I am a firm believer in the critical role public scholarship must play in any scholar’s repertoire, and especially those interested in addressing and influencing policy and social justice. And, I have been shown the power of public scholarship first-hand by those who I’ve been lucky to call my teachers, mentors and friends, such as Neil Postman, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Jack Balkin, just to name a few.

In an attempt to instill the importance of public scholarship on my own PhD students, I included a public scholarship assignment in the Information Policy Seminar I recently taught. The results were excellent, and took the form of op-eds, open letters, and blog posts critically addressing a range of current topics in information policy.

Four of my students gave me permission to repost their assignments on my blog, which I will release separately. They include:

• “Avoiding getting burned by FireSheep”, by Nick Proferes
• “Google Book Search – The Decision Not to Digitize”, by Jeremy Mauger
• “Internet Neutrality Principles Should Apply to Wireless Providers”, by Liza Barry-Kessler; and
• A 3-part series: “Asserting Rights Online”, by Anthony Hoffmann

Please feel free to comment on their work.

L&I SCI 691: Special Topics in Information Science: Search Engine Society (syllabus)

Search engines have become the center of gravity of our contemporary information society, providing a powerful interface for accessing the vast amount of information available on the World Wide Web and beyond. The audacious mission of Google, for example, is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Attaining such a goal necessarily results in significant changes to the ways in which information is created, stored, retrieved, and used. This course will critically examine the nature of search engines and their role in our information society, and reveal the unique challenges they bring to bear on information institutions, information policy, and information ethics.

Readings include:

• Battelle, J. (2005). The search: How Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture. New York: Portfolio. [selected chapters]
• Halavais, A. (2008). Search Engine Society. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN: 978-0-7456-4215-4
• Grimmelmann, J. (2009). The Google Dilemma. New York Law School Law Review, 53
• Hoofnagle, C. (2009). Beyond Google and evil: How policy makers, journalists and consumers should talk differently about Google and privacy. First Monday, 14(4).
• Pasquale, F., & Bracha, O. (2007). Federal Search Commission? Access, Fairness and Accountability in the Law of Search. U of Texas Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 123
• Samuelson, P. (2009). The Dead Souls of the Google Book Search Settlement, Communications of the ACM, 52(7), 28-30
• Spink, A., & Zimmer, M. (Eds.). (2008). Web Search: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. [selected chapters]
• Vaidhyanathan, S. (2007). The Googlization of Everything and the Future of Copyright. University of California Davis Law Review, 40(3), 1207-1231.
• Zimmer, M. (2008). Privacy on Planet Google: Using the Theory of “Contextual Integrity” to Clarify the Privacy Threats of Google’s Quest for the Perfect Search Engine. Journal of Business & Technology Law, 3(1), 109-126.

L&I SCI 960: Doctoral Seminar: Information Policy (syllabus)

This is a doctoral level seminar in information policy. This seminar will examine the conceptual, institutional, and practical foundations of information policy, law, and ethics. The course explores some of the key paradigms, principles, and forces (privacy, political economy, intellectual property, borders, access, code, protocols, networks) that have both shaped – and are shaped by – information policy. Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between information infrastructure and information policy, as well as the exploration of these issues through transnational and intercultural lenses.

The course will also strive to hone students’ skills as young scholars in information policy, including the drafting of brief research statements, writing of public scholarship, and comparative analysis of policy perspectives.

