ASIST2006: Philosophical Papers Philosophical
3:30 Wednesday
{came in from another session at the same time}

Weak Information Work and "Doable Problems" in Interdisciplinary Science
Carole Palmer
UIUC

IP&M article forthcoming (based on http://sci.lis.uiuc.edu project, funding from NSF)

Discovery Conditions (defined in Gerson 2002)
Affiliated with Arrowsmith proj?

RQ
What information conditions are associated with advancements and problems during the course of research?
What role can literature-based discovery play in daily scientific practice?

Case Study approach
- qualitative interviewing, project and critical incidents
- information diary
- field observation
- document analysis

Do conditional of weak and strong approaches in scientific problem solving extend to information work (Simon, Langley, and Bradshaw 1981)
Weak – novices, unrefined, ill-structured problem space, low domain knowledge, data driven, seek and search
Strong – opposite. Theory driven, recognize and calculate vice seek and search

Research is more fundamental if there is a clarity of vision in its planning (paraphrase of her quote of Simon et al), also messy science in revolutions (Kuhn)

How do you call information work weak or strong?
Strong – known item
Weaker -- browsing
Weak – literature based discovery
(EWWWW – I do not like this one bit!)

IK&M paper lays out the weak vs. strong

Within case – “highly interdisciplinary projects experts engaged in arduous and speculative information activities”

Concentrations WIW in preparation stages of work, low in experiment and dissemination states.

Simon Weak Work only really covers data analysis and all others are meta-activities

To account for information work, look at other models
Fujimura – doable problems, 3 levels of research work: experiment, laboratory, social world work; doability depends on alignment of these three levels
- social world – family of research problems, laboratories, colleagues
- laboratory – teams, experiments, tasks
- experiment – tasks

(hm… reading Knorr-Cetina book Epistemic Cultures now and seeing her construction of laboratory and experiment here and what they mean in two difference disciplines … Knorr-Cetina’s might better explain this than Fujimura’s?)

Fujimura’s model helps to capture additional scope and complexity as well as social dynamics

Macmullin and Taylor’s Problem Dimensions
(?)

Implications
Strengthening weak work
Supporting weak work that should remain weak


(I really hate “weak” for information work – but I can’t pretend to understand Simon’s work -- it just seems very, very wrong to think only novices can/should do this searching in information systems -- in fact, the visual presentation of information to gain insight would pretty much be in this category of weak.... eek!)

Update: typo in the title was really bugging me...

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