Misplaced Pages

#452547

117-531: Historically, information science is associated with informatics, computer science , data science , psychology , technology , documentation science , library science , healthcare , and intelligence agencies . However, information science also incorporates aspects of diverse fields such as archival science , cognitive science , commerce , law , linguistics , museology , management , mathematics , philosophy , public policy , and social sciences . Information science focuses on understanding problems from

234-619: A KR. Computer science Computer science is the study of computation , information , and automation . Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms , theory of computation , and information theory ) to applied disciplines (including the design and implementation of hardware and software ). Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying

351-585: A discipline, computer science spans a range of topics from theoretical studies of algorithms and the limits of computation to the practical issues of implementing computing systems in hardware and software. CSAB , formerly called Computing Sciences Accreditation Board—which is made up of representatives of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) —identifies four areas that it considers crucial to

468-753: A distinct academic discipline in the 1950s and early 1960s. The world's first computer science degree program, the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science , began at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in 1953. The first computer science department in the United States was formed at Purdue University in 1962. Since practical computers became available, many applications of computing have become distinct areas of study in their own rights. Although first proposed in 1956,

585-446: A form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. The creation of domain ontologies is also essential to the definition and use of an enterprise architecture framework . Authors such as Ingwersen argue that informatology has problems defining its own boundaries with other disciplines. According to Popper "Information science operates busily on an ocean of commonsense practical applications, which increasingly involve

702-415: A global "information society". Otlet and Lafontaine established numerous organizations dedicated to standardization, bibliography, international associations, and consequently, international cooperation. These organizations were fundamental for ensuring international production in commerce, information, communication and modern economic development, and they later found their global form in such institutions as

819-421: A less spacious field. Sometimes, in discoursing of men we imply (without expressing the limitation) that it is of men only under certain circumstances and conditions that we speak, as of civilized men, or of men in the vigour of life, or of men under some other condition or relation. Now, whatever may be the extent of the field within which all the objects of our discourse are found, that field may properly be termed

936-464: A mathematical discipline argue that computer programs are physical realizations of mathematical entities and programs that can be deductively reasoned through mathematical formal methods . Computer scientists Edsger W. Dijkstra and Tony Hoare regard instructions for computer programs as mathematical sentences and interpret formal semantics for programming languages as mathematical axiomatic systems . A number of computer scientists have argued for

1053-443: A mathematics emphasis and with a numerical orientation consider alignment with computational science . Both types of departments tend to make efforts to bridge the field educationally if not across all research. Despite the word science in its name, there is debate over whether or not computer science is a discipline of science, mathematics, or engineering. Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon argued in 1975, Computer science

1170-463: A network while using concurrency, this is known as a distributed system. Computers within that distributed system have their own private memory, and information can be exchanged to achieve common goals. This branch of computer science aims to manage networks between computers worldwide. Computer security is a branch of computer technology with the objective of protecting information from unauthorized access, disruption, or modification while maintaining

1287-550: A number of terms for the practitioners of the field of computing were suggested in the Communications of the ACM — turingineer , turologist , flow-charts-man , applied meta-mathematician , and applied epistemologist . Three months later in the same journal, comptologist was suggested, followed next year by hypologist . The term computics has also been suggested. In Europe, terms derived from contracted translations of

SECTION 10

#1732776810453

1404-495: A particular kind of mathematically based technique for the specification , development and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expectation that, as in other engineering disciplines, performing appropriate mathematical analysis can contribute to the reliability and robustness of a design. They form an important theoretical underpinning for software engineering, especially where safety or security

1521-427: A query does not uniquely identify a single object in the collection. Instead, several objects may match the query, perhaps with different degrees of relevancy . An object is an entity that is represented by information in a database . User queries are matched against the database information. Depending on the application the data objects may be, for example, text documents, images, audio, mind maps or videos. Often

1638-533: A shared conceptualisation". An ontology renders shared vocabulary and taxonomy which models a domain with the definition of objects and/or concepts and their properties and relations. Ontologies are the structural frameworks for organizing information and are used in artificial intelligence , the Semantic Web , systems engineering , software engineering , biomedical informatics , library science , enterprise bookmarking , and information architecture as

1755-512: A significant amount of computer science does not involve the study of computers themselves. Because of this, several alternative names have been proposed. Certain departments of major universities prefer the term computing science , to emphasize precisely that difference. Danish scientist Peter Naur suggested the term datalogy , to reflect the fact that the scientific discipline revolves around data and data treatment, while not necessarily involving computers. The first scientific institution to use

1872-410: A specific application. Codes are used for data compression , cryptography , error detection and correction , and more recently also for network coding . Codes are studied for the purpose of designing efficient and reliable data transmission methods. Data structures and algorithms are the studies of commonly used computational methods and their computational efficiency. Programming language theory

