PROPOSAL FOR A SCHOOL OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Information Planning Group

Institute Of Southren Punjab Multan

Introduction
The Institute Of Southren Punjab Multan has an opportunity to pioneer in the development of an emerging
professional field of critical importance. Information is now one of the world's most important and rapidly
changing resources. Rapidly growing capabilities in computing and telecommunications, the increasing
importance of information in the professions, in scholarship and research, and in daily life, the expanding
and multidimensional information industry, and the developing information infrastructure have created major
new challenges and opportunities.
The issue now is often less the availability of information than its overabundance, and access to quality
information for diverse users and uses. The challenge is to filter what is most useful out of the vast quantity
of information available: to select, evaluate, describe, store, retrieve, manipulate, and present information in
all its forms, including text, still and moving images, sound, and numeric data. The goal is to provide, not
simply data, but information that enhances understanding.
We propose a program that will advance, through teaching and research, the organization, management and
use of information and information technology, and enhance our understanding of the impact of information
on individuals, institutions, and society. This mission has both a technical component, concerned with the
design and use of information systems and services, and a social sciences component, concerned with
understanding how people seek, obtain, evaluate, use, and categorize information. The proposed program
will use the approaches of several social sciences and professional and technical disciplines to address a core
set of information-related issues.
The primary educational mission of the program will be to prepare professionals for corporations,
government agencies, and the academic world who can develop improved approaches to handle information,
to design and manage information functions, and to merge them with other aspects of the organization.
Evidence strongly suggests the existence of a very large demand for such professionals in business,
government, and the academic world.
The research mission of the program will be to explore the design and operation of information systems and
services, the nature and properties of information, and information-related behavior at the individual, group,
and societal levels.
There currently exists no academic structure at Nehaly Wala or elsewhere of the specific sort that we
are proposing. What is unique about this program is the focus on the use and management of information
through the merger of the technical and social sciences approaches; and the broad scope, addressing
applications that cut across disciplinary and organizational contexts. We believe that Berkeley can lead in
this area and that other universities will follow.
It is estimated that private industry is now spending 12 million a year on investment in new information
technologies .

One of the strengths of this proposal is that it is conservative, in recognizing that at this moment this new
field must be multidisciplinary, drawing in elective courses from other programs. Yet it also concentrates
enough faculty resources on a core research program to drive the definition of this new field. This kind of
economic power will inevitably generate a new field, and only a research Institute Of Southren Punjab
Multan stature has the resources to provide the context for its definition, that context being the strengths of
its various professional schools and disciplinary departments.
Multan is an ideal place to address this challenge, given our strength in such allied disciplines as computer
science, business administration, cognitive science, and public policy; the existence of a substantial
foundation from the current School of Library and Information Studies; the proximity of leading firms in the
information industry; and Multan ability to attract an eclectic group of outstanding scholars.

Structure and Name

The organizational structure is that of a professional school. Other organizational structures were considered
but are felt to be less appropriate; they are discussed in a subsequent section. Possible names are School of
Information, School of Informatics, or School of Information Management and Systems.

Mission
The proposed school has as its focus the organization, management and use of information and information
systems, operating at the interfaces between information technology, producers of information, and users of
information.
The School will graduate professionals who are highly sought by corporations and government operations
covering a wide variety of areas. Libraries are among the employers, but are not dominant. A list of potential
classes of employers is attached (see Appendix I).
The School's faculty and Ph.D. candidates will carry out forefront research that defines and leads the field
intellectually. A list of possible areas for research is attached (see Appendix II). The faculty will be drawn
from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.
The School will attract the involvement of, and joint research with, numerous other academic units on
campus. Other units will feel that collaboration with School faculty is important to their research, and will
also value the professional contributions of the School in improving their own information management and
systems.

