- Methods Question (Required)
Although concerns about the “explosion” or “glut” of information date back at least to H.G. Wells’s World Brain and Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think, the recent and dramatic acceleration in information generation and circulation is among the most significant consequences of digital technologies and the Internet. As noted in a recent special report in The Economist (2010), the so-called data deluge “makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done...But [the data] are also creating a host of new problems.” The article suggests that these problems include privacy issues; information security; the retention of digital records; the implications of large-scale data processing or “super-crunching”; personal information as a property right; and the integrity of information.
Your task is to write a proposal for a research study on some aspect of the data deluge noted above. Articulate one or more research questions about your chosen aspect and design a study that will allow you to answer your question(s). Among its parts, your proposal should include the following: an explanation of the significance of the research question(s); a review of previous relevant literature; an articulation and justification of a research design appropriate for your research question(s); an explanation of your choice of evidence, including the collection and analysis of data; and a statement of the limitations of the design and of the study.
- Theory Question (Choose One)
2010 was the year of Wikileaks. Discuss the phenomena in terms of archives, secrecy, intellectual freedom and information ecology. What factors have enabled Wikileaks and how do they relate to the everyday practicies of libraries and information services.
OR
For this question, write an essay, organized into two main parts.
First, summarize the development and debates/controversies surrounding two classical approaches to information retrieval: the “manual indexing” approach, which focuses on controlled vocabularies and expert-generated metadata, and the “automated indexing” approach, which focuses on natural language, weighting and ranking techniques (and whose history extends from the Cranfield tests to the Google page rank algorithm, crowdsourcing and “folksonomies”). Outline the conceptual/theoretical basis, justification, and assumptions of the two approaches, and compare their advantages and disadvantages.
Second, based on your overview and comparison, discuss the following questions: Do the two approaches constitute competing paradigms, or are they complementary/dialectical approaches to IR? In your view, what are the prospects for future IR systems? Will one or another approach dominate in the future, or are hybrids emerging? Justify your views using relevant research literature as well as at least one concrete example of a contemporary IR system.