1989-636: A specific need. Often systems analysts work with one or more businesses to evaluate and implement organizational processes and techniques for accessing information in order to improve efficiency and productivity within the organization (s). An information professional is an individual who preserves, organizes, and disseminates information. Information professionals are skilled in the organization and retrieval of recorded knowledge. Traditionally, their work has been with print materials, but these skills are being increasingly used with electronic, visual, audio, and digital materials. Information professionals work in

2106-425: A step further and offers an independent social app that was downloaded by 19.5 million users in six months, proving how interested people are in the new way of being provided information. The connections and networks sustained through social media help information providers learn what is important to people. The connections people have throughout the world enable the exchange of information at an unprecedented rate. It

2223-774: A town in Massachusetts with a collection of books that the town voted to make available to all free of charge, forming the first public library of the United States . Academie de Chirurgia ( Paris ) published Memoires pour les Chirurgiens , generally considered to be the first medical journal , in 1736. The American Philosophical Society , patterned on the Royal Society ( London ), was founded in Philadelphia in 1743. As numerous other scientific journals and societies were founded, Alois Senefelder developed

2340-506: A variety of public, private, non-profit, and academic institutions. Information professionals can also be found within organisational and industrial contexts. Performing roles that include system design and development and system analysis. Information science, in studying the collection, classification , manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information has origins in the common stock of human knowledge. Information analysis has been carried out by scholars at least as early as

2457-415: Is a branch of computer science that deals with the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages and their individual features . It falls within the discipline of computer science, both depending on and affecting mathematics, software engineering, and linguistics . It is an active research area, with numerous dedicated academic journals. Formal methods are

SECTION 20

#1732776810453

2574-401: Is a model for describing the world that consists of a set of types, properties, and relationship types. Exactly what is provided around these varies, but they are the essentials of an ontology. There is also generally an expectation that there be a close resemblance between the real world and the features of the model in an ontology. In theory, an ontology is a "formal, explicit specification of

2691-519: Is an "increasingly mobile and social world [that] demands...new types of information skills". Social media integration as an access point is a very useful and mutually beneficial tool for users and providers. All major news providers have visibility and an access point through networks such as Facebook and Twitter maximizing their breadth of audience. Through social media people are directed to, or provided with, information by people they know. The ability to "share, like, and comment on...content" increases

2808-431: Is an area of research at the intersection of Informatics , Information Science, Information Security , Language Technology , and Computer Science . The objectives of information access research are to automate the processing of large and unwieldy amounts of information and to simplify users' access to it. What about assigning privileges and restricting access to unauthorized users? The extent of access should be defined in

2925-422: Is an empirical discipline. We would have called it an experimental science, but like astronomy, economics, and geology, some of its unique forms of observation and experience do not fit a narrow stereotype of the experimental method. Nonetheless, they are experiments. Each new machine that is built is an experiment. Actually constructing the machine poses a question to nature; and we listen for the answer by observing

3042-484: Is an open problem in the theory of computation. Information theory, closely related to probability and statistics , is related to the quantification of information. This was developed by Claude Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and communicating data. Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes (systems for converting information from one form to another) and their fitness for

3159-479: Is associated in the popular mind with robotic development , but the main field of practical application has been as an embedded component in areas of software development , which require computational understanding. The starting point in the late 1940s was Alan Turing's question " Can computers think? ", and the question remains effectively unanswered, although the Turing test is still used to assess computer output on

3276-548: Is connected to many other fields in computer science, including computer vision , image processing , and computational geometry , and is heavily applied in the fields of special effects and video games . Information can take the form of images, sound, video or other multimedia. Bits of information can be streamed via signals . Its processing is the central notion of informatics, the European view on computing, which studies information processing algorithms independently of

3393-409: Is considered by some to have a much closer relationship with mathematics than many scientific disciplines, with some observers saying that computing is a mathematical science. Early computer science was strongly influenced by the work of mathematicians such as Kurt Gödel , Alan Turing , John von Neumann , Rózsa Péter and Alonzo Church and there continues to be a useful interchange of ideas between

3510-508: Is determining what can and cannot be automated. The Turing Award is generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science. The earliest foundations of what would become computer science predate the invention of the modern digital computer . Machines for calculating fixed numerical tasks such as the abacus have existed since antiquity, aiding in computations such as multiplication and division. Algorithms for performing computations have existed since antiquity, even before

3627-552: Is for this reason that these networks have been realized for the potential they provide. "Most news media monitor Twitter for breaking news", as well as news anchors frequently request the audience to tweet pictures of events. The users and viewers of the shared information have earned "opinion-making and agenda-setting power" This channel has been recognized for the usefulness of providing targeted information based on public demand. The following areas are some of those that information science investigates and develops. Information access