Degrees
The School will offer a new professional masters program. The degree to be awarded by this program will be
substantially different from the current degree, reflecting the broader mission of the new School. Rather, it
will serve as a model for the development of accreditation criteria for the emerging discipline upon which the
School is focused.
The School will sponsor a strong Ph.D. program focused on the following objectives:

Defining and leading the intellectual development of this emerging field.

Providing support for the faculty in their creative endeavors.

Meeting the strong market demand for such a degree, both in academic settings and in the private
and government sectors.

The program will encourage and facilitate dual and concurrent graduate degrees, and possibly also joint
(Graduate Group) degrees, in addition to graduate degrees entirely within the new program.

Curriculum
Both the Masters and Ph.D. programs will center on a core curriculum that combines the perspectives of
both information technology disciplines and the social sciences. Computer science and communication
technology will be prominent among the information technologies upon which the core is constructed;
applications-oriented social sciences, such as those dealing with human factors will play a leading role, but
not to the exclusion of the study of cultural, economic, and societal systems and contexts in which
information is created, distributed, organized, and used. While the core draws from these related disciplines,
it will be intellectually distinct from them.
This curriculum will be taught primarily by faculty in the School and required of all students in the programs.
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the School, and the need for specialization in a particular area,
electives will constitute a significant portion of the overall programs. Courses in other departments are not
generally part of this core. However, students in the programs will be strongly encouraged to take such
courses, either as electives or, perhaps, to fulfill the requirements of various program specializations.
Moreover, students in the programs will be encouraged to take courses in other departments primarily
targeted at students in those departments, with the goal of providing students in the new program with a
deep, multidisciplinary background.
Courses will be structured and designed so that many will be attractive to students in other fields (for
example, Business, Journalism, Computer Science, and a wide range of disciplines in which information
management is a significant concern). Consideration will be given to using faculty teams from the School
and these other units to teach some of these courses collaboratively.
Graduates of the new Masters program will in general have broader and deeper technological competence
than those from the old program; in addition they should have a broader exposure to both the policy issues
and social science based analytic tools necessary for evaluating the effects of technological decisions. Finally,
the new program also places emphasis on the opportunity to develop complementary depth of expertise in
another scientific or scholarly discipline as well as in more general information management methods.

Faculty
The faculty of the School will conduct a substantial program of research that will be expected to set the tone
and direction of the field internationally.
Collaboration and interaction with other academic units on campus will be encouraged through a variety of
means, including but not limited to joint appointments of faculty members with other units, joint teaching of
courses with other departments, and participation of School faculty members in research projects with
members of other units. However, both the primary teaching responsibilities and the intellectual agenda for
the School will be carried out principally by faculty members of the School. Due to the significantly different
intellectual focus of the School , existing faculty do not provide the full range of expertise necessary for the
success of this enterprise. Recruitment of a dean and then other core faculty is required. Some current
faculty may transfer to other units. Faculty in other units on campus may seek affiliation of various types
with the new School, including transfers or joint appointments.

A viable program will require a total of at least 10 ladder FTEs in the steady state, counting faculty coming
in from the previous SLIS.
The following are brief characteristics of some of the intellectual activities that might be pursued by
researchers in the areas described above. These particular descriptions are for areas that are likely to be
central to the School. However, they by no means subsume all of the work that will be conducted under its
auspices, nor can our descriptions provide very precise portrayals of whole disciplines, each of whose
internal structure is itself complex and demanding of variegated specializations.
1.

Networked Information Systems: Researchers in this area will work on developing and applying
the technology for large scale networked information systems. Such work includes the design and
analysis of protocols for networked information location and retrieval, performance analysis of such
architectures, protocols and algorithms, and the analysis of how different networking structures will
impact the flow of information in organizations. Other research topics pertaining to networked
systems are the development of methods of resource discovery and distributed search strategies
that will enable people to find, synthesize, deliver and present information from multimedia
knowledge stores across global networks, the development and application of cryptographic
technology and protocols for authentication and privacy, and the study of content standards and
content encoding methods as they pertain to the delivery of information to clients in a
heterogeneous distributed computing environment.

