Foundations of Information Science

You’ll complete three reading responses over the course of the semester:

1. A response to one of the first four readings:
   • Meaningful stuff: documents
   • Producing meaning: semiosis
   • Measuring patterns: information theory
   • Establishing systematic groups
2. A response to one of the last four readings:
   • Deductively reasoning about groups: Boolean algebra
   • Inductively reasoning about groups: Bayesian inference
   • Comparing selecting techniques
   • Automation of selecting labor
3. A response for our final week of regular meetings (week of 4/12)

These responses will be posted to the forums in the Sakai for your recitation. Each response will be worth 2% of your grade, with a maximum of 5% for all three. They must be submitted to Sakai by noon on the day before your recitation meets. Late submissions will receive no credit.

The reading responses should be 300–500 words. In that space, you should do at least one of the following:

• Relate some argument or concept from the reading to an example from your everyday life, your other other courses, or something we have covered in previous weeks. (Feel free to disagree with the reading!)
• Present a portion of the reading you found difficult or unclear, describe what you think it means, and ask questions that would clarify things for you.
• Raise questions that you would think would be valuable to lead discussion in class.

(Note: We do not want you to simply summarize the reading!)

You will sign up for your weeks of reading responses ahead of time. More detail will be given in your recitation sections. We will also provide more detail on the final response later in the semester.

Each week you will take a short quiz to check your understanding of that week’s reading. Reading quizzes are due at 9:30AM Tuesday each week (right before the Zoom lecture begins). New quizzes will be posted Tuesday evenings, giving you six days to complete each one.

For the first exam you will demonstrate, in writing, your understanding of the concepts introduced during the first unit. Specifically, you will be asked to analyze a form of communication from the perspectives of documentation, semiotics, and information theory.

The exam is available here.

Due Friday, February 11 at 11:59 PM.

The exam consists of 37 questions. 35 of these questions are multiple choice. The other 2 questions are also multiple choice, but require a short written justification of your answer. The questions focus primarily on the material we’ve covered during the second unit of the course. Some questions cover material from the first unit.

The exam is available here.

You can take the exam at any time; however it must be submitted by 11:55PM on Sunday, March 13.

During the last five weeks of the semester, working with two or three of your classmates, you will apply what you’ve learned to analyze a real-world selecting system. You will present your analysis in the form of a video.

Proposals are due the week starting March 29. Turn in your proposal to your recitation instructor.

During the week starting April 19, your group will give a 5–7 minute presentation in recitation highlighting what progress you’ve made on your selection system analysis.

A detailed description of the requirements for the final project is available here.

Your video presentation should be submitted via Panopto. (I will post an announcement with detailed instructions on how to submit closer to the due date.)

Each group should only submit one video.

Due April 29 at 11:59PM.