School of Information Management & Systems.   Spring 1997.   M. Buckland.
Infosys 101: Information Systems.    Examination questions in Spring 1996.

Linfost 101 Information Systems. Buckland. Spring 1996. In-class Test - Feb 20, 1996.
One hour only. Answer all three questions, in any order. (Recommendation: Ration your time.) Try to give as complete an answer as you can within the time available. When applicable, use real or imaginary examples to illustrate your answers. Write legibly. Use clear English. It is acceptable to use outline style or lists when convenient, suitable, and intelligible.

1. Either (a) What is a Gopher? Describe and comment on the strengths and weaknesses of Gopher systems, including the Veronica indexes to Gopher documents. or (b) James Burke says that Gutenberg took away our memories and that this had enormous consequences for us. Explain.

2. Either (a) Summarize Jerome Kagan's The misleading abstractions of social scientists. If he had included "Information" among the terms discussed, what might he have said? or (b) Summarize what the advert Taking a stand against the Turkish government's denial of the Armenian genocide and scholarly corruption in the academy alleges. What does the advert imply about the role and control of information in society?

3. Explain the textbook's notion of "Information-as-thing" - and how it differs from other notions of information that you may have found in the textbook and/or in Assignment 1: Finding "Information".

Linfost 101 Information Systems. Spring 1996. Closed Book, In-class Test - April 2, 1996.

1. Either (a) "Object - Attribute (aka Field) - Value - Context". Explain with examples.
or (b) How is a bound (or cased) book constructed?

2. Either (a) Explain how "Access" can be used an a unifying theme for information services.
or (b) Social issues relating to new information systems were raised by guest speaker Karen Coyle, the handout Where the information highway is taking us, and class discussion. Provide a brief explanation of three.

3. Information retrieval services do not always perform perfectly. Give some examples of imperfect retrieval performance and explain what is meant by information retrieval effectiveness, drawing on what you have learned from the textbook and the exercises.

Lis 101 Information Systems. Buckland. Spring 1996. In-class Test - May 2, 1996.

1. (a) "Information systems are dominated by their environment." Explain and comment. Use examples.
1. (b) Hirschheim says that "information systems are not technical systems." Explain what he means. Use examples.

2. (a) What does "infrastructure" refer to? Illustrate your answer with respect to information services.
2. (b) "Ideas come first," writes Rozsak and "No ideas, no information." What does he mean?

3. What features distinguish a good user's manual from a not-so-good one, for example for an online retrieval system?
(Revised 2/4/97)