[Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?

[Andrew Boyd]

Hi Amanda,

I would have said that, on a given project within a specific task 
domain, the IA was responsible for ensuring that context exists for 
necessary data, but that this is not the sole function of the IA, nor is 
it the exclusive domain of the IA. I work with trainers and technical 
writers who would, quite rightly, say that they are the ones who add 
context to data. The beauty of IA as a discipline is that it can provide 
a 'holistic' overview function for a given project/application, beyond 
that attributed to holistic information support design, which doesn't 
integrate often or fully enough with the applications that it supports. 
I would say that loss of context == loss of information, until someone 
rediscovers it.

I know that this is hedging and sort-of dodging your question, but like 
the man said, it all depends. :)

Cheers, Andrew

AF Cossham wrote:

>So, is information architecture all about providing the context for the
>data, in order that it may become and remain information?
>
>Amanda Cossham
>
>  
>
>>From: Andrew Boyd <andrew_db at bigpond.com>
>>Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:23:11 +1100
>>To: Conal Tuohy <Conal.Tuohy at vuw.ac.nz>
>>Cc: sigia-l at asis.org
>>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?
>>
>>Hi Conal,
>>
>>I think that it gets back to the old definition "Information is data in
>>context". Regardless of where/how/how long stored, if someone knows that
>>the recording is of a Passenger Pigeon, it doesn't matter how extinct
>>the bird is in the wild, it is still a recording of a Passenger Pigeon -
>>and will remain so, as long as it has context. It doesn't matter really
>>if it is a correctly labled audio tape, or if there is a domain expert
>>that recognises the recording for what it is.
>>
>>If the lable falls off/is lost, and the expert dies, then we have loss
>>of context, and the information goes back to being data.Or just so much
>>piffle, if you prefer :)
>>
>>Cheers, Andrew
>>
>>    
>>

-- 
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