Readings include:

• Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Bennett, C. J., & Raab, C. D. (2006). The governance of privacy: Policy instruments in global perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
• Braman, S. (2009). Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
• DeNardis, L. (2009). Protocol politics: the globalization of Internet governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
• Galloway, A. (2004). Protocol: How control exists after decentralization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
• Lessig, L. (2006). Code: Version 2.0. New York: Basic Books.
• Nissenbaum, H. (2009). Privacy in context: Technology, policy, and the integrity of social life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
• Noronha, F., & Malcolm, J. (Eds.). (2010). Access to knowledge: A guide for everyone. Kuala Lumpur: Consumers International
• Vaidhyanathan, S. (2001). Copyrights and copywrongs: The rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York: New York University Press.
• Zittrain, J. (2008). The future of the Internet and how to stop it. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Along with these new courses, I’ve been named the official (no longer interim) director of SOIS’s undergraduate program, the (newly-renamed) B.S. in Information Science and Technology. I’m very excited about the challenge of running this degree program, and look forward to working with my colleagues — and our students — to help the program meet its full potential.

One thing I try to instill on my students is how the role of an information professional is to utilize systems to gather information, organize it, make it understandable and useful, turn it into useful knowledge, and communicate it to guide decision-making and other vital functions. From this loose definition, I’ve arrived at a few (rough) catchphrases to try to market our degree’s new identity:

• Some build systems. An IST grad makes systems work.
• An engineer might focus on what a system can do. An IST grad looks at what people can do with the system.
• IST: Building decision systems.
• IST: Developing information systems to make your business work.

And so on, with some struggles.

But today, I think I found a new slogan.

In Milwaukee, we felt the magnitude-5.0 earthquake struck the border region of Ontario and Quebec in Canada. This was quite an unusual event for Milwaukee, especially for a quake so far away. Those in the upper floors of our office building on campus could feel the building sway; some reported bookshelves shaking and other items rocking in their office. Uncertain what was happening, many of us evacuated the building. Figuring it was some kind of earthquake, I took that opportunity to walk over to the Geosciences Department on campus to see if anything was recorded on the University’s seismometer.

Sure enough. So, being the social media/info-geek that I am, I snapped a photo of the display with my phone and posted it to Twitter. By the time I’d walked back to my office, my Facebook status update (sorry, friends only) already had reactions and confirmation that it was indeed an earthquake from Canada.

Meanwhile, I was contacted by someone from the front office at the College of Arts & Sciences (which houses Geosciences), asking if they could repost my picture on their Facebook page. Of course, that’s what social media is for. So, they posted it, thanking me for providing the image (although the phrasing could cause people to believe I’m a professor in Geosciences). Then, I discover that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s article about the quake also uses my photo, but this time correctly identifying me as a faculty member at SOIS.

Now, I have no problem with my photo being used. But some noteworthy items come to light in this episode:

1. It’s interesting that the campus academic unit called to ask for permission before reposting my image, while the for-profit media company did not, apparently having no qualms about using others content for their own “reporting”.
2. It’s even more interesting that apparently no one in Geosciences felt it necessary to issue some kind of official release of data regarding the quake and the university’s official monitoring results. They’re the one’s with the equipment and expertise. I’m just a geek that knew where the seismometer was located and had a camera phone. Why is the university and the local media left to rely on my image (complete with my reflection on the glass) to document this event? What good is the public display of the university seismometer if the information isn’t shared or distributed?

This final point returns us to the search for a suitable catchphrase to explain what our IST program is offering. While the geologists have the equipment and expertise to create information (the seismic graph), the information has only been distributed and made useful by an intervention by an information scholar (me) and my online social networks.

Thus, I have a few new catchphrases:

• A scientist might create information, but an information professional makes it useful.
• Anyone can make information, but an IST grad makes it work.

Search engines have become the center of gravity of our contemporary information society, providing a powerful interface for accessing the vast amount of information available on the World Wide Web and beyond. The audacious mission of Google, for example, is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Attaining such a goal necessarily results in significant changes to the ways in which information is created, stored, retrieved, and used. This course will critically examine the nature of search engines and their role in our information society, and reveal the unique challenges they bring to bear on information institutions, information policy, and information ethics.