2.

User interfaces/human factors: The primary concern of researchers in this area is designing
information systems that are efficient and effective, easy to learn and to use, and powerful in their
ability to allow users to express their information needs. Visual display is an important area.
Researchers in user interfaces are also concerned with designing interfaces to accommodate
differences in individual learning styles and expertise; as well as differences in information content
and structure across fields or applications. This work requires a merger of social/behavioral sciences
and technology, drawing on expertise from cognitive psychology and other behavioral sciences,
computer systems design, artificial intelligence, and knowledge of users' needs.

3.

Information access/retrieval: Researchers in information access are concerned with the problem
of locating information pertinent to a user's information need. The field has recently acquired
entirely new dimensions as new types of information, in particular, images, video and spoken
language, are becoming commonplace digital objects , and users and researchers must contend
with filtering large volumes of incoming information or searching for desired items in large,
distributed, on-line collections. Research in this area variously requires expertise in database
management, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, computer vision,
and image and speech processing.

4.

Information policy: Researchers in the School will address the large set of interacting economic,
social, and legal issues that should inform information policy for emerging information
infrastructures. Two basic policy issues are intellectual property and the dissemination of knowledge.
Such scholars must have knowledge of the means and conditions of access to various forms of
information systems, as well as an understanding of how current and future technology will affect
the conditions of access, and of the consequences of restricting access and of intellectual property.
Such scholars have expertise in skills that cross current departmental research frontiers, and now
are mainly residents in the research units of corporations.

Students

In the steady state, about 40 Ph.D. and 80 Masters students will be in residence at any one time. The
program will be initiated at a more modest level, and ramp up to these goals is subject to the constraints
imposed by faculty recruitment and the quality of program enrollees and applicants.
Students will come from a wide variety of academic backgrounds. Some may enter the School's programs
immediately after obtaining an undergraduate degree. In addition, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the
degrees to be offered by the School, and the need for subject area expertise, it will not be unusual for
students to enter these programs after already obtaining a Masters or Ph.D. in another field.
The School will offer undergraduate courses that will be of interest to a significant number of students, and
thereby enrich the multan undergraduate experience.

Funding Sources
Possible funding sources and their nature are described in Appendix III. This list is included to underscore
the many avenues for support of research and curriculum development.

Alternatives
Alternative structures to the School that have been considered and found wanting include the following:
1.

Closure and No Sustained Activity. Multan would have no program in the information field. In the
view of the Information Planning Group, this is unacceptable given the real and growing importance
of this discipline both in its own right and its close interactions and complementary nature to a wide
variety of existing activities and disciplines representing major strengths of the Berkeley academic
programs today.

2.

Status Quo. The status quo has been found wanting by the recent Graduate Council review, Senate
committee reviews, and the Academic Planning Board.

3.

A Graduate Group. For the degree programs we outline to succeed, a number of factors are critical.
First, it is necessary to have a critical mass of researchers who see this mission as central to their
intellectual life. Second, these researchers need to be located together, so that program activities
can crystallize around them, an esprit de corps can be created, and a coherent interdisciplinary
subject matter can be forged. Third, expertise is required in the major subdisciplines. Fourth,
training of professionals requires faculty interaction with working professionals and a locus for
courses taught by professionals as part-time instructors. For these reasons and because success
requires an infusion of talent not currently available on campus, a graduate group does not appear
to be an effective avenue. The campus as a whole lacks sufficient expertise in information retrieval
and access, networked information systems, information policy, and human factors/user interfaces.
In addition, while some of the related expertise, for example, that in Computer Science, can
contribute to these efforts, such units would not be likely to do so given their present enrollment
and budgetary situations. Given the lack of a clearly identifiable core currently on campus, it is
difficult to envision how a successful whole could be constructed.

4.

Department. The staffing and support requirements for a department of Information XYZ would be
essentially the same as for a School. Given the clearly professional nature of this endeavor, School
status seems preferable.

