population of the school against emergent identity embracing competing visions of the future (King, j. L., 2006). 

Understand the identity of I-Schools and their developing trend in future takes me the way here, College of Information Science and Technology at Penn State.

References:

·         John Leslie King. Identity in the I-School Movement. April/May 2006. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-06/king.html.