Information science - Misplaced Pages Continue

3744-630: Is generally considered the province of disciplines other than computer science. For example, the study of computer hardware is usually considered part of computer engineering , while the study of commercial computer systems and their deployment is often called information technology or information systems . However, there has been exchange of ideas between the various computer-related disciplines. Computer science research also often intersects other disciplines, such as cognitive science , linguistics , mathematics , physics , biology , Earth science , statistics , philosophy , and logic . Computer science

3861-584: Is intended to organize, store, and retrieve large amounts of data easily. Digital databases are managed using database management systems to store, create, maintain, and search data, through database models and query languages . Data mining is a process of discovering patterns in large data sets. The philosopher of computing Bill Rapaport noted three Great Insights of Computer Science : Programming languages can be used to accomplish different tasks in different ways. Common programming paradigms include: Many languages offer support for multiple paradigms, making

3978-426: Is involved. Formal methods are a useful adjunct to software testing since they help avoid errors and can also give a framework for testing. For industrial use, tool support is required. However, the high cost of using formal methods means that they are usually only used in the development of high-integrity and life-critical systems , where safety or security is of utmost importance. Formal methods are best described as

4095-545: Is mathematical and abstract in spirit, but it derives its motivation from practical and everyday computation. It aims to understand the nature of computation and, as a consequence of this understanding, provide more efficient methodologies. According to Peter Denning, the fundamental question underlying computer science is, "What can be automated?" Theory of computation is focused on answering fundamental questions about what can be computed and what amount of resources are required to perform those computations. In an effort to answer

4212-519: Is of high quality, affordable, maintainable, and fast to build. It is a systematic approach to software design, involving the application of engineering practices to software. Software engineering deals with the organizing and analyzing of software—it does not just deal with the creation or manufacture of new software, but its internal arrangement and maintenance. For example software testing , systems engineering , technical debt and software development processes . Artificial intelligence (AI) aims to or

4329-509: Is quoted below. The concept, probably discovered independently by Boole in 1847, played a crucial role in his philosophy of logic especially in his principle of wholistic reference . Alfred North Whitehead cited Augustus De Morgan as identifying "that limited class of things which is the special subject of discourse on any particular occasion. Such a class was called by De Morgan, the Universe of Discourse." In every discourse, whether of

4446-584: Is required to synthesize goal-orientated processes such as problem-solving, decision-making, environmental adaptation, learning, and communication found in humans and animals. From its origins in cybernetics and in the Dartmouth Conference (1956), artificial intelligence research has been necessarily cross-disciplinary, drawing on areas of expertise such as applied mathematics , symbolic logic, semiotics , electrical engineering , philosophy of mind , neurophysiology , and social intelligence . AI

4563-554: Is the art and science of organizing and labelling websites , intranets , online communities and software to support usability. It is an emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing together principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape . Typically it involves a model or concept of information which is used and applied to activities that require explicit details of complex information systems . These activities include library systems and database development. Information management (IM)

4680-409: Is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing and delivery of information. Throughout the 1970s this was largely limited to files, file maintenance, and

4797-432: Is the field of study and research concerned with the design and use of computer systems , mainly based on the analysis of the interaction between humans and computer interfaces . HCI has several subfields that focus on the relationship between emotions , social behavior and brain activity with computers . Software engineering is the study of designing, implementing, and modifying the software in order to ensure it

Information science - Misplaced Pages Continue

4914-783: Is the field of study concerned with constructing mathematical models and quantitative analysis techniques and using computers to analyze and solve scientific problems. A major usage of scientific computing is simulation of various processes, including computational fluid dynamics , physical, electrical, and electronic systems and circuits, as well as societies and social situations (notably war games) along with their habitats, among many others. Modern computers enable optimization of such designs as complete aircraft. Notable in electrical and electronic circuit design are SPICE, as well as software for physical realization of new (or modified) designs. The latter includes essential design software for integrated circuits . Human–computer interaction (HCI)

5031-460: Is the quick development of this relatively new field requires rapid review and distribution of results, a task better handled by conferences than by journals. Domain of discourse In the formal sciences , the domain of discourse , also called the universe of discourse , universal set , or simply universe , is the set of entities over which certain variables of interest in some formal treatment may range. The domain of discourse

5148-521: Is to gain competitive advantage internationally, through using IT in a creative and productive way. The knowledge economy is its economic counterpart, whereby wealth is created through the economic exploitation of understanding. People who have the means to partake in this form of society are sometimes called digital citizens . Basically, an information society is the means of getting information from one place to another ( Wark 1997 , p. 22). As technology has become more advanced over time so too has

5265-514: Is used to supply formal semantics of how reasoning functions should be applied to the symbols in the KR system. Logic is also used to define how operators can process and reshape the knowledge. Examples of operators and operations include, negation, conjunction, adverbs, adjectives, quantifiers and modal operators. The logic is interpretation theory. These elements—symbols, operators, and interpretation theory—are what give sequences of symbols meaning within

