Don FallisAssociate ProfessorE-mail: fallis@email.arizona.edu |
 |
Education
- PhD, University of California, Irvine, Philosophy
- MA, University of California, Irvine, Philosophy
- BA, University of California, Irvine, Philosophy
- BA, University of California, Irvine, Psychology
Biography
I received my PhD in Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. In particular, I studied the philosophy of mathematics. When I came to work in a library and information science program, I had to reinvent myself both as a teacher and a researcher. However, the necessary transformation was not as drastic as I might have expected.
In my previous studies, I looked at how mathematicians acquire knowledge. Now I am looking at how people in general acquire knowledge from other people. In particular, I am doing research on how people acquire knowledge from other people through information sources such as books and the Internet. I regularly teach a course that looks at how to make it easier for people to evaluate the quality of information.
The project of figuring out which social practices best facilitate the acquisition of knowledge is known as social epistemology. Several library scientists (most notably, Jesse Shera) have long argued that social epistemology is central to library science. For example, librarians typically want patrons to be better informed when they leave the library. I teach a course that applies various results in social epistemology to library and information science.
In addition to courses about social epistemology, I teach some courses for those who intend to become managers of information services. In particular, I teach a course that looks at decision making techniques that will allow managers to run their libraries more efficiently. Also I teach a course that looks specifically at the economics of disseminating information and its impact on information services.
Finally, I teach a course on ethics for library and information professionals. This course applies ethical theories to important issues (censorship, privacy, intellectual property, etc.) that regularly confront all library and information professionals. By the way, I am also one of the organizers of the annual Information Ethics Roundtable which focuses on these same issues.
Teaching Areas
- Information Quality
- Social Epistemology and Information Science
- Economics of Information
- Decision Making for Library and Information Professionals
- Ethics for Library and Information Professionals
Research Areas
- Epistemology
- Social Epistemology
- Philosophy of Information
- Information Ethics
Selected Publications
- "Toward an Epistemology of Wikipedia", Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59, 10, (2008): 1662-74.
- "A Conceptual Analysis of Disinformation", Paper presented at the iConference, (2009).
- "What is Lying?", Journal of Philosophy, 106, 1, (2009): 29-56.
- (with Dennis Whitcomb) "Epistemic Values and Information Management", The Information Society, 25, 3, (2009), forthcoming.
- "Social Epistemology and Information Science", Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 40, (2006).
- (editor) Special issue on "Social Epistemology and Information Science", Social Epistemology, 16, 1, (2002).
- "Epistemic Value Theory and Information Ethics", Minds and Machines, 14, 1, (2004): 101-17.
- (with Martin Frické) "Indicators of Accuracy of Consumer Health Information on the Internet", Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 9, 1, (2002): 73-79.
Notable Projects & Activities
- 2003-present, Co-organizer of the Information Ethics Roundtable
- 2006-present, Chair of the Research Group on the History and Philosophy of Information Access
- 2009-present, Associate Editor, Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology
- Erdös number is 5
- Number of Journal of Philosophy articles written which begin with a quote by Philip Marlowe is 2