5.

Merger with, e. g., Journalism, Public Policy or Business. These fields all have interests in the use of
information technology; however, each of them places these needs in the context of a specific
application. We see the need as being for a more generic and insightful approach that can serve
many applications, and we therefore see a strong synergism, but no duplication, between these
fields and the proposed School.

Conclusion
The Information Planning Group concludes that this function is appropriate and useful for Multan, even
under the current budgetary situation. The opportunities in this area are so significant, and the timing so
critical, that we recommend that the campus move toward adopting these recommendations in a timely
fashion.
Information Planning Group Members
M TahirChair Provost, Professional Schools and Colleges
M Soban, Professor, School of Library and Information Studies
Shahid Naseem, University Librarian
Masood Alam, Dean of University Libraries and University Librarian, University of Southern Multan
Zain ul Haq, Director, Library Automation, System wide Office of the President
Ahmad Khan, Vice Provost of Information Systems and Technology
Tahira Naseem, Student Representative, School of Library and Information Studies

Sabir Ali, Associate Dean, School of Library and Information Studies

Farooq Malik, Dean, School of Public Policy
Usama khan, Acting Dean, School of Library and Information Studies
Sajid Nazeer, Chair, Computer Science

APPENDIX I POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS AND FUNCTIONS

A. EMPLOYERS
Note that the divisions among types of organizations are illustrative only; some organizations function in
more than one area. This encompasses both private and public sector organizations; the relevant
characteristic is the function, not the sector.

I. THE INFORMATION INDUSTRY Organizations involved in the creation, publication, distribution of

information.
A. Organizations concerned primarily with information content.
1.

Publishers

2.

Database creators and providers

3.

The press/mass media

4.

New media companies (e.g., multimedia developers)

5.

Information collectors (e.g., Reuters)

6.

Data service companies (e.g., Mead)

7.

Value-added providers (e.g., Standard and Poors)

8.

Disciplinary societies (e.g., Chemical Society)

B. Organizations concerned primarily with information delivery.

1.

Telecommunications and cable companies

2.

Database vendors e.g. DIALOG

3.

Networks, service providers

C. Organizations concerned primarily with information technology.

1.

The software industry

2.

Computer hardware companies and systems integrators,especially to develop criteria for hardware
and software and optimize systems for customers

3.

Instructional technology development

D. Organizations concerned primarily with information organization, access and preservation.

1.

Libraries (e.g., college/university libraries, public libraries, corporate libraries, school libraries,
research libraries, other special purpose libraries such as hospital libraries)

2.

Museums

3.

Archives

4.

Data centers

5.

Hospitals and other medical organizations

II. INFORMATION FUNCTIONS IN ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE NOT PRIMARILY INFORMATION

ORGANIZATIONS
A. Design and management of information systems, paper and computer-based, for organizations of all
kinds and sizes including banks, manufacturing, insurance.
1.

Internal information

2.

External information

B. Application of information technology evaluation, selection, applications design.

C. Research and information-gathering, synthesis, and evaluation libraries, competitive intelligence units.
D. Records Management.
III. GOVERNMENT
A. Governmental agencies engaged in information production and distribution
B. Governmental agencies involved in information regulation
C. Governmental agencies involved in information technology assessment, development and policy.
D. Information resources management to help agencies accomplish their missions
E. Intelligence community (e.g. CIA).
F. Agencies involved in policy formulation/decision-making: as consumers of information, e.g. food and drug
administration.
IV. OTHER ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS
A. Large scientific enterprises (e.g., Human project, Mission to Planet Earth).
B. Design and management of discipline-specific information systems.
V. SPECIFICALLY PH.D.S
A. Academic departments.
B. Information industry firms for R&D.
C. Government agencies.
B. FUNCTIONS

