Corporate information specialists have many different titles (e.g., information manager, information specialist). They work in any of several organizational environments (e.g. for-profit, not-for-profit, and governmental). Types of organizations served might include professional or trade associations, research centers, larger business enterprises and law firms, insurance companies, major service organizations (e.g., Red Cross), state or federal government agencies, high technology development companies, and many others.

Increasingly, they must understand and engage with the business of the organization and its sector. They supply expertise to meet the variety of information needs of a variety of individuals and units within the organization. Or they may specialize in the information and knowledge needs of a particular organization (e.g., marketing, human resources, accounting). Some needs are met through internal information resources (e.g., records/documents created by business processes) and some by external resources (e.g., books, journal articles, technical reports, grey literature).

These information professionals typically need a broad and deep understanding of areas such as:

Business processes,

Management principles and practices,

Organizational behavior/psychology,

Organizational information needs (from external and internal sources) based on sophisticated customer needs assessments,

Information management practices and principles, and

Information resources and technologies appropriate to a wide range of needs and applications.
(Items on this list are not in rank order; they will have different weights in different environments.)

An ideal background for a student choosing this focus might include education and/or experience in management or business administration and some knowledge of information systems design and analysis, computer applications development, and corporate information services.

Knowledge and Skills

A person successful in the corporate environment will need knowledge and skills in several areas; among them are: management (e.g., leading, planning, marketing, supervision, reporting, budgeting, controlling), corporate information resources management services (e.g., records management, business intelligence, knowledge management, management information systems, and archives management), library function areas (e.g., reference, information representation, preservation/conservation), and information retrieval and information technology (e.g., operating systems, applications software, Internet, World Wide Web, intranets, online searching).

Increasingly, information professionals must be adaptable enough to move from one type or area of information work to another. This is the case since continuing downsizings and reorganizations may mean that a person who is overly specialized may not fit well into a new organizational configuration. The corporate focus, therefore, is deliberately configured so that the student will be exposed to course work and related experiences which encourage large frames of throught, those beyond librarianship alone or information technology alone, or external information resources alone.

Academic, or cognitive, success must be complemented positive affective, or personal, characteristics and skills. Among these are: effective social interaction, ability to communicate appropriately with persons at different levels in the organization, team effectively, handle multiple priorities, tolerate ambiguity effectively, have good business etiquette, adopt a commitment to ethical standards and workplace diversity, possess effective oral and written communication, have energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and, finally, the ability to persuade and lead others. In some cases, a knowledge of a specific subject area (e.g., medicine, art, music, science, engineering) may be required.

Functions and Services

The corporate information specialist will typically have responsibility for services which would include (but not be limited to):

Development of information products/services for internal use

Acquisition of publications and their circulation in the organization

Current awareness services

Research support

Information repackaging or customization

Selective dissemination of information (SDI) services

User education for in-house systems as well as external information providers (e.g., via Internet, World Wide Web, Lexis)

Business intelligence and strategic information support

Environmental scanning and trend analysis

Development of a service (e.g., sector trend identification) subscribed to by other organizations

Consulting on development of new filing systems and database design

Research/corporate reports maintenance

Inactive records centers/archives

Document management services (including scanning, imaging, document control)

Proprietary information control

The Master of Science

The Master of Science, Information Sciences, at SIS requires a total of 42 semester hours of graduate-level courses. Eighteen hours form a core curriculum (490, 520, 530, 560, 580) required of all students. Those interested in the corporate information area should consider crafting a program of 24 elective hours (eight courses).

The M.S. Core Curriculum

490 - Information Environment (3 hours)
Generation, production, management, dissemination, and use of information. Roles of information in society, information seeking and user behavior, information industry, economics of information products and services, technological and organizational change, information professions, and issues.

520 - Organization and Representation of Information (3 hours)
Principles of distinguishing, describing, and indexing intellectual works; current approaches: citation systems, descriptive cataloging, non-subject indexing, pre- and post-coordinate subject indexing, classification and categorization; authority control of index terms; standards.

530 - Information Access and Retrieval (3 hours)
Media for information storage, logical and physical information structures, query logic and languages, search strategies and heuristics, user interfaces, evaluation of retrieval system performance. Search techniques for various types of databases including multi-media, full-text, numeric, bibliographic.

560 - Development and Management of Collections (3 hours)
Selecting and preserving variety of items (tangible and intangible) to meet needs of particular users; community analysis; policies and procedures; evaluation; purchasing.

580 - Foundations of Information Sciences and Technologies (3 hours)
Definitions of information, information sciences, and information technology; theories of information, information representation, retrieval, and transfer; standards and technologies for information processing and distribution; research front; bibliometrics and infometrics; relationships with other disciplines.

