Course Description: This upper division undergraduate research seminar provides an opportunity for participants to develop an assessment on the character and quality of informational resources available to residents of Philadelphia and other urban centers. As a community service learning course, this research activity will be conducted in cooperation with teachers and students at West Philadelphia High School [West]. Each seminar participant will produce a final report reflecting his or her individual interest and enterprise. Student performance will be evaluated periodically on the basis of written and oral reports. Ten percent of the final grade will be based on an assessment of the level and quality of each student’s participation in the seminar.

Goals of the course:

• Develop an understanding of “information” as a resource from the prospective of providers, and users [actual and potential].
• Develop an understanding of information resources [systems, devices, facilities, persons, institutions, utilities etc.] that enable people to gather information they can use to reduce the gaps between what they need, and what they have.
• Develop an understanding of the individual, structural, cultural, and other influences that help determine the accessibility of various information resources to different members of different communities in Philadelphia and other urban centers.
• Work cooperatively with student members of the QWEST project to develop their capacity, and the capacity of their newspaper to act as an information resource for their community. This will mean seminar participants and students from West will have to:

1. Develop, and come to agreement about who the “community” or “audience” or “users” of the QWEST newspaper actually are.
2. Develop an understanding of the range of information needs that exist in these communities.
3. Develop an understanding of the kinds of informational “helps” that a newspaper can provide
4. Develop an understanding of the kinds of informational resources that students have at hand, those they have access to, and those they may wish to develop. This will mean evaluating a variety of resources that help to define computer-assisted journalism:

• • a. directories
  • b. databases, charts, and maps
  • c. technological systems [Internet and World Wide Web]
  • d. organizations

e. individuals

5. The development of student capacity as computer-assisted journalists will be enabled in part through the completion of one or more independent or related projects that would be published in QWEST this Spring.

Potential projects might include:

1. Building stories from public records

-census data [cd-rom]
-state and county data
-school district data
-voter registration
-jury lists
-campaign giving
-licenses and registration
-accidents
-crime reports
-housing sales

3. Developing community information resource maps by a variety of means:

• a. information audits
• b. surveys
• c. database analysis

d. informational GIS

Student Projects: Each student will develop an individual research project that will explore some aspect of urban information resources. It may explore the relation between information needs and available resources. It may evaluate existing resources, or identify the barriers that separate individuals from the information they need. It may involve the development of a plan for improving access to information. Seminar participants will be expected to attract and maintain the interest of West students as participants in a collective research enterprise that can produce an academic report, as well as a newspaper article.

Tentative Course Outline

January 12 Introduction: Information
Reading: Haywood

January 14 Information users perspectives
Reading: Dervin [1976]
Dervin [1989]
Dervin and Nilan
Kochen

January 19 Information Resources/Civic Networking
Reading: Bikson, et al
Law and Keltner
Rubinyi
Sproull and Faraj
Wellman

January 21 Computer-assisted Journalism
[Ms. Geraldine Gary from West joins us]
Reading: Koch [1991]
Koch [1994]

January 26 Database journalism, spreadsheets, etc.
Reading: DeFleur
Garrison
Stewart

January 28 Geographic information systems [GIS]
[First meeting at West w/Ms. Gary]
Reading: Goss [1995a, 1995b]

February 2nd Engaging GIS
Reading: Monmonier
Ottensmann
Stern

February 4 Discussing information needs
[First meeting at West with students: for balance of semester, Thursdays will be at West Philadelphia High School]

February 9 Preliminary proposals due [20% of grade]

February 11 Presentations/discussions at West

February 16 Discussion/revisions

February 18 Presentations/discussions at West

February 23 Discussion/revisions [students at West discuss/vote for project teams]

February 25 First field trip [as project teams]: West Philadelphia Regional Library

March 2 Discussion/revisions

March 4 First individual field trip [project teams]

March 16 Revised proposals due [10% of grade]

March 18 Second individual field trip [project teams]

March 23 Discussion/assessment

March 25 Third individual field trip [project teams]

March 30 Discussion/assessment

April 1st Preliminary report due [20% of grade]

April 6 Article planning discussion

April 8 Article development at West

April 13 Discussion/assessment

April 15 Article development at West

April 20 Final oral report [10% of grade]

April 22 Article development at West

April 27 Final paper due by 2PM [30% of grade]

Course Evaluation: Grades in the course are based primarily on the scheduled oral and written presentations [90%]. An assessment of the quality and character of each student’s participation in the seminar will also be provided [10%].

Course Materials: Coursebook materials are available from the Campus Copy Center, 3907 Walnut Street

Assigned readings from bulkpack
Bikson, T. and C. Panis (1995). Computers and connectivity: Current trends. Universal Access to E-Mail. Feasibility and societal implications. R. Anderson, T. Bikson, S. A.

Law and B. Mitchell. Santa Monica, CA, RAND: 13-40.

DeFleur, M. (1997). Chapters 5, 9. Computer-assisted investigative reporting: Development and methodology. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum: 96-111; 211-237.

Dervin, B. (1976). The everyday information needs of the average citizen. A taxonomy for analysis. Information for the community. M. Kochen and J. Donohue. Chicago, The American Library Association: 19-38.

Dervin, B. and M. Nilan (1986). “Information needs and uses.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 21: 3-33.

Dervin, B. (1989). “Users as research inventions: How research categories perpetuate inequities.” Journal of Communication 39(3): 216-232.

Garrison, B. (1996). Chapters 1,3. Successful strategies for computer-assisted reporting.

Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum: 1-27, 48-84.

Goss, J. (1995). “‘We know who you are and we know where you live’: The instrumental rationality of geodemographic systems.” Economic Geography 71(2): 171.

Goss, J. (1995). “Marketing the New Marketing.” Ground truth. The social implications of geographic information systems. J. Pickles. New York, The Guilford Press: 130-170.

Haywood, T. (1995). Info-rich-info-poor. London, Bowker: 1-34.

Koch, T. (1991). Chapters 4,6. Journalism for the 21st Century. New York, Greenwood Press: 183-235; 301-329.

Koch, T. (1994). “Computers vs. Community: A Call for Bridging the Gap between Two Camps, Two Tools.” The Quill v82(4): 18.

Kochen, M. (1976). “What Makes a Citizen Information System Used and Useful.” Information for the Community. M. Kochen and J. Donohue. Chicago, American Library Association: 149-169.

Law, S. and B. Keltner (1995). “Civic Networks: Social Benefits of On-line Communities.” Universal Access to E-Mail. R. Anderson, T. Bikson, S. Law and B. Mitchell. Santa Monica, CA, RAND: 119-150.

Monmonier, M. (1991). Chapters 4,5,6. How to Lie with Maps. Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 43-86.

Ottensmann, J. (1997). “Using Geographic Information Systems to Analyze Library Utilization.” Library Quarterly 67(1): 24-49.

Rubinyi, R. (1989). “Computers and Community: The Organizational Impact.” Journal of Communication 39(3): 110-123.

Sproull, L. and S. Faraj (1997). “Atheism, Sex, and Databases: The Net as a Social Technology.” Culture of the Internet. S. Keisler. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum: 35-51.

Stern, M. J. (1998). Re-presenting the City: Arts, Culture, Diversity in Philadelphia, Social Impact of the Arts Project. 1998.

Stewart, D. (1984). Government Information, Part I. Census Data. Secondary Research. Beverly Hills, CA, Sage: 35-57.

Wellman, B. (1997). “An Electronic Group is Virtually a Social Network.” Culture of the Internet. S. Keisler. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum: 179-205.