5382-430: Is usually identified in the preliminaries, so that there is no need in the further treatment to specify each time the range of the relevant variables. Many logicians distinguish, sometimes only tacitly, between the domain of a science and the universe of discourse of a formalization of the science . For example, in an interpretation of first-order logic , the domain of discourse is the set of individuals over which

5499-705: The Index to Periodical Literature, the first general periodical literature index in the US. In 1854 George Boole published An Investigation into Laws of Thought..., which lays the foundations for Boolean algebra , which is later used in information retrieval . In 1860 a congress was held at Karlsruhe Technische Hochschule to discuss the feasibility of establishing a systematic and rational nomenclature for chemistry. The congress did not reach any conclusive results, but several key participants returned home with Stanislao Cannizzaro 's outline (1858), which ultimately convinces them of

5616-770: The League of Nations and the United Nations . Otlet designed the Universal Decimal Classification , based on Melville Dewey 's decimal classification system. Although he lived decades before computers and networks emerged, what he discussed prefigured what ultimately became the World Wide Web . His vision of a great network of knowledge focused on documents and included the notions of hyperlinks , search engines , remote access, and social networks . Otlet not only imagined that all

5733-519: The World Wide Web . Automated information retrieval systems are used to reduce what has been called " information overload ". Many universities and public libraries use IR systems to provide access to books, journals and other documents. Web search engines are the most visible IR applications . An information retrieval process begins when a user enters a query into the system. Queries are formal statements of information needs , for example search strings in web search engines. In information retrieval

5850-407: The quantifiers range. A proposition such as ∀ x ( x ≠ 2) is ambiguous if no domain of discourse has been identified. In one interpretation, the domain of discourse could be the set of real numbers ; in another interpretation, it could be the set of natural numbers . If the domain of discourse is the set of real numbers, the proposition is false, with x = √ 2 as counterexample; if

5967-475: The "technocratic paradigm" (which might be found in engineering approaches, most prominently in software engineering), and the "scientific paradigm" (which approaches computer-related artifacts from the empirical perspective of natural sciences , identifiable in some branches of artificial intelligence ). Computer science focuses on methods involved in design, specification, programming, verification, implementation and testing of human-made computing systems. As

SECTION 50

#1732776810453

6084-570: The 100th anniversary of the invention of the arithmometer, Torres presented in Paris the Electromechanical Arithmometer , a prototype that demonstrated the feasibility of an electromechanical analytical engine, on which commands could be typed and the results printed automatically. In 1937, one hundred years after Babbage's impossible dream, Howard Aiken convinced IBM, which was making all kinds of punched card equipment and

6201-456: The 2nd of the only two designs for mechanical analytical engines in history. In 1914, the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo published his Essays on Automatics , and designed, inspired by Babbage, a theoretical electromechanical calculating machine which was to be controlled by a read-only program. The paper also introduced the idea of floating-point arithmetic . In 1920, to celebrate

6318-631: The Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace wrote, in one of the many notes she included, an algorithm to compute the Bernoulli numbers , which is considered to be the first published algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer. Around 1885, Herman Hollerith invented the tabulator , which used punched cards to process statistical information; eventually his company became part of IBM . Following Babbage, although unaware of his earlier work, Percy Ludgate in 1909 published

6435-559: The Machine Organization department in IBM's main research center in 1959. Concurrency is a property of systems in which several computations are executing simultaneously, and potentially interacting with each other. A number of mathematical models have been developed for general concurrent computation including Petri nets , process calculi and the parallel random access machine model. When multiple computers are connected in

6552-553: The UK (as in the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh ). "In the U.S., however, informatics is linked with applied computing, or computing in the context of another domain." A folkloric quotation, often attributed to—but almost certainly not first formulated by— Edsger Dijkstra , states that "computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." The design and deployment of computers and computer systems

6669-508: The academic information subject specialist/librarian have, in general, similar subject background training, but the academic position holder will be required to hold a second advanced degree (MLS/MI/MA in IS, e.g.) in information and library studies in addition to a subject master's. The title also applies to an individual carrying out research in information science. A systems analyst works on creating, designing, and improving information systems for

6786-516: The accessibility and usability of the system for its intended users. Historical cryptography is the art of writing and deciphering secret messages. Modern cryptography is the scientific study of problems relating to distributed computations that can be attacked. Technologies studied in modern cryptography include symmetric and asymmetric encryption , digital signatures , cryptographic hash functions , key-agreement protocols , blockchain , zero-knowledge proofs , and garbled circuits . A database

6903-433: The application of a fairly broad variety of theoretical computer science fundamentals, in particular logic calculi, formal languages , automata theory , and program semantics , but also type systems and algebraic data types to problems in software and hardware specification and verification. Computer graphics is the study of digital visual contents and involves the synthesis and manipulation of image data. The study

