Course Syllabus

• Course Schedule
• Syllabus
• Assignments
• Discussions

Welcome to LIS 530: Organization of Information and Resources

LIS 530 is a core course in the MLIS program that focuses on the theory and practice of knowledge organization. In this course, you'll learn how to:

• Analyze the intellectual and physical characteristics of documents and other types of information
• Analyze the subject(s) of information objects on a conceptual level
• Recognize and use different types of classification schemes and controlled vocabularies
• Apply principles of surrogate creation, including standards for the selection, arrangement, and formation of metadata elements
• Describe the purposes of authority control, semantic relationships, facets and other key knowledge organization concepts.
• Employ various methods of arrangement and display
• Apply knowledge organization theory and best practices in both bibliographic collections and other types of collections
• Identify and counteract prejudice and bias in knowledge organization systems

Instructors

Instructor
Chris Holstrom
(he/him/his)
cholstro@uw.edu

Reader/Grader
Amanda Mills
(she/her/hers)
almills@uw.edu

Communication

Communication is critical to your success in this course–and we are here to help you! We want to hear what's important to you, when you need help, when you have a question, and when you want to discuss an idea. Just let us know. Don't wait until a small problem becomes a big one–communicate right away. For example, if you know ahead of time that you will need extra time for an assignment, let us know and we'll come up with a plan together.

Here are the main communication channels for this course:

• Email (cholstro@uw.edu, almills@uw.edu): This is our preferred form of written communication. For most issues, you can email cholstro@uw.edu. For anything concerning due dates and grades, also copy almills@uw.edu. We will reply to email within 24 hours on weekdays. If for some reason we do not, please reply to your email thread with a message like: "Just putting this back at the top of your inbox." Make sure that your email has a title with the course number in it ("LIS 530: [descriptive title]") and a clear description of your problem or question. 
  
  
• Canvas Announcements: We will use Canvas announcements to send updates to the whole class. It is your responsibility to monitor your UW email address and Canvas on a regular basis.
  
  
• Discord Server: You can use the Discord Server for informal and backchannel discussions about the class. Chris won't follow Discord discussions, but Amanda will administer the server and check discussions occasionally to identify any confusion or issues with the class. Remember to treat each other with respect and to communicate like information professionals on the Discord server.
  
  
• Discussion Boards: We will use discussion boards both for assigned discussions prompts and for any other class-wide discussions. Chris will monitor the discussion boards regularly, so they are a good place to ask questions that might interest multiple students in the class.

Required Course Materials

This course does not have a textbook. Yay for saving money! All of the readings are provided on this Canvas site as PDFs or links. See the Course Modules page to find the readings for each module.

Student Responsibilities

As with anything that you do, the more that you put into this course, the more you will get out of it. Here's how to get the most out of this course and how to be a good class citizen:

• Treat everyone in the class with respect and kindness to foster a welcoming and safe learning environment.
• Keep an open mind to others' perspectives and ideas.
• Engage in the course material. Do the readings, not just to get through them, but to really understand what they're about. Similarly, engage with the lectures and the assignments.
• Letting us know if you need extra help, extra time, or an extra explanation of a difficult concept. I'm here to help, but I can't do that if you don't let me know what you need.
• Adopt a growth mindset. Be open to growing and learning new things.
• Think about how you can apply the theories, concepts, systems, and technologies from this course in your career plans.

If you do this work while treating yourself and the rest of the class with respect, you will do well.

Inclusivity and Anti-Racist Pedagogy

The University of Washington, the Information School, and your instructors are committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive learning environment for people of all backgrounds, genders, races, creeds, sexual orientations, and identities. We believe that countering the cultures and practices of prejudice in an academic institution is fundamental to developing a vibrant intellectual community. We want everyone to feel welcomed, included, and heard, so that everyone can learn and have a positive experience in the course.

Here's how we'll practice inclusivity and anti-racist pedagogy in this course:

• Address how knowledge organization can perpetuate prejudices and discuss the steps that we, as information professionals, can take to counteract prejudice in knowledge organization systems.
• Study viewpoints and perspectives on knowledge organization from diverse voices.
• Respect and encourage diverse voices in our class, including historically underrepresented voices, during class interactions and on class discussion boards. 
• Be open to learning from the perspective of others.
• Make our learning environment a safe space by treating each other with kindness and patience.

