School of Information Resources and Library Science

"Applies various theories of knowledge to information science. Emphasis on identifying practices that information services such as libraries can adopt to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge."

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Basically, epistemology is concerned with how it is that people know what they know. Work in epistemology has typically focused on how individuals working alone acquire knowledge about the world. However, in the past few decades, researchers have been looking at how people acquire knowledge in a social context. Social epistemology is concerned, for example, with how a person acquires knowledge from other people. But why should social epistemology be of interest to library and information professionals?

Note: One clue that it might be of interest is that the term social epistemology was first used by two library scientists: Jesse Shera and Margaret Egan of the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago.

When someone goes to a library or surfs the Internet for information, s/he typically wants to acquire some knowledge. Information professionals try to facilitate this acquisition of knowledge. Librarians want the patron to be better informed when s/he leaves the library than when s/he arrived. (In fact, this is arguably the sine qua non of libraries.) Social epistemology is concerned with how we can go about acheiving this goal. In other words, it is concerned with identifying those practices that best facilitate the acquisition of knowledge (see, e.g., Goldman 1999 and Shera 1961).

In the first part of this course, we will survey some of the current theoretical work in social epistemology. Next, we will look at several practical applications of social epistemology to information science (e.g., in the areas of collection management, reference work, access to information, and the Internet). We will look at practices that the producers and disseminators of information are in a position to implement and we will try to determine how well these practices foster the acquisition of knowledge from recorded information.

Technical Prerequisites:

Students taking this course will need to satisfy the standard SIRLS technical requirements. In addition, several assignments in this course require students to create web pages. Furthermore, at least one assignment requires students to create a web page and post it on the web. Tips for doing this will be posted in D2L. Please contact the instructor if you have questions about these prerequisites.

Course Format:

This course will be taught virtually using a D2L course on the Web. Enrolled students will be given accounts by the start of the semester.

Note: Information about using D2L is available at http://www.sir.arizona.edu/resources/computing.html#d2l. If you have trouble with D2L, you can contact the D2L Support Staff (d2l@email.arizona.edu). (In addition, you can contact the SIRLS "D2L GAT" for the emester.) Send the D2L staff an email message explaining exactly what is
happening.

I plan to post one lecture per week. I plan to post these lectures on Wednesday afternoon or evening. So, you should find them posted in the "Content" area of the D2L course by the following morning.

I will set up a discussion forum for each lecture. Online discussions of the content of the course will take place in these forums. The participation requirement for this course requires active participation in these discussions. Lectures will typically conclude with a few possible discussion questions. You should have something thoughtful to say (a question, a comment, a reply, etc.) every week or so. But in order to stay up-to-date on discussions and announcements, you should check into D2L every day or so.

Note: The last day of classes this semester is em>December 5th. This will be the last official day for participation. However, D2L hould still be accessible for at least a couple of weeks after that point. I will still be checking in on the discussions and you are free to continue posting to the discussion forums.

I have a couple of small requests with regard to the discussion forums. These forums will be our main mode of communication in this course. In order to keep this communication more or less organized, I will set up different forums for different purposes. For example, in addition to a forum for each lecture, I will also set up a "Greetings" forum for you to describe who you are and why you are taking this particular course. So, my first request is that you try to direct your comments to the appropriate forum. My second request is that you use D2L email, instead of the forums, for any personal correspondence.

Note: If I need to communicate with you directly, I will typically send you a D2L email message. So, in addition to regularly checking the discussion forums, you need to regularly check your D2L email account (or you need to have your D2L email forwarded to your regular email account).