[Sigia-l] Education comments

[Samantha Bailey]

I think there are a number of valid ways to "get at" a solid skill-set for
IA; library science, HCI, cognitive psych, to name just a few, with the most
important element being hands-on experience. Of course, the tricky thing
there is getting your foot in the door as a novice, especially when the
economy is lousy and there are experienced people out of work. (Of course
it's generally hard for novices; I think the boom of the 90's was a real
abberation, I know it was for me in my career.)

 I personally think that the immaturity of the web and the internet's role
in business, commerce, life--has a lot to do with the difficulty of figuring
out where to place IA in a larger academic context. I personally would be
wary about pursing a degree in "web design" because I think the web is a
medium for delivering information that is likely to be replaced sooner
rather than later, so I think it's important to focus on underlying
principles (in the same way that one can learn a computer language that will
become outmoded or extinct while underlying principles in computer science
persist). I think information architecture as we know it today is
web-centric, but I don't expect it to be web-exclusive (although this may be
another topic for discussion).

My background is library science, so that's where my bias lies when it comes
to thinking about what those fundamentals consist of. But when I think about
continuing education for myself, I continue to be drawn to cognitive
psychology and linguistics as areas where I think my understanding could be
best enhanced.
More practically, an issue I face regularly is the need to be more
conversant in database principles so that I can really understand content
management systems and how to develop information structures that leverage
the power of a CMS while being CMS friendly.


Samantha Bailey
samantha at baileysorts.com | http://baileysorts.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Dillon" <adillon at ischool.utexas.edu>
To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 2:28 PM
Subject: [Sigia-l] Education comments


> Greetings
>
> I am interested to hear what you all think about the current state of
> education for IAs -  particularly the value and importance to the field of
> specialized degrees or training programs in IA.  Email me off line if you
> prefer not to engage the list on this.
>
> Best
>
> A.
> ________________
>
> Andrew Dillon
> The University of Texas at Austin
> _________________
>
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