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Updated: Potential Winter Quarter Electives

Updated potential electives list (Update – 11/12 3:35PM – The list below is now ranked):

  1. PB AF 594, Economic Approaches to Environmental Management, (3 credits, description)
  2. INFO 498, Special Topics in Informatics: Programming Semantic Structures (1-5 credits, description)
  3. IMT 586, Information Dynamics I (4 credits)

    This is after reading the description sent to the iMSIM mailing list by Mike Crandall on the 9th of this month:

    “Have you ever wondered …

    • what causes some ideas, products, and companies to become fads that peak and die, while others have staying power?
    • why there are business cycles?
    • what causes some diseases to become epidemics and others to subside with little effect?
    • why real change often takes so long?
    • the role information plays in the answer to each of these questions?

    Would you like to learn how to answer these and other such questions yourself?

    Sign up for IMT 586, Information Dynamics I, in the Winter Quarter.”

  4. LIS 559, Special Topics in the Social Context of Information (1-4 credits, description)
  5. IMT 546, Data Communications and Networking (4 credits, description provided by instructor)
    Update (11/12 3:30PM): The professor for the course indicates that this is likely going to be review material, so it’s been removed from this list and the schedule below.

Updated visual schedule (Excel is good for this stuff):

Potential Winter schedule as of 11/12

Update (11/12 12:30AM): I have e-mail messages out to the Evans School regarding PB AF 594 and an e-mail out to the instructor for IMT 546 to figure out whether these courses should stay on my list or not. For PB AF 594, this depends entirely on which registration period I have to wait for to register. For IMT 546, it depends on whether the course covers topics I already know a lot about, which isn’t clear from the provided description.

Why I Voted No on Proposition 1

November 6th marked election day in Washington State.  One of the biggest items on the ballot was Proposition 1: REGIONAL ROADS AND TRANSIT SYSTEM, which was soundly defeated in the polls with 55.47% voting no.  This was the largest transportation bill ever proposed to King County voters and those within the districts affected by the proposed changes.

Looking at the list of proposed improvements, a good chunk of them are necessary improvements to the existing transportation infrastructure in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties.  So why vote it down?

  1. The measure was, quite simply, too big, and this is the fault of the state.  Voters had no ability to vote yes on individual portions of the proposal and had to either accept or reject the entire package.  This is explained in the King County Voters Pamphlet, which exposes the text of the measure itself.  That text includes the following statement:”WHEREAS, in 2007, the State Legislature, enacted Substitute House Bill 1396, which requires Sound Transit and RTID to submit their proposed transportation plans in a single ballot question in order to provide voters with an easier and more efficient method of expressing their will, and which included findings that transportation improvements proposed by Sound Transit and RTID form integral parts of, and are naturally and necessarily related to, a single regional transportation system . . .”

    The state legislature effectively doomed the measure by requiring this.

  2. We don’t need to keep throwing money at fixing and expanding an infrastructure that is in bad need of rethinking.  It is not sustainable to add yet more capacity to the system, which will not encourage the use of alternatives like light rail, bus lines, bikes, and carpooling.  Increasing population density and making the existing city cores more walkable and livable in general will help create an environment where we don’t need to drive as much (if at all).  The goal here should not be continuation of the status quo; it should be a complete reversal and rethinking of it.
  3. We need to start thinking about how to best preserve the spaces we have, which is not assisted by further sprawl and massive projects to revamp infrastructure.  The Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle is a perfect example.  This is a major highway into and out of Seattle, granted, but there are other ways to direct traffic through the city.  When the bus tunnel closed for maintenance several years ago, everybody assumed that it was the end of the world and traffic would grind to a halt.  This never materialized.  We adjusted.  We would adjust to not having access to the Viaduct and being rewarded with a more welcoming waterfront.

I push for the idea of sustainability because I recognize my impact on the world.  I recognize the need to maintain the infrastructure that exists already, but I do not recognize the need to expand upon it unless such expansions support new transportation options rather than simply inviting more cars to join our already-clogged highway system.  I recognize the need for transit, but I also recognize that the more single-occupancy cars we add to our roads, the faster the infrastructure deteriorates and the sooner we need solutions that make sense.  That solution is not a gigantic package where voters have no choice in what they can and cannot accept.  We need a la carte voting on these measures so that voters can properly speak their minds.  If this ever happens, I will support mass transit in favor of less sustainable transportation expansions.

