Service in Action: Project-based Instruction at the Information and Service Design Clinic

• September 24, 2008: 12:00pm - 1:00pm
• Location: 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, UC Berkeley Campus

Eric Kansa [Executive Director, Information & Services Design Clinic, UC Berkeley]

Part of the CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley. As always, these talks are free, open to the public and broadcast live online at mms://media.citris.berkeley.edu/webcast, and questions can be sent via Yahoo IM to username: citrisevents. The complete schedule for the fall semester is online at RE-Fall2008. Sponsored by Infineon Technologies.

 

Abstract:
Services bring together increasingly global and interconnected developments in business, law, computing, communications, research, and education. Information exchange and collaboration are at the heart of service, whether they are taking place through person-to-person, person-to-machine, or machine-to-machine interactions. The Information Service Design (ISD) Program and Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Information (I School) works to develop a coherent framework for the study and instruction of service systems by leveraging the I School's distinctive configuration of competencies in:

•    information modeling,
•    systems analysis and design methods,
•    implementation of Web-based services and information-intensive applications, and
•    Internet business architecture.

This talk will introduce a few of our research and instructional efforts that span across disciplinary boundaries. More focused discussion will explore the impact of increasingly accessible and easily manipulated resources of structured data in areas as diverse as the Academy and the consumer market place. Such open resources can help encourage new, more distributed forms of “Business Intelligence” to support consumer choice.

Bio:
Eric C. Kansa is Executive Director of the Information and Service Design Program at the UC Berkley School of Information (I School). His primary role is to develop service design projects that bring I School students and faculty to work in collaboration with partner organizations. His research interests include efforts to enhance the accessibility and usability of research data collected in the field sciences, as well as, the impact of ubiquitous information accessibility in the consumer experience of services. Before coming to UC Berkeley, Eric was cofounder and former Executive Director, a nonprofit organization, the Alexandria Archive Institute. There he led development of Open Context, an online system for sharing primary research data collected in the field sciences. This follows a position on the faculty of Harvard University, where he served as Lecturer and Undergraduate Tutor for the Department of Anthropology. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a BA in Cultural Anthropology. Eric was awarded a doctorate in Anthropology at Harvard University in 2001.

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