IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH

The comments of the discussion group on implications for research are summarised as follows: 1. At present there is not enough person power in the field involved in research - we have not reached a critical mass - we need to investigate and promote methods of encouraging more people into research (especially to act as catalysts and undertake depth research) and direct our attention to providing more research environments. This would involve educating the funding and public bodies in order to increase the funds available for research. There is a need to provide research workers with basic materials for research. Here attention might be paid to the design of data bases which could be used for a number of different research programs and to making available to others existing data bases and other material originally designed for a single experiment. Work could be undertaken in the area of linking research to operational systems, in the way of experimentation on management systems, and perhaps some mechanism should be set up whereby experimental results could be tested in operational environments. It was felt that more research could be directed towards the problem of cognition. It was suggested that a series of workshops be instituted to tackle a number of specific problems. A useful follow-up could be some formal mechanism to maintain contact and exchange between interested parties. There are certain large problem areas where long term research programs could be undertaken. It was felt that

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

78.

persons should be allowed to operate in these areas with a certain amount of freedom. 7. It may be necessary to shift the problem domain, say in response to a realisation of need from administrative/ management/social areas. V. HORSNELL

IMPLICATIONS FOR CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Taking one of the messages of the Forum to heart, we began by restricting our domain to the question: What role should education for research play in the curriculum of a first professional course of study for information science? Again in a pattern of the Forum, we then began to talk about the curriculum of information science in general. Consensus was reached on the following points: 1. The ideal for which education for information science should strive would be akin to programs already established in Poland and Berlin at the Masters level, and at Ohio State. University and Georgia Tech. at the PhD level. In the first case, an integrated 4 year program with two initial years of general, theoretical core courses, followed by two years of elective, practical course work coupled with research and practical laboratory work. In the second case, establishment of a multi-disciplinary faculty whose major emphasis is on basic research on a variety of the phenomena identified as being of interest to information science (with a strong integrating position). The reality of the situation (in the US and UK) limits the possibilities to a one-year course with emphasis on professional training. In view of 2, above, the general format of a few, basic theoretic core courses and a wide selection of practice

2.

3.