Concurrent Masters Degrees

I attended an information session this afternoon about the informal concurrent MLIS/MPA degree partnership with the Evans School – many thanks to former coworker-turned-MLIS/MPA-candidate Bo Kinney for running into me on the way out of class.  As it turns out, this is actually the result of this graduate school policy, which establishes that any student can do a concurrent masters informally by applying for admissions to both of the programs they want a degree from:

Informal Concurrent Degree Programs
Students in these programs pursue two degrees from different departments simultaneously.  These programs have not been approved as formal concurrent programs, but students complete the same requirements as in the formal concurrent programs.

To earn two master’s degrees, a student must complete the equivalent of two Graduate School degree requirements of 36 credits each for a minimum of 72 credits. If one or both of the participating programs require more than the minimum of 36 credits, those additional credits may be “shared”, and applied to both degrees. However, the total number of credits completed must total at least 72 and both programs must approve the credits counted toward both degrees.  Up to 12 credits earned toward a Ph.D. degree may be counted toward a Master’s degree in another program with the approval of both degree offering units.

It is the responsibility of the student to submit a written list of courses which apply toward each respective degree at the time he or she files an application for the Master’s degree or schedules the general examination. This list must be approved by both programs.

The Information School and the Evans School has several students (in the MLIS program) doing this joint degree work, and apparently it has been done by MSIM students in the past as well.  Since this isn’t a formal concurrency degree, there’s a lot of flexibility in the arrangement.

As noted in a previous post, I actually already am considering taking courses in the Evans School curriculum series.  I’m actually starting to think about this idea, since it also means that I could potentially get two Masters degrees in three years.  If I were to do it, surprisingly, the Evans School might be a good option, particularly because of their environmental policy and natural resources management policy gateway, which is one of the primary focuses of Evans School researchers.  Other options would include Computer Science and Engineering and Technical Communication.  Interestingly enough, the Law School has an Environmental Law concentration track (Dad, Don – what was that I said about NEVER taking law and the familial limit for lawyers being reached….?).

I would have to formally apply for admissions to the second program, and would start the concurrent degree next year (2008-2009) if I were to decide to pursue it.  That means, though, that I’d have to apply by January or February.  That also means application fees, essays, and recommendations (ugh), though I sort of doubt that I’d have to retake the GRE.  Further communication with program advisers would be necessary to figure out what would be needed for application materials.

I’m considering this, since it makes really good economic sense – three years of debt versus four if I were to return for another Masters degree.  Alas, the other Masters degree that was originally very interesting to me – the MBA in Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute – doesn’t count under this program, since they’re two distinct institutions.  And I’d have to be insane to do three Masters programs.  Hell, I’m almost insane for thinking about doing two…

Registration Course Status Links

Links to the UW’s Current Section Status pages for my elective and required courses are below.

  • IMT 546A, Data Communications and Networking (4 credits)
  • LIS 559, Special Topics in the Social Context of Information (1-4 credits)
  • INFO 498, Special Topics in Informatics: Programming Semantic Structures (1-5 credits)

This is in addition to the required courses listed below.  Update 11/10: Note that PB AF 506 is actually a restricted elective for those in the Evans MPA program and therefore does not appear here.

  • IMT 530, Organization of Information Resources (4 credits)
  • IMT 580, Management of Information Organizations (4 credits)

Steve Krug at Adobe Seattle

I had the pleasure of hearing Steve Krug, author of the book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, at the Puget Sound SIGCHI meeting on the 25th. This is a great little book that’s been on my bookshelf for a while. Steve’s a great speaker and a deep thinker about the subject of web usability, so it was an interesting talk. Some of his key points:

