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The Future of the Information Science through the Lens of Doctoral Research Work

Information sciences are a relatively recent scientific field that is characterised by marked interdisciplinarity, dynamic development and diversity in defining its research subject area, which makes necessary a systematic research of its conceptual space and perspectives of development. Numerous papers expressly emphasising the need for a systematic analysis of the developmental characteristics and condition in the field of information sciences (Zins, Jarvelin and Vakkari) clearly indicate that this issue features as the focus of attention in the international research community as well. There is also a general agreement that the field of information sciences is currently experiencing dynamic development and that today it no longer comprises the traditional aspects of storing, transmitting and using information, but is going through a transposition of its conceptual core, whereat research in the field of information sciences is more and more frequently entering the context of issues originally associated with the field of technology, humanities, law, medicine, and the like. Nevertheless, the fundamental problem of information sciences ensues from the very attempt to define its subject ares. One of the first definitions of the field of interest in information sciences was provided by Borko (1968): “In essence, information science research investigates the properties and behaviour of information, the use and transmission of information, and the processing of information for optimal storage and retrieval”. This definition is still acceptable today provided that the central object of information sciences is information. Some theoreticians in this scientific field hold that in the cognitive science we should make a distinction between data, information and knowledge, in which context each of these could be taken as the basis of research in information sciences. “Data are the raw material for information, and information is the raw material for knowledge” (Zins, 2007). Precisely these three elements that may feature as and in fact are the subject of research in information sciences opens up a wide interdisciplinary context and makes it difficult to define and specify the subject of research in information sciences. If data would be taken as the principal subject of research, than this scientific field would be a constituent part of all types of data in any scientific discipline (bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, etc.), which would then make the terming of the field as information sciences unsuitable and call for its renaming into something like data science. On the other hand, if the basis of research would be knowledge as such - which would also include all scientific disciplines - this again would make necessary the re-terming of information sciences into e.g. knowledge science. if there exists a problem at the level of defining the subject of research, then this surely leads to problems related to the definition of the theoretical concept as well as to research methodology. It is discernible from the above stated that there is currently no universal and generally accepted definition for the scientific field of information sciences. A revealing insight into the extent of diversity related to the existing definitions of information sciences has been provided as a result of a study entitled “Knowledge Map of Information Science”, which included 57 leading scientists from 16 countries. Basically, six different conceptual approaches to the field of information sciences were singled out: The Hi-Tech Model, The Technology Model, The Culture Model, The Human World Model, The Living World Model, and The Living & Physical Worlds Model (Zins, 2007). If we depart from previously mentioned, very loosely defined field of information sciences and consider narrower definitions, then the perspective on the condition and development of information sciences adopted by David Bowden (2008) would be acceptable for the purpose of this work. Bawden provided an overview on the development of information sciences in the period between 1979 and 2007 through an analysis of the Journal of Information Science, highlighting the contribution of the most important theoreticians, among which Brooks and Farradene particularly stood out. The questions and dilemmas posed by these scientists on the theoretical and methodological aspects of the development of information sciences are still pressing today and have among other things prompted us to put forward this research. Investigating the development of the information science field on the body of doctoral work done at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences. The purpose was to define conceptual space, its borders and interdisciplinarity through citation analysis thus identifying the future directions of information sciences.

information science ; doctoral research work

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