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Peter Fox

Xinformatics 4400/6400

Week 12, May 27, 2015

XInformatics course summary

Contents

• Summary of this course• What you needed to learn/ objectives• Questions• Discussion

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The key is:

• As the volume, complexity and heterogeneity of information increases…– Suddenly information looks more like a continuum– Not always in the ‘right’ structure– All known methods, algorithms do not scale (except for very

simple operations)– And because it is information, humans are part of the loop

and you’ve all seen how modern information systems are more or less useable depending on a number of factors

• Thus - understand and apply theoretical foundations– To date these are developed in an analog world, not a

digital one!! 4

Intersecting disciplines:

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Library ScienceOrganizes- Cataloging and classificationPreservation - ‘maintaining or restoring access to artifacts’

Cognitive Science

mental representation,the nature of expertise, and intuition

Social Science

CollaborationCultural normsRewards

Information Science

Computer Science

A Use Case

• … is a collection of possible sequences of interactions between the information system under discussion/ design and its actors, relating to a particular goal

• … consists of a prose description of an information system's behavior when interacting with the actors

• … is a technique for capturing functional requirements of an information system

• … captures non-functional requirements

Ultimately: Wetware

• ‘Before you make the software interoperable, you need to make the people interoperable’: Ian Jackson,

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Data-Information-Knowledge Ecosystem

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Data Information Knowledge

Producers Consumers

Context

PresentationOrganization

IntegrationConversation

CreationGathering

Experience

THE PHYSICS OF INFORMATIONTHE PHYSICS OF INFORMATION

© 2005 EvREsearch LTD© 2005 EvREsearch LTD

EvREsearch©EvREsearch©

Presentation• Separation of content from presentation

• The theory here is empirical or semi-empirical

• Is developed based on an understanding of minimizing information uncertainty beginning with content, context and structural considerations and cognitive and social factors to reduce uncertainty

• Physiology for humans, color, … 10

Organization• Organizations - producers v/s consumers

• Organization of information presentation, e.g. layout on a web page

• Yes - content, context and structure

• How to organize:– What have you seen?– Needed?– Not had resolved? 11

Physics of information = entropy = uncertainty/ integrity

• Information of a random variable is defined as the Sum of p x log p, where p=probability. It represents the uncertainty of the variable

• Mutual information of two variables = how much information one variable contains about the other – i.e. the decrease of the uncertainty of one

variable by knowing the other

• In probabilistic terms, the entropy decreases by conditioning on the distribution

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Information theory

• Semiotics - study of sign processes or signification and communication, signs and symbols, into three branches:– Syntax: Relation of signs to each other in formal

structures– Semantics: Relation between signs and the

things to which they refer - meaning– Pragmatics: Relation of signs to their impacts on

those who use them13

Semiotics

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• Syntax• Semantics• Pragmatics

Abduction• method of logical inference

(Peirce) • prior to induction and

deduction i.e. "hunch”• starts with a set of

(seemingly unrelated) facts + intuition (some connection) and brought together – via abductive reasoning

• abduction is the process of inference that produces a hypothesis as its end result

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Mode of noise introduction

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From Shannon and Weaver (1949)

Information Source

Web Content, Structure

Noise source

Web browser?

HTML page, user

Msg? Signal? Recvd? Msg?

Noise

• Uncertainty, especially any that is introduced is a source of noise, or more accurately – bias in the use or interpretation of the information– Is context and structure dependent– Noise/ bias contamination is rampant in

information systems

• Quality assessment, control and verification is less developed for information sources 17

Information integration• Involves: combining information residing in

different sources and providing users with a unified view of them

• Getting the ‘unified view’ – lots of informatics here – recall unify from design?

• Recall the domain examples:– Geo?– Medical/ health?– Others?

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Mental Representation

• Thinking = representational structures + procedures that operate on those structures

• Did you make progress?

• Methodological consequence: what have you learned about the study how we think about information systems? 19

Behind this: Information Models

• Conceptual models, domain models, explore domain concepts

• High-level conceptual models are created as part of initial requirements envisioning efforts - to explore the high-level static business or science or medicine structures and concepts and relations among them

• Conceptual models are created as the precursor to logical models or as alternatives to them– To build something they must be followed by logical and

physical models 20

(Information) Architectures

• Definition:

– “is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems” (wikipedia)

– “… as in the creating of systemic, structural, and orderly principles to make something work - the thoughtful making of either artifact, or idea, or policy that informs because it is clear.” Wuman

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Architectures• Building on content,

context, and structure, think of information architectures as “in front of the interface” and “behind the interface”

• What’s the proportion – is it just like an iceberg? I.e. the majority of information architecture work is out of sight, "below the water.” 22

Reference architectures• “provides a proven template solution for an

architecture for a particular domain. It also provides a common vocabulary with which to discuss implementations, often with the aim to stress commonality.

