25-28 June 2013
Conference Programme
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Conference Themes
i3 focuses on the quality and effectiveness of the interaction between people and information and how this interaction can bring about change. The conference will look beyond the issues of use and accessibility of technology to questions about the way people interact with the information and knowledge content of today's systems and services, and how this might ultimately affect the impact of that information on individuals, organisations and communities.
The aim is to bring together academic and practitioner researchers with an interest in:
- the quality and effectiveness of user/information interactions (e.g. information literacy);
- patterns of information behaviour in different contexts;
- impact of information or information services on people, organisations, communities and society (e.g. social, learning, cultural and economic outcomes of engagement with information);
- more effective decision making.
The growing research bases which inform our understanding of information behaviour, information literacy and impact of information have developed along their own distinctive lines. However, their common interest in the information user suggests that there should be points at which these lines of research could and should connect if we are to fully understand the complex nature of human/information interaction.
For example, we have evidence and models of information behaviour in different contexts, but how much do we know about the impact that these behaviours have on the quality of decision-making or learning? We talk of a relationship between access to information and social inclusion or economic development - but how does this relationship work in human terms? How well do our models and pedagogies for information literacy relate to real-world information behaviours in learning, decision-making, problem solving in workplace, community, education or home environments? How does the quality of the user/information interaction influence the impact of library and information services? Are systems being designed to meet the behaviours and skills of today's information users or are new information environments changing the way we seek out and use information? Whose role is it to ensure that these interactions and impacts are positive rather than negative for information users? What are the methodological challenges of addressing such issues?