7020-410: The binary number system. In 1820, Thomas de Colmar launched the mechanical calculator industry when he invented his simplified arithmometer , the first calculating machine strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an office environment. Charles Babbage started the design of the first automatic mechanical calculator , his Difference Engine , in 1822, which eventually gave him the idea of

7137-536: The computer ... and on commonsense views of language, of communication, of knowledge and Information, computer science is in little better state". Other authors, such as Furner, deny that information science is a true science. An information scientist is an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree or high level of subject knowledge, who provides focused information to scientific and technical research staff in industry or to subject faculty and students in academia. The industry *information specialist/scientist* and

SECTION 60

#1732776810453

7254-506: The concept of lithography for use in mass printing work in Germany in 1796. By the 19th century the first signs of information science emerged as separate and distinct from other sciences and social sciences but in conjunction with communication and computation. In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a punched card system to control operations of the cloth weaving loom in France. It was

7371-419: The concept of information-gathering that "provides a broader perspective that adheres better to professionals' work-related reality and desired skills." ( Solomon & Bronstein 2021 ). An information society is a society where the creation, distribution, diffusion, uses, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. The aim of an information society

7488-455: The definition of dissemination. The nature of social networks allows for faster diffusion of information than through organizational sources. The internet has changed the way we view, use, create, and store information; now it is time to re-evaluate the way we share and spread it. Social media networks provide an open information environment for the mass of people who have limited time or access to traditional outlets of information diffusion, this

7605-750: The design and principles behind developing software. Areas such as operating systems , networks and embedded systems investigate the principles and design behind complex systems . Computer architecture describes the construction of computer components and computer-operated equipment. Artificial intelligence and machine learning aim to synthesize goal-orientated processes such as problem-solving, decision-making, environmental adaptation, planning and learning found in humans and animals. Within artificial intelligence, computer vision aims to understand and process image and video data, while natural language processing aims to understand and process textual and linguistic data. The fundamental concern of computer science

7722-475: The development of sophisticated computing equipment. Wilhelm Schickard designed and constructed the first working mechanical calculator in 1623. In 1673, Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated a digital mechanical calculator, called the Stepped Reckoner . Leibniz may be considered the first computer scientist and information theorist, because of various reasons, including the fact that he documented

7839-472: The development of the Internet and World Wide Web. Dissemination has historically been interpreted as unilateral communication of information. With the advent of the internet , and the explosion in popularity of online communities , social media has changed the information landscape in many respects, and creates both new modes of communication and new types of information", changing the interpretation of

7956-583: The discipline of computer science: theory of computation , algorithms and data structures , programming methodology and languages , and computer elements and architecture . In addition to these four areas, CSAB also identifies fields such as software engineering, artificial intelligence, computer networking and communication, database systems, parallel computation, distributed computation, human–computer interaction, computer graphics, operating systems, and numerical and symbolic computation as being important areas of computer science. Theoretical computer science

8073-424: The distinction more a matter of style than of technical capabilities. Conferences are important events for computer science research. During these conferences, researchers from the public and private sectors present their recent work and meet. Unlike in most other academic fields, in computer science, the prestige of conference papers is greater than that of journal publications. One proposed explanation for this

8190-459: The distinction of three separate paradigms in computer science. Peter Wegner argued that those paradigms are science, technology, and mathematics. Peter Denning 's working group argued that they are theory, abstraction (modeling), and design. Amnon H. Eden described them as the "rationalist paradigm" (which treats computer science as a branch of mathematics, which is prevalent in theoretical computer science, and mainly employs deductive reasoning),

8307-459: The documents themselves are not kept or stored directly in the IR system, but are instead represented in the system by document surrogates or metadata. Most IR systems compute a numeric score on how well each object in the database match the query, and rank the objects according to this value. The top ranking objects are then shown to the user. The process may then be iterated if the user wishes to refine

8424-493: The domain is the set of natural numbers, the proposition is true, since 2 is not the square of any natural number. The term "universe of discourse" generally refers to the collection of objects being discussed in a specific discourse . In model-theoretical semantics , a universe of discourse is the set of entities that a model is based on. The concept universe of discourse was used for the first time by George Boole (1854) on page 42 of his Laws of Thought . Boole's definition

8541-424: The elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to its philosophical problems. In science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain , and the relationships between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that domain and may be used to describe the domain. More specifically, an ontology

8658-455: The emergence of numerous special interest groups to respond to the changes. By the end of the decade, special interest groups were available involving non-print media, social sciences, energy and the environment, and community information systems. Today, information science largely examines technical bases, social consequences, and theoretical understanding of online databases, widespread use of databases in government, industry, and education, and