• A reference architecture often consists of a list of functions and some indication of their interfaces (or APIs) and interactions with each other and with functions located outside of the scope of the reference architecture.” (wikipedia)

• At this stage of the course, have you seen a reference architecture? Did you like it? 23

Design?• In the context of information systems design,

information architecture refers to the analysis and design of the data stored by information systems, concentrating on entities, their attributes, and their interrelationships.

• It refers to the modeling of information for an individual source …

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Design theory• Elements

– Form– Value– Texture– Lines– Shapes– Direction– Size– Color

• Relation to signs and relations between/ among them

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Principles of design

• Balance

• Gradation

• Repetition

• Contrast

• Harmony

• Dominance

• Unity

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Broad life-cycle elements• Acquisition: Process of recording or

generating a concrete artefact from the concept (the act of transduction)

• Curation: The activity of managing the use of data from its point of creation to ensure it is available for discovery and re-use in the future

• Preservation: Process of retaining usability of data in some source form for intended and unintended use

• Stewardship: Process of maintaining integrity across acquisition, curation and preservation 27

Acquisition• What do you know about the

developer of the means of acquisition– Documents –not easy to find/

read/ understand– Remember unclear use cases,

information model, all lead to uncertainty and bias!!!

• Have a checklist (the Management list) and review it often

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Curation• Activity that takes information from Producers

to Consumers!

• Organization and presentation may need to change

• Document what is done and why, track the provenance!

• How do you remain as technology-neutral as possible and why would you want to?

• Add metainformation 29

Preservation• Archiving is but one component

• Intent is that ‘you can open it any time in the future’ and that ‘it will be there’

• Involves steps not be conventionally thought of

• Think far into the future …. history gives some guide to future considerations 30

Information audit

• Analysis and evaluation of a firm's information system (whether manual or computerized) to detect and rectify blockages, duplication, and leakage of information.

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Objective of an audit?

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• The objectives of an audit are to improve accuracy, relevance, security, and timeliness of the recorded information

• It is a process that effectively determines the current information environment within an organization by identifying and mapping:– What information is currently available?– Where the information lives?– Etc.

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Information Workflow• Series of tasks performed to produce a final

outcome – you know like the steps in a use case!

• Information workflow = “analysis pipeline”– Automate tedious jobs that users traditionally

performed by hand for each dataset– Process large volumes of data/ information faster

than one could do by hand– Document what is done– Collect provenance, enable an audit, etc.

Information Management• Creation of logical collections

• Physical handling

• Interoperability support

• Security support

• Ownership

• Metadata collection, management and access.

• Persistence

• Knowledge and information discovery

• Dissemination and publication 34

Discovery?• Discussion

– What is the reality? Did any of you find the recording of the sound of an (African) swallow?

• Finding media types

– Information retrieval and information architecture considerations – when a usual search engine cannot find what you want

– Content-based discovery, context-based, and yes, structure-based…

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Visualization?• Reducing the amount of data, quantization

– Patterns– Features– Events– Trends– Irregularities– Exit points for analysis

• Also presentation of “data”

• Cognitive science and the mental representation

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“Unstructured Information”• If a structured representation of

fundamentally unstructured information is useless how do we respond?– Remember – USE!

• What role does visual representation play in structuring information? Remember this?

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Data<->Information<->Knowledge• What’s in your future?

• Data Science

• Semantic eScience

• Job!

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Data Information Knowledge

Context

PresentationOrganization

IntegrationConversation

CreationGathering

Experience

In one slide?• Use case – you have to know the goal (+more)• Conceptual and logical models -> information

models -> architecture• Understand information flows and uncertainties

(sign systems), the life cycle and manage them• Apply information, library, cognitive, social science,

and design elements to developing a design of an architecture

• Think the design through (e.g. get closer to the physical model (workflow?)) and assess the presentation, organization, content, context, structure, syntax, semantic and pragmatics 39

What would your slide include?

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Objectives• To instruct future information architects how to

sustainably generate information models, designs and architectures

• To instruct future technologists how to understand and support essential data and information needs of a wide variety of producers and consumers

• For both to know tools, and requirements to properly handle data and information

• Will learn and be evaluated on the underpinnings of informatics, including theoretical methods, technologies and best practices.

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Learning Outcomes• Develop and demonstrate skill in development and

conduct of multi-skilled teams in the application of informatics

• Develop conceptual and logical information models and explain them to non-experts

• Demonstrate the application information theory and design principles to information systems

• Demonstrate knowledge and application of informatics standards

• Develop and demonstrate skill in informatics tool use and evaluation

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Discussion• All of the material

• Please fill out the course evaluation

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