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Home > MSI Degree > Course Catalogue > 501 Projects
SI 501: Contextual Inquiry and Project Management
Course Overview
"Contextual Inquiry and Project Management" is a required core course that our master's students usually take during their first semester. This course addresses a fundamental need of information professionals: how to examine an organization's current information use in the context of work practice and discover and recommend improved ways of working. This is a projects-based course. All projects are scoped to allow students to examine how information influences actions in some process or service within an organization and to develop and practice relevant skills.
To that end, the students' major assignment in this course is a semester-long group project that entails working directly with a local partner organization, such as an archive, corporation, government agency, library, museum, nonprofit organization, or school to analyze current communication and information flows and to offer specific suggestions that can help to make these processes more effective and efficient. Our students have worked with more than 100 such partner organizations over the past several years.
A team of four to six students works with each partner organization over the course of the semester. Please see below for some examples of the types of projects our student teams have worked on in the recent past.
At the end of the semester, student teams prepare oral presentations and written reports. Clients are invited to attend the presentations, which will be held at the School in December. They will also receive a report detailing the student team's findings and recommendations.
If you're interested in having SI students work with your organization, please contact Kelly Kowatch at kkowatch@umich.edu.
Examples of Approved SI 501 Processes for Analysis
- The analysis of information flow that occurs between a board of directors and volunteers at a local wildlife care organization from the processing of incoming reports regarding injured mammals on through to the placement and care of the animals.
- The review of a health clinic's telephone queue and voicemail system that would established a formal protocol for routing phone calls and messages from patients, medical specialists, pharmacists, funders, and vendors to appropriate staff.
- An examination of how a government agency plans, creates, and disseminates information about current events and projects to regional employees to encourage collaboration and decrease the duplication of effort among employees.
- A review of how information flows in a product development organization from the generation of new ideas, through market research, finance, and the actual development of the product.
- The study of a public library's process to acquire and weed materials among its three branches.
- An analysis of the information and work flows between the various processes that layer a U-M department, specifically as they pertain to the core pen pal process. Core "customers" are the mentors involved and the department wants to ensure that all levels of volunteers are serving them well. These mentors need to be properly recruited, trained, supervised, communicated to, and provided proper opportunities to be engaged with elementary students. Quality and efficiency are paramount goals. Through various work flows, quality controls, and information dissemination, the department hopes the team will identify gaps in timing, frequency, training, communication, management, and technology to suggest improvements in execution of this core program.
Clients come from a range of industries including non-profits, university departments, corporations, libraries, and travel agencies. There is no right or wrong type of organization.
Eligibility
In order to be eligible, your organization must meet the following criteria:
- Have a formal or informal information process already in place, that needs improvement
- Provide 5-10 people that are involved in the process and willing and able to be interviewed by the student team
All potential clients are required to complete a Project Proposal and sign a Client Agreement form.
Project Proposal Timeline
Once the School of Information has received and reviewed your initial project proposal, we will provide you with a set of suggestions or a request for clarification. The more specific you are about the current information process in place and the problems associated with it, the fewer rounds of review necessary.
Following approval, your proposal will be held until late August when you will be contacted to inform you that your project has been assigned to a graduate student instructor (GSI). The GSI will be in touch with you shortly thereafter to review the project, confirm your participation, and provide you with an anticipated timeline for the next four months.
In mid-September, the projects will be offered to the student groups. You will be informed if your project is chosen. The SI 501 team does its best to align the number of projects available with the number of student groups; however, the number of students matriculating in the fall is not known until right before school commences. There is a chance of surplus projects which can be developed into internship opportunities if so desired.
Past organizations have found the project review process to be very streamlined and the project experience with the students to be useful far beyond their expectations.
Note that the following are not projects that meet the purpose of the course, SI 501:
- Analyzing interpersonal communication methods or skills
- Web site or usability analysis
- Research and comparison of technology for future purchases
- Media or public relations analysis or assessment of information flow to the public
- Analysis of the success of publicity or promotion campaigns
- Survey development
- Grant research/writing
However, if you do have a project that falls in this range, it may meet the requirements of another practical-experience based SI course or an internship for a School of Information student. Contact SI Career Services at si.careers@umich.edu for more information on internships or Kelly Kowatch at kkowatch@umich.edu for more information or a referral to the faculty of other SI-client based courses.
Last updated: Jun 03, 2009
Home > MSI Degree > Course Catalogue > 501 Projects
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