Course 2011-2012 a.y.

Go to class group/s: 31

CLMG (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - M (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - IM (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - MM (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - AFC (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - CLAPI (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - CLEFIN-FINANCE (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - CLELI (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - ACME (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - DES-ESS (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - EMIT (6 credits - I sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10)

Course Director:
LUIGI PROSERPIO

Course Objectives

The nature of information is currently facing a major transformation: user-generated content, bottom-up collaborative innovation and social network applications are producing an unbearable amount of information. Still, in many cases societies and businesses are information rich, but knowledge poor. In order to turn this critical mass of information into usable knowledge, human beings need to rethink their relationship with the information itself. Several critical issues are still an open research field: the nature of the information cloud, its quality and its searchability, the nature of interconnection, the intertwined nature of networks and knowledge.

How this new rules for dealing with information will affect organizations? How decision processes, problem solving, organizational processes, knowledge management and organizational boundaries can leverage this social-centric Internet media?

This course has a practical orientation and is built around laboratory experiments of innovative communication devices with the objective of understanding the challenges posed by social media, designing possible application areas and experimenting possible solutions to individual and organizational problems.

KEY LEARNING POINTS:

• Information is mission critical. Companies entirely depend on it. Students learn how to harness the power of information through advanced search strategies/engines;
• The business of (re)search is a goldmine. Students add the fundamental skills of knowledge search and knowledge aggregation to their curriculum. Traditional and innovative companies will be grateful for that. 

Course Content Summary

The new information era:

• Information quality
• Information quantity
• Information ubiquity

The cognition of research:

• Taxonomies
• Folksonomies
• Algorithms (a qualitative view of them)

Search strategies:

• Mental maps of searchers (brain and cognitive sciences)
• Generational issues in search (the Y-ers)
• People search vs Object search

Search engines:

• Traditional search engine algorithms
• Semantic search engines
• Picture/object-based search engines
• Video search

Business opportunities:

• The market of (re)search
• Financials of a search company
• Business models

Detailed Description of Assessment Methods

Written exam and a field project on search strategies or search engines

Textbooks

Attending students:

Bulkpack prepared by the instructors

Non attending students:

Brown and Duguid, 2002, The social life of information, plus a set of readings to be requested to professor Proserpio.

Exam textbooks & Online Articles (check availability at the Library)

Prerequisites

None

Last change 30/03/2011 12:00