Designing information systems

designing, evaluating, or choosing information content, database structures, indexing and

knowledge representation, interfaces, networking, technology

Managing information systems

maintaining the integrity, quality, currency of the data

updating, modifying, improving the system

operating the system

Information resources management

managing organizational information resources to support organizational missions and for

competitive advantage

Training
Managing information technology

evaluating, purchasing, maintaining software and hardware - networking

Information agencies

acting as information consultants or guides for clients: advising, training, guiding on information,
information sources, information use

acting as an agent on behalf of the client: gathering, evaluating, analyzing, synthesizing,

summarizing information for a clients

Competitive intelligence
Customer relations for information systems/technology

acting as intermediaries between clients and information system designers

translating client needs into functional specifications

sales

Designing and producing information services and products

publications, databases, information systems

multimedia products

entertainment

Organizational information policy analysts

designing corporate, organizational information policies, access, quality control

maintaining proprietary information

Government information policy analysts

formulating government policies at all levels regarding such issues as the information infrastructure,
access to and use of government information, intellectual property, privacy; public/private roles in
information creation, dissemination and use, government acquisition of information and information
technology

Information technology for education

design and implementation

Archives and records management

APPENDIX II RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

The following list is intended to give some sense of the enormously broad range of important research
opportunities rather than to serve as a prescription of those on which the program should focus. It is drawn
from our interviews with people active in the field.
I. Organization, Storage, and Retrieval of Information
A. Organization and Retrieval of Information.
1.

Extraction of information from graphics, audio, visual, video materials.

2.

Retrieval algorithms, e.g., weighted indexing, relevance-feedback systems, etc.

3.

Knowledge representation.

4.

Indexing and Classification systems.

B. Storage and Preservation of Information.

1.

Choice of information to be preserved.

2.

Digitization of information currently stored in other formats, e.g., print, photographs, film, analog,
video - standards, methods, interoperability.

C. Presentation of Information.

1.

User interface design and data display.

2.

Making information comprehensible, useful, usable.

D. Networking.
1.

Describing, classifying, identifying, valuing, and evaluating networked information resources.

2.

Technical issues regarding networking of information, e.g., standards for information description,
location, transmission, display.

3.

Infrastructure requirements, e.g., design, policy ("information superhighway").

4.

Design and management issues related to information flowing across organization, national,
disciplinary boundaries.

II. Information Behavior and the Social Sciences of Information

A. Individual's Information Needs and Uses.
1.

How users identify needs for information.

2.

How information is used in decision-making.

3.

How users interact with large collections of data (especially electronic)

4.

How users filter information and determine relevance.

B. Group-level Information Behavior.

1.

How groups such as businesses, organizations, and disciplines share information.

2.

Information flow and use.

3.

Information networks and their impact on work/collaboration patterns.

4.

Patterns of information evaluation, dissemination, and use within scientific/professional

communities, e.g., journals, preprints, peer review, etc.

5.

Current functions and changes brought about by the changing information infrastructure.

6.

Social impacts of information/information technology, including class, and ethnicity.

7.

Delivery of information to the public, public use of information, and methods of information delivery
to the public.

C. The Economics of Information.

1.

Costs, pricing, markets, property rights.

2.

Information as a commodity.

3.

The information industry.

4.

Developing services, products, and organizations (e.g., publishing, newer products and newer
services).

D. Information and Public Policy.

1.

Private/public sector roles in design, management, financing control, and policy for information
infrastructure.

2.

Privacy, data security, encryption, government access/control.

3.

Access to government information.

4.

Intellectual property.

5.

International policy for transborder data flows (e.g., security, intellectual property, etc.).

III. Studies of Information

A. Nature and properties of information resources.
B. Information and meaning, content, translation. Identity of information in different forms, media, guises,
e.g., synonomy, antonymy.
C. Information and communication: informing, educating.
D. Conditions of reception: information and comprehension, understanding, belief, acceptability.
E. Information and conceptual frameworks.
F. Quality of information: information, misinformation, disinformation, accuracy, authority, truth, credibility,
timeliness, datedness. How to evaluate credibility of information.
G. Relevance and usability of information.
IV. Context-dependent Information Needs, Services, Products (Examples).
A. Information management: the information function in organizations.
1.