8775-520: The expression "automatic information" (e.g. "informazione automatica" in Italian) or "information and mathematics" are often used, e.g. informatique (French), Informatik (German), informatica (Italian, Dutch), informática (Spanish, Portuguese), informatika ( Slavic languages and Hungarian ) or pliroforiki ( πληροφορική , which means informatics) in Greek . Similar words have also been adopted in

8892-710: The fathers of information science with the founding of the International Institute of Bibliography (IIB) in 1895. A second generation of European Documentalists emerged after the Second World War , most notably Suzanne Briet . However, "information science" as a term is not popularly used in academia until sometime in the latter part of the 20th century. Documentalists emphasized the utilitarian integration of technology and technique toward specific social goals. According to Ronald Day, "As an organized system of techniques and technologies, documentation

9009-462: The first programmable mechanical calculator , his Analytical Engine . He started developing this machine in 1834, and "in less than two years, he had sketched out many of the salient features of the modern computer". "A crucial step was the adoption of a punched card system derived from the Jacquard loom " making it infinitely programmable. In 1843, during the translation of a French article on

9126-488: The first question, computability theory examines which computational problems are solvable on various theoretical models of computation . The second question is addressed by computational complexity theory , which studies the time and space costs associated with different approaches to solving a multitude of computational problems. The famous P = NP? problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems ,

9243-656: The first scientific journal, in 1665 by the Royal Society (London). The institutionalization of science occurred throughout the 18th century. In 1731, Benjamin Franklin established the Library Company of Philadelphia , the first library owned by a group of public citizens, which quickly expanded beyond the realm of books and became a center of scientific experimentation , and which hosted public exhibitions of scientific experiments. Benjamin Franklin invested

9360-407: The first use of "memory storage of patterns" system. As chemistry journals emerged throughout the 1820s and 1830s, Charles Babbage developed his "difference engine", the first step towards the modern computer, in 1822 and his "analytical engine" by 1834. By 1843 Richard Hoe developed the rotary press, and in 1844 Samuel Morse sent the first public telegraph message. By 1848 William F. Poole begins

9477-622: The individuals who had distinct opportunities to facilitate interdisciplinary activity targeted at scientific communication was Foster E. Mohrhardt , director of the National Agricultural Library from 1954 to 1968. By the 1980s, large databases, such as Grateful Med at the National Library of Medicine , and user-oriented services such as Dialog and Compuserve , were for the first time accessible by individuals from their personal computers. The 1980s also saw

9594-545: The information-seeking behaviors of librarians, academics, medical professionals, engineers and lawyers (among others). Much of this research has drawn on the work done by Leckie, Pettigrew (now Fisher) and Sylvain, who in 1996 conducted an extensive review of the LIS literature (as well as the literature of other academic fields) on professionals' information seeking. The authors proposed an analytic model of professionals' information seeking behaviour, intended to be generalizable across

9711-514: The level of clearance granted for the information. Applicable technologies include information retrieval , text mining , text editing , machine translation , and text categorisation . In discussion, information access is often defined as concerning the insurance of free and closed or public access to information and is brought up in discussions on copyright , patent law , and public domain . Public libraries need resources to provide knowledge of information assurance. Information architecture (IA)

9828-546: The library issues Index Catalogue, which achieved an international reputation as the most complete catalog of medical literature. The discipline of documentation science , which marks the earliest theoretical foundations of modern information science, emerged in the late part of the 19th century in Europe together with several more scientific indexes whose purpose was to organize scholarly literature. Many information science historians cite Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine as

9945-496: The life cycle management of paper-based files, other media and records. With the proliferation of information technology starting in the 1970s, the job of information management took on a new light and also began to include the field of data maintenance. Information retrieval (IR) is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage , relational databases , and

10062-502: The machine in operation and analyzing it by all analytical and measurement means available. It has since been argued that computer science can be classified as an empirical science since it makes use of empirical testing to evaluate the correctness of programs , but a problem remains in defining the laws and theorems of computer science (if any exist) and defining the nature of experiments in computer science. Proponents of classifying computer science as an engineering discipline argue that

10179-702: The material resources available and the creativity of its developers. It must therefore be regarded as an autonomous system controlling and ultimately permeating all other subsystems of society." Many universities have entire colleges, departments or schools devoted to the study of information science, while numerous information-science scholars work in disciplines such as communication , healthcare , computer science , law , and sociology . Several institutions have formed an I-School Caucus (see List of I-Schools ), but numerous others besides these also have comprehensive information foci. Within information science, current issues as of 2013 include: The first known usage of

10296-461: The means for secure communication and preventing security vulnerabilities . Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Programming language theory considers different ways to describe computational processes, and database theory concerns the management of repositories of data. Human–computer interaction investigates the interfaces through which humans and computers interact, and software engineering focuses on

