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UCLA Information Studies Seminar

Creating Connections in Multidisciplinary Problem-Focused Research:
A Role for Information Studies?

Rich Gazan
UCLA Department of Information Studies

Thursday, October 31st, 2002, 3pm-5pm
GSE&IS Building, Room 111
(just west of the Research Library)

Abstract: Increasingly, scientific knowledge production devotes itself to large-scale problems ("Big Science") that require the synthesis of the work of many different disciplines. This integration has generally been attempted in one of two ways: either through an administrative-managerial approach that works against true integration, or simply by assuming that ideas will cross-fertilize if people are brought together under the right conditions. This talk outlines a third approach: modeling a multidisciplinary research team as an actor-network where people, documents, systems and technologies interact over time to create the desired synthesis of disciplinary perspectives. This talk will describe how this effort might be supported and coordinated by a "transdisciplinary" individual, trained in information studies, who understands disciplinary knowledge structures and modes of information seeking and can reverse-engineer disciplinary classifications -- of people, documents, systems and technologies -- to create connections across traditional boundaries, toward a more integrative solution of the research problem. Future field research which tests this model is described.

Rich Gazan is a Ph.D. student in the UCLA Department of Information Studies. Before beginning his Ph.D. work, he worked for several database publishing companies and completed his masters degree in Library and Information Science at the University of Hawaii. His research interests include information systems, emerging technologies and the information industry, with a particular focus on integrating content from disparate sources.

Everyone is invited.