  • There are two things that every designer overlooks: “You are here” indicators and page titles.
  • “You are here” indicators need to be louder than you think they need to be in order to grab attention. These can be in the form of tabs that are shaded to match the page background (he uses StumbleUpon as an excellent example), or in any other format that makes the indicator “pop”. Steve has a confessed bias towards tabs, though.
  • There needs to be a top-level “Home” option – simply having the logo link back to the home page isn’t enough. This is so that it’s easily locatable and so that people always know where they are in relation to the main page. If you use subnavigation under category tabs, center the subnavigation under the tab.
  • Prominent, well-placed page titles are a must. Steve says that “if I look at a page from 50 feet away, I should be able to guess the content of the page”. This doesn’t mean that it has to be the biggest word or even the boldest word on the page. Rather, it means that the page title needs to be well-placed at the top of the content space. It should take advantage of its prominence and its location on the page. He offers up the idea that WYCIWYG (what you click is what you get): in other words, if you click on the link, the page title and the text of the link should convey the same idea. This doesn’t mean that a link named “Contact Us” links to a page with the same title; you could use a variant such as “Get in Touch With Us”, so long as the main idea is conveyed.
  • “So Steve wants all sites to look the same?” No. There are exceptions to these rules (entertainment sites and sites that are meant to be puzzling, to name a couple).
  • The best piece of advice I’ve heard in a while: if something on a web page doesn’t work for a group of people using the site, that’s not an indicator that you have to scrap the design and start over. Steve is a big advocate for making the smallest tweak possible that makes the site more usable.

MSIM Winter Electives – LIS559

Here’s the official course information for LIS559, listed below as a possible elective:

Ethics, Imagination and Leadership: A Cross Cultural Approach
LIS 559
3 credits; Tuesdays 9:30 am – 12:20 pm
Cheryl Metoyer, Professor

This course will identify the ethical issues which effect leadership in the information professions. Students will examine leadership models reflected in the research of library and information science. They will then analyze the literature of culturally diverse groups with the intent of discovering alternative models and understanding the implications of alternative leadership models.

I’ve already registered for eight credits in the required core courses IMT530 and IMT580 – I only need to select an elective at this point.

Question of the Day

A question that sparked from one of my IMT510 readings (Fisher, Theories of Information Behavior, ASIST Monograph Series, chapter 30):

Research is also needed on how information needs are expressed and recognized as information grounds . . . and how they can be used to facilitate information flow, including how employers can alleviate the stressors of unemployment by helping laid-off employees establish or identify replacement information grounds that can facilitate the availability of information required during times of transition (p188-9).

The question: can companies become more competitive or successful by supporting employees even when they aren’t employees of that company any longer?

MSIM Winter Electives

My approach to the MSIM program thus far has been to select courses that sound interesting and fun.  I didn’t enter into the program with any particular final goals – I don’t have an answer to “What do you want to be” yet (though the scope has been narrowed a bit).  It’s time to consider electives for next quarter, which currently involves the following list.  Mike Crandall, the head of the MSIM program, suggested at some point also taking some policy courses from the Evans School or the Program on the Environment to incorporate some of the sustainability stuff I had mentioned in my application, so some of those courses are also reflected below:

  • IMT 546A, Data Communications and Networking (4 credits)
    Sat 8:30 – 3:20, five class meetings total
    Larson
  • LIS 559, Special Topics in the Social Context of Information (1-4 credits)
    Tue 9:30-12:20
    Metoyer
  • INFO 498, Special Topics in Informatics: Programming Semantic Structures (1-5 credits)
    Tue/Thu 11:00-12:20
    Brooks
  • PB AF 506, Ethics and Public Policy (3 credits)
    Wed 9:30-12:20
    Blake

This is in addition to the required courses:

  • IMT 530, Organization of Information Resources (4 credits)
    Tue/Thu 1:30 – 3:20
    Tennis
  • IMT 580, Management of Information Organizations (4 credits)
    Mon/Wed 1:30 – 3:20
    Scholl

Just to provide a visual structure for how all these interrelate:

Potential Schedule W08 

Other relevant courses from the Evans School and the Program on the Environment: 

  • ENVIR 416 Ethics and Climate Change (5)
    Conflicts with required course for Winter.
  • PB AF 590 Environmental Policy Processes (3)
    Not offered Winter.
  • PB AF 593 United States Energy Policy (3) 
    Not offered Winter.
  • PB AF 596 Ethics and Values in Environmental and Natural Resource Policy (3) 
    Conflicts with required course for Winter.