Subject: Introduction to information services
Course: Knowledge organization
ECTS credits: 6
Language: Croatian
Duration: 1 semester
Status: obligatory elective
Method of teaching: 2 lecture hours and 2 hours of seminar every week
Prerequisites: none
Assessment: oral exam and written report

Course description:
The course is divided into four parts: a) basics concepts of knowledge organization, b) records and media, c) information processing, d) information systems. The first part gives an overview of knowledge organization area. Students are introduced to basic concepts of knowledge organization (knowledge, organization of knowledge, document, data, information, information systems, knowledge management) and fundamentals in theory of information science. In the second part an overview of media for information storage and retrieval is given as well as publication types. Focus is on scientific publications (including scientific writing and citation styles) and bibliographic databases i.e. SSI and SSCI. In the third part students are introduced to information processing theory, particularly involving consolidation of information and information storage and retrieval. A study of the basic principles of information documentation, organization, storage, retrieval and dissemination is given. The structure of document surrogates, indexing languages, thesauri, natural language systems, catalogues and files, retrieval systems, networks and information delivery systems are examined. Theory and principles in information retrieval (search engines; information representation, classification, extraction, filtering and summarization; question answering; information navigation, browsing and visualization; and human-computer interaction in information systems) are briefly described. In the fourth part the structure and genesis of information systems, notion of relevance and bibliometrics are introduced. The seminar part of the course introduces the students to many important topics and literature in information science.

Course objective:
Students should get the basic knowledge in the field of knowledge organization, understand the dimensions of the field, develop the skills of independent research of information sources on a given topic and learn through seminar discussions how to critically evaluate published studies and present their knowledge.  

Quality check and success of the course: Quality check and success of the course will be done by combining internal and external evaluation. Internal evaluation will be done by teachers and students using survey method at the end of semester. The external evaluation will be done by colleagues attending the course, by monitoring and assessment of the course.

Reading list:
1. Rowley, J.: Organizing knowledge, Gower, 1998.
2. Tuđman, M.: Obavijest i znanje. S rječnikom osnovnih pojmova, Zagreb: Zavod za informacijske studije, 1990. (1., 2., 4. poglavlje)

Additional reading list:
1. Marušić, M., Petrovečki M., Petrak J., Marušić, A.: Uvod u znanstveni rad u medicini, Medicinska naklada, Zagreb, 2000.
2. Tuđman, M., Boras D., Dovedan Z.: Uvod u informacijsku znanost, Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1992.