Image by AlphachimpStudio via Flickr

Aside from my internship at the Smithsonian Institution, I had one goal this summer: dig deeper into understanding, analyzing and representing information.

I set out to learn more about theory, analysis, and implementation through a fairly methodical method. As a Master’s student at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, I have already had a huge head start and knew where to look and what to look for. There are also the blogs and twitter accounts I follow. Combining everything, I was able to come up with common trends and themes and vet them against what everybody was saying and writing.

What turned out was a list that will take you from the big picture, atmospheric view all the way down to pixel level decisions and everything in between.

I am in varying stages of completion (there is another list I am working through as well) with the listed books and will keep hammering at them throughout the upcoming semester. BTW, a number of these books can be purchased through O’Reilly Media, which regularly has some pretty sweet sales (buy 2 get one free, discounts for digital books, etc.).

Theory

I was first made aware of Edward R. Tufte‘s work in Jaime Snyder‘s course on Information Design. The guy is essentially the godfather/granddaddy of information design and visualization, analytic design, and associated creative processes. Definitely worth getting the hardcover editions of both. They are full color and gorgeous.

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward R. Tufte
• Envisioning Information - Edward R. Tufte

Analysis

This is  a wonderfully comprehensive book and, like the Yau offering, could be listed in multiple categories. I put it under ‘Analysis’ because it is a great – and friendly – primer for really digging deep into data analysis. I got the Ebook (available in the following f ormats: APK, DAISY, ePub, Mobi, PDF) and found that to work best for me. I am on the computer already so having the digital copy there makes it easy.

• Head First Data Analysis - Michael Milton

Implementation

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Since created by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, it has taken off like wildfire and, from what I found, is standard, required knowledge for taking information interpretation to the next level. Though I am (not yet) a programmer, I have been able to battle through the tomes with some success. I got the Pearson book in soft cover (nice color graphics in the beginning and comes with the Ebook free) and the others in Ebook format.

1. Generative Art – Matt Pearson
2. Getting Started with Processing - Casey Reas, Ben Fry
3. Visualizing Data – Ben Fry

Related articles

• Ben Fry, Information Designer (slate.com)
• Slopegraphs (kottke.org)
• What I am reading at the moment (kitlas.com)

Image via Wikipedia

For my final project in IST 681 – Metadata, I created the Joshua Kitlas Metadata Element Set.

Follow this link to be taken to the project page where you will find a user guide, element set specifications, schema, metadata records, as well as a reflection and summary

Related articles

• DataCite2RDF – Mapping DataCite Metadata Scheme Terms to ontologies (opencitations.wordpress.com)
• Lifting the Lid on Linked Data (slideshare.net)
• Metadata Formally Recognized by Courts (arnoldit.com)
• The Semantic Web: Layered Architecture (herefordcomputer.com)
• Improve your taxonomy management using the W3C SKOS standard (ibm.com)
• Ontology for Media Resources 1.0 (w3.org)
• Project to Set Educational Metadata Standards Launched (downes.ca)

Smithsonian Castle Interior (Belly of the Whale)

A version of this is also posted on the Syracuse University iSchool blog, Information Space.

I am now nearing the end of my internship. In my last post, I promised to make this one about the projects I am working on and the skills and tools I am using to execute them. If at any point this post begins to sound like an advertisement or glowing review of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies…it is.

There were many things that first drew me to this internship at the Smithsonian Institution – the focus on professional development, the rigorous and diverse set of projects, and that the work combined library and information science skills and information management skills. I am jointly pursuing a LIS and IM degree so getting an internship that had elements of each was critical.

Of all the courses I have taken in my year at the iSchool, the following four classes – in this order – have provided me with the skills, tools, and knowledge to execute the projects I am working on at the Smithsonian

• IST 659 Data Administration Concepts and Database Management (Bei Yu)
  • From day one, I was writing SQL scripts to organize, manipulate, and extract data from entities with tens of thousands of records. This is not something for Excel. As nice as Excel is, and I do really like the software, it just does not have the engine to work nimbly with very large amounts of information. Aside from SQL, I was called on a couple times to explain theory and best practice in database design – all learned from Bei Yu and IST 659.
• IST 616 Information Resources: Organization and Access (Jian Qin)
  • I have had to do a LOT of ordering and structuring of digital resources in this internship. Every day I have worked through the nature of information-based problems and how information systems address these problems, the concepts, principles, standards, and technologies of information organization, the human aspects of information organization, and how organized information affects information search/retrieval.
• IST 600 Information Design (Jaime Snyder)
  • This course is a great companion to just about everything at the iSchool. It should be required, in my opinion. How did I use what I learned in Information Design at this internship? Primarily on a theoretical level and linked closely to the practicality of what I learned in 616, but also in designing the components of information-driven systems in my projects.
• IST 631 Enterprise Technologies (Dave Dischiave)
  • More than once the enterprise technology concepts discussed in this class came up. After educating some senior (rank not age) staff members about virtualization and ‘scaling up’ versus ‘scaling down’, I was labeled as ‘the expert’. In the meetings and casual water cooler conversations following, I was asked regularly to weigh in on questions about enterprise technology issues a lot more than I anticipated, sometimes daily.

As you can see, there is both a mix of IM and LIS classes and their real world applications. There are also bits and pieces from other classes that I employed on a regular basis. The iSchool had me well prepared, to say the least. On a separate note, if anyone wonders about the credibility of the iSchool in the real world, I definitely got more than a handful of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ after telling new colleagues and staffers my academic affiliation.