The full syllabus is available on my teaching page, and I’ve pasted the weekly breakdown of topics and readings below. I will be assigning Alex Halavais’s excellent text Search Engine Society, chapters out of my edited volume Web Search: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, and will rely heavily on work by James Grimmelmann, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and other preeminent search engine scholars. Let me know if you have additional suggestions for readings (the course is intended for advanced undergraduates and MLIS students).

This will be a very fun class to teach!

The students note that while the technology provides a way to thoroughly search more people without needing to profile those for further pat-downs, they acknowledge that the technology represents a unique invasion into one’s personal body and space.

To mitigate some of the ethical concerns, they propose creating a robust code of ethics to help guide the officials who are using the system (ie, don’t oogle at someone’s image, etc), that users of the technology should undergo frequent “ethical/moral testing” to ensure they are abiding by the code of ethics, and they suggest the design of the system should be modified to blur out some of the more personal areas that can often be exposed.

Given that we didn’t spend too much time on this particular surveillance system, and that this poster was created 6 months before the current increased attention to this technology, I think their brief analysis and suggestions are quite apt.

L&I SCI 110: Introduction to Information Science (syllabus)

This course introduces basic issues in information science and information studies, including the nature of information, information services, information professions, information policy, information ethics, and the complex relationships between information technologies and society.

Objectives:

• Combine theory and everyday examples to provide a broad-based introduction to the field of information science and information studies.
• Connect current information-based institutions and technologies to their historical roots and with their cultural, political, and economic settings.
• Investigate the impact of the development of technology on access to and use of information and the changes that this development causes in the structure and operation of society.

Primary textbook:

• J. Lester and W. Koehler. (2007). Fundamentals of Information Studies: Understanding Information and Its Environment (2nd edition). Neal-Schuman Publishers. ISBN: 9781555705947

L&I SCI 120: Information Technology Ethics (syllabus)

This course provides a comprehensive overview of the current ethical issues in information and communication technology (ICT) use. It examines an array of long-standing and emerging issues facing ICT users, ranging from free speech, privacy, intellectual property, hacking and the digital divide, to ethics in social networking, online communities, and online gaming. The course will discuss the ethical responsibilities of IT professionals, and promote the critical examination and responsible use of ICT.

Objectives:

• To review major ethical theories as they pertain to information and communication technologies
• To explore current issues in ICT policy and the ethical dilemmas that arise in light of them
• To engage with fellow students in a learning environment centered on ethics and ethical decision making
• To investigate students’ ethical responsibilities as members of an ICT-based ecosystem

Primary textbook:

• Ess, C. (2009). Digital Media Ethics. Polity. ISBN: 978-0745641645

Other events taking place this semester include:

• Milwaukee’s OneWebDay festivities (Sept 21-22, 2009)
• IR.10 Internet:Critical conference (Oct 7-10, 2009)

And, I’ll have a more personal announcement to make sometime in mid-November. It will be a busy fall…

The statement focuses on four critical points that should be the basis for any curriculum:

1. The curriculum should be informed by information ethics through a unit in the required foundations (or equivalent) course. This unit should appropriately include the following student objectives:

• to be able to recognize and articulate ethical conflicts in the information field;
• to inculcate a sense of responsibility with regard to the consequences of individual and collective interactions in the information field;
• to provide the foundations for intercultural dialogue through the recognition of different kinds of information cultures and values;
• to provide basic knowledge about ethical theories and concepts and about their relevance to everyday information work; and,
• to learn to reflect ethically and to think critically and to carry these abilities into their professional life.

1. One or more courses devoted specifically to information ethics should be offered on a periodic basis. To most effectively achieve the desired impact, such courses should be taught by a qualified member of the faculty and be based on international literatures from a diversity of viewpoints.
2. Information ethics should be included in study and discussion across the library and information curriculum. It should be infused throughout the curriculum in such areas as management, young adult services, information literacy training, and information-technology related courses.
3. There should be ongoing engagement with information ethics, as challenging questions and issues need to be revisited through the lenses of individuals, institutions, and societies.

[via Library Juice]