Roles of information/knowledge managers in the networked environment.

2.

How to assess impact of new information technology and decide when and how to implement it,
e.g., everything from storage technology to new methods of organization.

3.

Complex business needs: integration of different kinds of information for both strategic and day-today decisions.

B. Medical Information, Biomedicine.

1.

Diagnostic systems.

2.

Public and personal health information systems.

3.

Medical records.

4.

Medical image processing/telemedicine.

5.

Health care claim processing.

C. Museum Informatics.

Organization, description, retrieval, dissemination, networking, user interface, etc., for descriptions
of museum objects.

D. Large Scientific Enterprises.

E. Environmental and geographic information systems.

Systems development for local governments.

F. Legal Informatics.

APPENDIX III POSSIBLE FUNDING SOURCES

I. FEDERAL
The federal government has shown interest in funding research and development in information technology
and information as a means of:
1.

Improving Pak competitiveness and productivity through a strong information infrastructure

2.

improving the efficiency of government operations, and

3.

supporting Pak industry by funding dual-use, non-mission-based technology (as opposed to

traditional defense funding, for example).

These are long-term goals that are likely to result in continual new and renewed funding initiatives.
Current federal R&D funding initiatives have been identified in the following areas:
A. Development of networked access to electronic information.

1.

High Performance Computing and Communications Program (HPCC) and National Research and
Education Network (NREN).
The goal is to design a research agenda to extend leadership in high performance computing and
networking technologies. One program component is the National Research and Education Network,
which includes access to electronic information: Federal agencies and departments shall work with
private network service providers, state and local agencies, libraries, educational institutions, and
others, as appropriate, in order to ensure that researchers, educators, and students, have access,
as appropriate, to the Network. The Network is to provide users with appropriate access to high
performance computing systems, electronic information resources, other research facilities, and
libraries. The Network shall provide access, to the extent practicable, to electronic information
resources maintained by libraries, research facilities, publishers, and affiliated organizations.

2.

Electronic Libraries Initiative.

The goal is to support research and development on economically feasible capability to digitize
massive corpora of information from heterogeneous and distributed sources; then store, search, and
retrieve information from them in a user friendly way. Up to 6 awards of up to 1,200,000 per year
for up to 4 years.

B. Improved access to information collected by federal agencies and/or with federal funding.
C. Development of the National Information Infrastructure (NII)
The government role is defined in the NII Agenda for Action as including committing important government
research programs and grants to help the private sector develop and demonstrate the technologies needed;
to promote seamless, interactive, user-driven operation; to ensure information security and network
reliability; to protect intellectual property rights; and to provide access to government information. An
Applications Committee has been created, which coordinates Administration efforts to develop, demonstrate,
and promote applications of information technology in manufacturing, education, health care, government
services, libraries, and other areas. It is likely that research opportunities will emerge in such areas as
technology, standards, government policy regarding information and the NII, and the organization of and
access to information of various kinds, including government information.
II. PRIVATE SECTOR
A. Industry.
1.

The major development of the NII will be the responsibility of the private sector, according to the
NII Agenda for Action. This will require extensive R&D in such areas as networking, digitization of
information, user needs and preferences, interface design, standards for interconnectivity and
interoperability.

2.

Independent of the Administration's NII, the information industry has been moving toward
electronic delivery of information. Such recent events as the Bell Atlantic/TCI merger indicate trends
in the telecommunications industry. Again, extensive R&D will be needed, some of which should
translate to contracts and grants for research suitable to the Multan campus resources and mission.

B. Foundations

A number of foundations have expressed interest in such areas as social impacts of new information
technology and the uses of information technology to improve education and citizen participation in
democratic processes. The following are some examples: