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Information Architect

Practice Settings
Business and research organizations (including libraries) with large-scale portals/intranets or external Web sites or consulting organizations catering to such clients

Primary Responsibilities
Design useful Web sites. A Web site is useful to users if it lets them find quickly what they need– through the proper combination of query-based search, navigation search, and browsing – and lets them assimilate and understand quickly what they found. A Web site is useful to his/her/its owner if it guides the user to items the Web site owner wants this user to see and/or creates in the user attitudes and opinions the Web site owner wants to promote or persuades the user to take action the Web site owner wants him or her to take. The specific tasks include:

• becoming knowledgeable about the purposes of users and Web site owners;
• gaining an understanding of the subject domain of the Web site;
• dividing the Web site into appropriate chunks (Web pages) and arranging these in a hierarchy suitable for the purposes;
• design useful navigation paths;
• develop classifications / taxonomies to support search and navigation, such as subject directory hierarchy or a faceted classification to support interactive query formulation;
• apply principles of information design to create Web pages in which help the user to quickly pick out and understand the information needed;
• develop guidelines for Web page authors;
• develop the technical infrastructure for creating and maintaining the Web site (authoring templates, database-driven creation of Web sites, selection and configuration of a search engine.)

Recommended Electives
Students should consult with their advisors to select electives that best support individual intellectual interests and career goals. The electives listed here are not meant to represent the complete listing of all relevant courses that a student may take within CLIS, at other units on campus, or as part of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area. In addition, the Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) Consortium may offer CLIS-approved courses that are relevant. The URL is http://www.wiseeducation.org/home_p-home.aspx, user name: md-student, password: test.

LBSC
Course Number        Course Title
LBSC 603                  Library Systems Analysis
LBSC 641                  Selection and Evaluation of Resources for Learning
LBSC 642                  Integrating Technology into Learning and Teaching
LBSC 682                  Management of Electronic Records and Information
LBSC 701                  Research Methods in Library and Information Studies
LBSC 709                  Independent Study
LBSC 736                  Designing Information Products and Services
LBSC 737                  Seminar in the Special Library and Information Center
LBSC 750                  Information Access in Electronic Environments
LBSC 772                  Seminar in the Organization of Knowledge
LBSC 773                  Classification Theory
LBSC 774                  Seminar in Linguistic Topics
LBSC 775                  Construction and Maintenance of Index Languages and Thesauri
LBSC 792                  Introduction to Expert Systems
LBSC 793                  Database Design
LBSC 794                  Principles of Software Evaluation
LBSC 795                  Principles of Human-Computer Communication
LBSC 796                  Information Retrieval Systems
CMSC 434                Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction
ENGL 467                  Computer and text
ENGL 487                  Foundations of rhetoric
COMM 401                Interpreting strategic discourse

Professional Associations
Special Interest Group: Information Architecture (SIGIA), American Society for Information Science and Technology

Specialized Placement Services
InfoCurrent