10413-506: The mid-1960s. The Mikhailov school saw informatics as a discipline related to the study of scientific information. Informatics is difficult to precisely define because of the rapidly evolving and interdisciplinary nature of the field. Definitions reliant on the nature of the tools used for deriving meaningful information from data are emerging in Informatics academic programs. Regional differences and international terminology complicate

10530-431: The mind conversing with its own thoughts, or of the individual in his folley with others, there is an assumed or expressed limit within which the subjects of its operation are confined. The most unfettered discourse is that in which the words we use are understood in the widest possible application, and for them the limits of discourse are co-extensive with those of the universe itself. But more usually we confine ourselves to

10647-476: The other hand, provided a bibliometric investigation describing the relation between two different fields: "information science" and "information systems". Philosophy of information studies conceptual issues arising at the intersection of psychology , computer science , information technology , and philosophy . It includes the investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information , including its dynamics, utilisation and sciences, as well as

10764-426: The perspective of the stakeholders involved and then applying information and other technologies as needed. In other words, it tackles systemic problems first rather than individual pieces of technology within that system. In this respect, one can see information science as a response to technological determinism , the belief that technology "develops by its own laws, that it realizes its own potential, limited only by

10881-478: The principal focus of computer science is studying the properties of computation in general, while the principal focus of software engineering is the design of specific computations to achieve practical goals, making the two separate but complementary disciplines. The academic, political, and funding aspects of computer science tend to depend on whether a department is formed with a mathematical emphasis or with an engineering emphasis. Computer science departments with

10998-536: The problem. Some people note that much of what is called "Informatics" today was once called "Information Science" – at least in fields such as Medical Informatics . For example, when library scientists began also to use the phrase "Information Science" to refer to their work, the term "informatics" emerged: Another term discussed as a synonym for "information studies" is " information systems ". Brian Campbell Vickery 's Information Systems (1973) placed information systems within IS. Ellis, Allen & Wilson (1999) , on

11115-404: The professions, thus providing a platform for future research in the area. The model was intended to "prompt new insights... and give rise to more refined and applicable theories of information seeking" ( Leckie, Pettigrew & Sylvain 1996 , p. 188). The model has been adapted by Wilkinson (2001) who proposes a model of the information seeking of lawyers. Recent studies in this topic address

11232-419: The query. Information seeking is the process or activity of attempting to obtain information in both human and technological contexts. Information seeking is related to, but different from, information retrieval (IR). Much library and information science (LIS) research has focused on the information-seeking practices of practitioners within various fields of professional work. Studies have been carried out into

11349-665: The reach farther and wider than traditional methods. People like to interact with information, they enjoy including the people they know in their circle of knowledge. Sharing through social media has become so influential that publishers must "play nice" if they desire to succeed. Although, it is often mutually beneficial for publishers and Facebook to "share, promote and uncover new content" to improve both user base experiences. The impact of popular opinion can spread in unimaginable ways. Social media allows interaction through simple to learn and access tools; The Wall Street Journal offers an app through Facebook, and The Washington Post goes

11466-484: The reliability of computational systems is investigated in the same way as bridges in civil engineering and airplanes in aerospace engineering . They also argue that while empirical sciences observe what presently exists, computer science observes what is possible to exist and while scientists discover laws from observation, no proper laws have been found in computer science and it is instead concerned with creating phenomena. Proponents of classifying computer science as

11583-409: The scale of human intelligence. But the automation of evaluative and predictive tasks has been increasingly successful as a substitute for human monitoring and intervention in domains of computer application involving complex real-world data. Computer architecture, or digital computer organization, is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a computer system. It focuses largely on

11700-581: The term computer came to refer to the machines rather than their human predecessors. As it became clear that computers could be used for more than just mathematical calculations, the field of computer science broadened to study computation in general. In 1945, IBM founded the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University in New York City . The renovated fraternity house on Manhattan's West Side

11817-758: The term "computer science" appears in a 1959 article in Communications of the ACM , in which Louis Fein argues for the creation of a Graduate School in Computer Sciences analogous to the creation of Harvard Business School in 1921. Louis justifies the name by arguing that, like management science , the subject is applied and interdisciplinary in nature, while having the characteristics typical of an academic discipline. His efforts, and those of others such as numerical analyst George Forsythe , were rewarded: universities went on to create such departments, starting with Purdue in 1962. Despite its name,

11934-586: The term "information science" was in 1955. An early definition of Information science (going back to 1968, the year when the American Documentation Institute renamed itself as the American Society for Information Science and Technology ) states: Some authors use informatics as a synonym for information science . This is especially true when related to the concept developed by A. I. Mikhailov and other Soviet authors in

12051-579: The term was the Department of Datalogy at the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1969, with Peter Naur being the first professor in datalogy. The term is used mainly in the Scandinavian countries. An alternative term, also proposed by Naur, is data science ; this is now used for a multi-disciplinary field of data analysis, including statistics and databases. In the early days of computing,