Assignments

The assignments in this course will help you engage with knowledge organization theory, ask you to summarize and respond to readings, and give you lots of hands-on practice applying knowledge organization concepts by working with tools and knowledge organization systems. You'll even have a chance to reflect on how you organize information objects in your own life.

• Abstracts and an Index - You'll write short summaries for many of the readings for the course. Abstracting will not only help you focus on the main concepts for the readings, it will help you practice an important part of descriptive librarianship and subject analysis. Near the end of the class, you will use keywords from your summaries to build an index.  
  
  
• Lab Exercises - These relative small exercises let you get hands-on experience with tools like Zotero and PoolParty; concepts like unique identifiers, categorization, and bibliographic objectives; and knowledge organization tools and systems like MARC, DDC, and subject heading lists.
   
• Description Quests - These larger activities allow you to try out different aspects of knowledge organization in more depth. Each Description Quest has two parts: (1) application of concepts from the readings and lectures, and (2) reflection on application.  For general information on how to write a reflection see advice and guidelines.
  
  
• Discussion Prompts - Some of our class discussions will be based on questions about readings for the course. You'll be expected to post your thoughts on our Canvas discussion boards and reply to your classmates' responses. Participation in these assigned discussions will be treated as class assignments. 
  
  
• Personal Knowledge Organization System - You'll describe a knowledge organization system from your everyday life, like how your closet is organized or how you sequence books on your personal bookshelf. At the beginning of the quarter, you'll describe this system in plain English. At the end of the quarter, you'll describe it using vocabulary and concepts from the class–and discuss possible (or implemented) improvements.

You can find complete assignment details and due dates on the Assignments page.

Grading

The grading policy for the course is based on rewarding work that demonstrates active engagement with the concepts, theories, and ideas of the course. If you do the reading, engage in the lectures and discussions, and complete the assignments in a thorough and conscientious manner, you'll achieve the learning objective of the class–and earn a high grade. If you don't engage in the material and just try to sneak by, you won't. 

Important: If you don't understand something or need some extra help, just ask! We're not here to trick you or to try to make you earn a lower grade if you don't understand something. We're here to help you and to teach you, and that includes answering questions.

Work done for this course will be assessed using the iSchool Graduate Work Grading Guidelines and grades will be assigned based on the iSchool Standard Grading Scheme. Assignment grades are weighted as follows:

• Abstracts and an Index - 25%
• Lab Exercises - 30%
• Description Quests - 25%
• Discussion Prompts - 10%
• Personal Knowledge Organization System - 10%

Note: Many of the lectures will have "quiz" questions. These "quizzes" are not traditional quizzes because they are not graded and because you can try them as many (or as few) times as you like. The "quizzes" are intended to be a helpful check for you to make sure that you're following the key points from each lecture.

Late Assignments
This is an asynchronous course, and we want to be flexible and supportive of your schedules and commitments outside of the course. If you need a couple of extra days for an assignment or two, just let us know by emailing cholstro@uw.edu and almills@uw.edu. If you don't let us know ahead of time, late assignments will receive a small point deduction based on how late they are and will be graded without comments. 

Resources

Student Resources
A number of challenges from a variety of directions can affect your ability to bring your optimal attention and energy to a course. Student Resources is a set of links to campus resources that UW makes available to students in trying to mitigate and cope with some of these challenges.

iSchool Technology Requirements
The iSchool has a set of technology requirements for both online and residential students. We highly recommend that students adhere to these standards which are updated annually. Students who do not meet these standards may experience technology problems throughout the course.

iSchool Learning Technologies Support Site
Knowledge base for Canvas, VoiceThread, web conferencing systems, and other learning technologies tools.

UW Libraries
In this course you may be required to access a large number of databases through the Internet. Several of these databases are publicly available, but some are proprietary and access requires authentication through the UW Libraries. Information about logging in to use these databases is available on the Connecting to the Libraries page.