It has been a great experience and I only regret that the internship does not run longer.

If you want to ask me any questions, please do not hesitate – my email is jkitlas@syr.edu or you can go to http://kitlas.com

Transforming an Information Vessel

The presentation and delivery of information on a product says as much about the product and its uses as it does about the manufacturer. In this study, I have reconstructed product information, including packaging, to tell a new story about the product and manufacturer, giving it a fresh perception.

View the whole thing > HERE

Smithsonian Institution

I’m VERY excited about this one…

http://ischool.syr.edu/newsroom/news.aspx?recid=1130

Awesome

It is also snowing again.

Finish Line by jayneandd

So here’s the requisite final post (referred to in class as the ‘visual journal’) of the Spring 2011 semester for IST 600-Information Design. This course affected me on so many levels that it is hard to isolate one ‘aha’ or epiphanic moment. I was touched mentally and physically, socially and emotionally and had an unexpected exploration of self.

I entered the course thinking it was going to (hoping to) be about making pretty pictures (infographics) out of data. I envisioned completing the class with a portfolio of subtly colored maps and quirky graphics telling stories about historic facts overlaid with Web 4.0 graphics. While I did get to create some of those visual chefs-d’oeuvre, there was a lot more to the class than pretty graphics.

There was the:

Academic – Theories and writing of Vannevar Bush, Tim Berners-Lee and challenging the concept of ‘what is information?’

Artistic – the pretty pictures I tried to make (which are a lot harder to make than I ever thought)

Mind bending(ness) – visual and statistical thinking, visualizing sound

Practical – Field studies and field reports (aka creative briefs)

Applicable – Paper prototyping, Illustrator, and InDesign

Ultimately, this course was a tool that enabled a deep exploration of the user, the motivations of the user, the struggles of the user and the freedom and clarity the user needs to function and thrive in an information environment.

Everyone should take this class.

I’m pursuing two degrees (MS in Library and Information Science and MS in Information Management) and making sure that I have all my requirements met is always on my mind. I’m pretty confident that I’m on top of things, but there’s always that shadow of a doubt. I’m still new-ish to academia (my re-entry was September 2010) and am chagrined to admit that I’m not fully adjusted to all the rules, regulations and systems. And having big $$$ involved (cost of tuition) always ratchets the concern level up another notch or two.

This situation seemed like it would offer an opportunity to practice wayfinding.

I have to do an internship for each program as a part of their requirements for graduation. I heard through the grapevine that dual-degree candidates like me might be able to have one of the internships waived if you have prior work experience. Fortunately I do have prior work experience (about 13 years’ worth). It’s not that I don’t want to do internships (as we speak I’m interning with Johns Hopkins), it’s just that I don’t want to pay to work. The New York Times recently had an Op-Ed piece on this very subject, ‘Unpaid Interns, Complicit Colleges’ (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/opinion/03perlin.html?_r=1&emc=eta1)

At any rate, I do need to do an internship, and pay for it, so I can get credit for it, graduate, make the world a better place and live happily ever after.

And now my wayfinding begins. I classified the experience into 3 phases.

Phase 1 – How to pay for it

My primary concern was getting financial aid as I could not take the course without the money.

Ok so the Maymester course I’m already signed up for can be included with the internship ‘course’ which will bring me to 6 credits. Yeah! Another loan from Uncle Sam.

Phase 2– Drop an internship requirement

I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure that this could be done, but let’s see how it goes.

Phase 3– Course selection

Now, let’s see if the courses are available.

Yup. Done deal.

Now as much as this was wayfinding, I found that my process for representing the experience was an example of wayfinding itself.

I’ve been really trying hard to teach myself some of the Adobe Creative Suite’s big names (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.). It really drives me nuts and literally hours go by as I’m trying to figure out how to do something very basic. I want to get better with them and school is obviously a good time to experiment. However, I’m enrolled in 4 classes, have one internship and one Faculty Assistantship so time is very tight.

I realized I don’t have the time to put in to learning the software. I came to this realization after sketching out my ideas on paper and then trying to put it together in Illustrator. It just looked like crap. I have a scan of my initial sketch and an image showing where I stopped developing my visualizations using Illustrator.

I eventually put the visuals together in Visio.

VIEW THE FULL REPORT HERE

Like many others, I have concerns about how the forces around (and inside) me affect my performance in various events as well as my day to day well?being. To date, I have kept track of my well?being using a rating system which I have developed, a grocery list, and my memory. There are effective elements of this system and elements that do not carry enough data or create enough influence to be effective.

Although the system has highlights (the rating system) the other elements fail and the system needs complementary components to capture more data and turn that data into a useful information system. The present system is essentially a failure and has been long in need of an intervention.

I took the opportunity of this field study to do a comprehensive analysis, restructuring, and reinvention of the information system. I initially had concerns that a week wouldn’t be long enough to properly test and make appropriate refinements to the system, but after only two days I experienced significant and startling results. Given that my observations and reactions were so marked, I stayed with the study and tested it until the morning of Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at which time I began to compile all my notes, inputs and observations to create this report.

VIEW THE FULL REPORT HERE

Presentation for IST 618.

Prezi: http://prezi.com/svpmydrutrzn/global-governance-of-the-internet/

PowerPoint: Global Governance of the Internet