Courses Recommended for the Corporate Information Management Focus

535 - Advanced Information Retrieval (3 hours)
Bibliographic, non-bibliographic, full-text databases, e.g., non-bibliographic formula and structure databases, contents-page/full-text databases, patents; document delivery alternatives, evaluation, and testing.

550 - Management of Information Organizations (3 hours)
Supervisory and management concepts, strategies, and techniques applicable to information professionals working in libraries, archives, records management, and other information organizations.

553 Corporate Information Services (3 hours)
Development and present status, scope and objectives. Administrative and organizational problems and techniques.

564 Corporate Information Systems (3 hours)
Objectives and function elements of records systems, archival programs, management information systems and techniques within various types of organizations. Management of information internal to organizations.

566 - Business Intelligence for Information Professionals (3 hours)
Principles and practices of gathering and synthesizing business intelligence, including competitive intelligence, environmental scanning, and issues management; information evaluation and synthesis; role of strategic information in modern organizations.

592 - Knowledge Management (Seminar) (3 hours) Colloborative, integrative approach to creation, capture, organization, access and use of information assets (internal and external sources) by organizations to create knowledge that leverages innovation. Includes examintion of types of knowledge, tacit and explicit knowledge, information ecologies, document-based systems, collaborative technologies, issues in organizational culture, knowledge audits, and cases studies.

The Culminating Experience

Each Masters graduate at UTK participates in a culminating, or capstone, experience. This experience insures that the student has mastered the subject content of the discipline through an experience which calls for an application of the field's knowledge via field work, analysis, or research. While several options are possible within the corporate foucs, there two credit-bearing avenues that seem most appropriate: successful completion of either a type of field-work experience called a practicum (IS 599 - 3 to 6 hours credit) or a thesis (IS 500 - 6 hours credit) is recommended for this requirement.

The choice of culminating experiences will affect whether or not the student takes a comprehensive examination in his/her last term. Election of the thesis means: (1) use of a maximum of 6 hours of IS 500 and (2)passing an oral examination related to the thesis and the field. The thesis-track student, however, does not take the comprehensive examination. Election of the practicum involves: (1) use of 3 hours of elective credit and (2) taking the comprehensive examination. The comprehensive examination does not counted as fulfillment of the culminating experience requirement. Selection of the culminating experience should take into account the student's career interests.

Selecting the Culminating Experience

599 - Practicum (3-6 hours) Opportunity to translate theory into practice under guidance of qualified information professionals. Prereq: Completion of core and pertinent advanced courses relevant to student's practicum design. Minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA prior to semester of practicum experience. Written consent of advisor and approval of practicum coordinator. May be repeated. Maximum 6 hours. [Three (3) hours maximum in the in corporate focus.]

OR

500 - Thesis (6 hours) P/NP only. E Students interested in the thesis option should consult the thesis information section at the SIS web site. A maximum of 6 credit-hours of IS 500 is permitted. Use of 6 hours for thesis would mean reduction of one course from the set of recommended courses, above..

Alternative Courses

Scheduling conflicts may prevent taking each of the courses recommended above. In that event, students should consider, in discussion with the advisor, choices from the list of recommended alternates, below, which are arranged in numerical sequence. Courses selected should speak to the student's intellectual or career interests.

531 - Sources and Services for the Social Sciences (3 hours) Information sources in political science, sociology, psychology, geography, history, anthropology, business, and education.

532 - Sources and Services for Science and Engineering (3 hours) Information sources in engineering, physical and life sciences.

534 - Government Information Sources (3 hours) Selection, acquisition, organization, and utilization of government information in variety of formats from legislative, judicial and executive branches of federal, state, local, and international government and intergovernmental agencies.

537 - Information Industry (3 hours) Issues and trends concerning information industry: products and services. Standards, enabling technologies, choice of distribution media, entrepreneurial opportunities. Legal, ethical, and quality concerns.

538 - Economics of Information (3 hours) Costing and pricing of information; value of information and value added services; cost-benefit analysis and tradeoffs; policy issues related to economic aspects of information exchange and transfer.

555 - Scientific and Technical Communications (3 hours) Evolution of scientific and technical communication; current trends; role of formal and informal communications; major STI organizations and their roles.

583 - Information Systems (3 hours) Systems concept, defining system, analysis and design of information systems. Selecting and using information systems to support various activities. User involvement in the development process.

584 - Database Management Systems (3 hours) Defining data needs, data structures, role of operating systems in data management, file organization, database management systems, logical data models, internal data models, database administration and evaluation. Design and implementation of application using database management system.

585 - Information Technologies (3 hours) Evolution, trends, capabilities, and limitations of technologies applied to information capture, storage, preservation, access and distribution.

592 - Seminar in Information Sciences (3-6 hours) Prereq: Consent of instructor. [Topic offered should be relevant to the curricular focus.] May be repeated with consent of advisor. Maximum 6 hrs [maximum of 3 hrs. in the corporate focus].