INSC 598 Schedule*

Part One: Understanding PIM: How Do We Manage Our Information? What Problems Do We Encounter?

Week

Date

Theme

Topics & Questions

Reading

Assignment Due

1

January 3 & 5

Towards a field of inquiry into Personal Information Management (PIM).

An analysis of PIM.

Fundamental problems

 

What is PIM? Why should we care?

Essential activities of PIM and a conceptual framework.

A brief history of PIM.

What are your biggest problems in managing your personal information??

 

Two chapters from Jones, W. (2005). An Introduction to PIM and  A conceptual framework for PIM.

Bush, V. (1945).

Kirsh, D. (2000).

 

  none

2

January 10 & 12

Finding, re-finding, reminding and the “re-collection” of personal information.

What differences are there between re-finding information “out there” (the Web) vs. “in here” (in your personal information collection)? Are there any? Approaches to reminding.

“Re-collection” and the challenge gathering together a collection of information to complete a task.

 
Barreau, D.K. and Nardi, B.A. (1995).

Jones, W., H. Bruce, and S. Dumais. (2003). 

Teevan, J., et al. (2004). 

 
Tuesday: Come prepared to read one- sentence description of what you would like to work on for your team project.

Thursday: Form teams and send in a one-paragraph description

 

3

 January 17 & 19

Keeping & organizing information; maintaining a personal information collection over time
“To keep or not to keep?”. Anticipating our information needs. The challenges of maintaining personal information organizations. Steps towards a “Personal Unifying Taxonomy” and sustainable strategies of PIM.

Jones, W. (2004).

Bruce, H., Jones, W. and Dumais, S. (2004).

Boardman, R. and M. A. Sasse. (2004).

Optional:

Kwasnik, B. H. (1991).

Jones, W., Phuwanartnurak, A. J., Gill, R & Bruce, H. (2005).

Marshall, C. C. and S. Bly (2005 ).

 
One-page or two page intro/description of team project: What are you doing? Why should we care?

Who is on your team?

 

4

January 24 & 26 

The management of paper, email, web sites and other specific forms of information.
What is your approach to the organization of paper documents? e-documents? Email messages? Bookmarks? Does your paper organization influence your electronic organizations?
Malone, T. W. (1983).

Bondarenko, O. & R. Janssen. (2005).

Whittaker, S. and C. Sidner (1996). 

Sellen, A., R. Murphy, et al. (2002).

Optional:

Rodden, K. and K. Wood. (2003). 

Whittaker, S. and J. Hirschberg. (2001).

Payne, S. (1993).

 
Thursday: Individual assignment: 1st Interview Report due

 

 

Part 2. Improving PIM: Promising Approaches and New Directions.

 

5

January 31 & February 2 

Managing Health Information in the context of PIM
 
Pratt, W., Unruh, K., Civan, A., Skeels, M.

Gorman, P., Ash, J., Lavelle, M., Lyman, J., et al. (2000).

 

Tuesday: List of 3-5 papers relevant to your team project due

 

6

February 7 & 9 Search, finding, filtering and auto-classification

Will people still need to organize their information in the future? Will they need to keep information at all? What impacts will semantic web initiatives have on PIM?

Dumais, S., et al. (2003).

Teevan, J., Dumais, S. T., Horvitz, E. (2005).

WinHEC, Search Features in Microsoft Vista

Pointers to SpotLIght and to Google and to search features in MSFT Vista release.

 
Tuesday: Draft methods section for team project due

7

February 14 & 16

Email, contact management & electronic calendars (classic PIM tools)

Email is increasingly everything. We send reminders to ourselves in email. We use it for task management, document versioning and lots of other things. Can we do better? What would “life beyond email” (as we know it) look like?

Bellotti, V., et al. (2003).

Gwizdka, J. (2002). 

Boardman, R., M. A. Sasse, et al. (2002).

Nardi, B., S. Whittaker, et al. (2002).

Whittaker, Bellotti, & Gwizdka. (2007).

 

Tuesday: 3 minute in-class progress report on project – results so far, barriers to progress, etc.

8

 February 21 & 23

Digital Memories

Towards a unification & integration of PIM support.

 
Unified storage models. Defining an information layer of support. The integration of information management and the management of projects & tasks at a personal level.
Czerwinski et al. (2006).

Karger & Jones. (2006).

Rosenberg, S. (1999).

Dourish, P., W. K. Edwards, et al. (2000).

Optional:

Rao, A. (2003).

Kaptelinin, V. (2003).

Lamming, M., Eldridge, M., Flynn, M., Jones, C., and Pendlebury, D. (2000).

 
 

9

February 28 & March 2

Measurement and evaluation.

Towards sustainable strategies of PIM.

Sustainable strategies; maintainable structures of PIM

 
Tools and technology are only part of the solution. What about teachable techniques of PIM? Implications for our educational system. How do we measure progress? With what benchmarks? How to measure cost & benefit of new tools? (What about costs of transition between tools? What is the impact of a new PIM tool? Good and bad? Kelly, D. (2006).
Thursday: Individual assignment: Final 4 page paper due

10

March 7 & 9

PIM in the year 2010 (and beyond).

Course summary

 
  No readings.

Thursday: Team Project paper due

Finals

 

March 14

 

Project presentations
 

 

Tuesday: Presentations will take place from 3-5 PM in MGH 420.

 

*Notice: Schedule details could change as class progresses