12168-679: The tides, and by 1875 Frank Stephen Baldwin was granted the first US patent for a practical calculating machine that performs four arithmetic functions. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison invented the telephone and phonograph in 1876 and 1877 respectively, and the American Library Association was founded in Philadelphia. In 1879 Index Medicus was first issued by the Library of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, with John Shaw Billings as librarian, and later

12285-492: The time of the Assyrian Empire with the emergence of cultural depositories, what is today known as libraries and archives. Institutionally, information science emerged in the 19th century along with many other social science disciplines. As a science, however, it finds its institutional roots in the history of science , beginning with publication of the first issues of Philosophical Transactions , generally considered

12402-443: The two fields in areas such as mathematical logic , category theory , domain theory , and algebra . The relationship between computer science and software engineering is a contentious issue, which is further muddied by disputes over what the term "software engineering" means, and how computer science is defined. David Parnas , taking a cue from the relationship between other engineering and science disciplines, has claimed that

12519-481: The type of information carrier – whether it is electrical, mechanical or biological. This field plays important role in information theory , telecommunications , information engineering and has applications in medical image computing and speech synthesis , among others. What is the lower bound on the complexity of fast Fourier transform algorithms? is one of the unsolved problems in theoretical computer science . Scientific computing (or computational science)

12636-423: The underlying knowledge model or knowledge base system (KBS) such as a semantic network . Knowledge Representation (KR) research involves analysis of how to reason accurately and effectively and how best to use a set of symbols to represent a set of facts within a knowledge domain. A symbol vocabulary and a system of logic are combined to enable inferences about elements in the KR to create new KR sentences. Logic

12753-680: The validity of his scheme for calculating atomic weights. By 1865, the Smithsonian Institution began a catalog of current scientific papers, which became the International Catalogue of Scientific Papers in 1902. The following year the Royal Society began publication of its Catalogue of Papers in London. In 1868, Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and S. W. Soule produced the first practical typewriter . By 1872 Lord Kelvin devised an analogue computer to predict

12870-524: The variety of information science interests. By the 1960s and 70s, there was a move from batch processing to online modes, from mainframe to mini and microcomputers. Additionally, traditional boundaries among disciplines began to fade and many information science scholars joined with other programs. They further made themselves multidisciplinary by incorporating disciplines in the sciences, humanities and social sciences, as well as other professional programs, such as law and medicine in their curriculum. Among

12987-438: The way by which the central processing unit performs internally and accesses addresses in memory. Computer engineers study computational logic and design of computer hardware, from individual processor components, microcontrollers , personal computers to supercomputers and embedded systems . The term "architecture" in computer literature can be traced to the work of Lyle R. Johnson and Frederick P. Brooks Jr. , members of

13104-614: The way we have adapted in sharing this information with each other. Information society theory discusses the role of information and information technology in society, the question of which key concepts should be used for characterizing contemporary society, and how to define such concepts. It has become a specific branch of contemporary sociology. Knowledge representation (KR) is an area of artificial intelligence research aimed at representing knowledge in symbols to facilitate inferencing from those knowledge elements, creating new elements of knowledge. The KR can be made to be independent of

13221-519: The world's knowledge should be interlinked and made available remotely to anyone, but he also proceeded to build a structured document collection. This collection involved standardized paper sheets and cards filed in custom-designed cabinets according to a hierarchical index (which culled information worldwide from diverse sources) and a commercial information retrieval service (which answered written requests by copying relevant information from index cards). Users of this service were even warned if their query

13338-440: Was IBM's first laboratory devoted to pure science. The lab is the forerunner of IBM's Research Division, which today operates research facilities around the world. Ultimately, the close relationship between IBM and Columbia University was instrumental in the emergence of a new scientific discipline, with Columbia offering one of the first academic-credit courses in computer science in 1946. Computer science began to be established as

13455-544: Was also in the calculator business to develop his giant programmable calculator, the ASCC/Harvard Mark I , based on Babbage's Analytical Engine, which itself used cards and a central computing unit. When the machine was finished, some hailed it as "Babbage's dream come true". During the 1940s, with the development of new and more powerful computing machines such as the Atanasoff–Berry computer and ENIAC ,

13572-556: Was likely to produce more than 50 results per search. By 1937 documentation had formally been institutionalized, as evidenced by the founding of the American Documentation Institute (ADI), later called the American Society for Information Science and Technology . With the 1950s came increasing awareness of the potential of automatic devices for literature searching and information storage and retrieval. As these concepts grew in magnitude and potential, so did

13689-504: Was understood as a player in the historical development of global organization in modernity – indeed, a major player inasmuch as that organization was dependent on the organization and transmission of information." Otlet and Lafontaine (who won the Nobel Prize in 1913) not only envisioned later technical innovations but also projected a global vision for information and information technologies that speaks directly to postwar visions of

#452547