Graduate studies of information sciences

Graduate programme of library science

INTRODUCTION

The Library Science study programme was organized at the Faculty of Philosophy as a two-year study open to students of all professions from the universities in Croatia in the academic year 1976/77. When founded it was organized as a supplementary study that should provide better employability, but also create a core of formally educated librarians, who should have gradually replaced the semi-skilled staff in libraries and contribute to the development of librarianship as a profession. It was also hoped that it would contribute to further development of library science as a discipline belonging to the field of information sciences. In the academic year 1986/87 it was organized as the two-syllabus four-year study of information sciences – course of librarianship open to all students of the Faculty of Philosophy who are students of some other study group. Although almost thirty years have passed from its establishment, the graduate librarians still have no difficulties in finding a job, since there is a lack of educated librarians in the libraries in Croatia. Changes in library legislation in the last decade (e.g. every municipality in Croatia as well as every school ought to have a library, the library staff must be graduates in librarianship) made the employment of our students easier. The demand for graduate librarians in the public sector is expected to remain the same at least for another ten years. Besides, the changes in the economy and the government structure of Croatia as a country in transition, and especially changes having to do with Croatia’s announced integration in the EU, also indicate that in the private sector, as well as in the bodies of public authority, there will be need for professionals who are well acquainted with the information sources, procedures and methods of information transfer and their importance for the economic, cultural and educational development of the country as a whole. A knowledgeable selection of relevant information and its adequate processing and analysis may significantly contribute to the increase of the overall knowledge present in a certain organization or institution and thus make it stronger and more capable of undertaking its tasks. It should be emphasized in particular that some of our students have been employed at publishing companies, and therefore, it is to be expected that they will continue to get employment in that sector as well.

The Department of Information Sciences that organizes and performs the study of library sciences is a member of EUCLID (European Association for Library and Information Education and Research), and the teaching staff has been actively participating in the work of this society and at the conferences that gather the lecturers of librarianship from the European countries. The Study of Library Science at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb was presented at the international conferences organized by EUCLID in Solun in 2002 and Potsdam in 2003. The faculty of the Department participated also at a seminar on education organized by EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Agencies), held in Estoril in Portugal in 2004. The proposed curriculum has been developed based on numerous discussions with foreign colleagues and after studying several of the European studies of library science. We would especially like to highlight the international Master Programme of Library and Information Sciences organized by the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen (http://www.db.dk/studievejl/english/20info/master_programme_uk.htm) and the new programme of the Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science in Oslo (http://www.hio.no/content/view/full/4862). The proposal of the curriculum of library science at the University of Barcelona (http://www.ub.es/biblio/convergencia-europea-propuesta.html) has served as the model for competences.

Since the academic year 2002/2004, foreign experts from Canada, the Netherlands, USA and Great Britain have occasionally participated in teaching at the Department. The intention is to continue with such practice. The previous experiences with the visiting foreign lecturers have shown that the students of library science can follow lectures in English, and half of the students in every generation chose to sit for the exams offered in a foreign language. The intention is to continue with such practice in the realization of the new curriculum as well.

Competencies acquired by the student completing the programme:

The study aims at qualifying students to work in a hybrid environment where print and digital information is acquired, processed, stored and put to use. The competences that a student has to acquire during the study can be classified into general and specific. During the Master Degree Study the student will acquire both general and specific competences and will be able to estimate the information demands, plan adequate services and to evaluate them qualitatively and quantitatively. The student will be able to manage the information institution and/or information system and to participate in developing and managing information policy within the respective environment. The graduate student will:

• understand the relations between the producers, mediators, and users of information,
• know the ways in which information originate, are transferred and used,
• know national and international legal and administrative regulations that refer to the production, transfer and use of information,
• know the historical background of the information profession,
• be capable to identify and evaluate information material and sources,
• know how to manage collections and holdings,
• know the basics of information handling and protecting,
• know how to organize, search and retrieve information,
• be able to analyze, present and interpret information,
• be able to estimate information demands and plan adequate services,
• be able to evaluate the services quantitatively and qualitatively,
• know how to work with the users,
• know how to use and apply information technology at libraries,
• know the management and marketing procedures,
• be able to plan and manage projects.

Title awarded: Master of Library Science

Graduate study of Informatics – Teaching-oriented study

INTRODUCTION

The teaching-oriented study of informatics at the Department of Information sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb is a single major or double major study that educates future primary and secondary school teachers of informatics.

Competencies acquired by the student completing the programme:

Developing practicalaspects of teaching competencies through personal experience of teaching informatics in primary and secondary school; relating theoretical knowledge from the relevant courses to the authentic examples in actual teaching; developing the sense of professionalism and professional responsibility; developing the ability of self-evaluation of the teaching competence

Master of Education in Informatics

Graduate study of Informatics – Research-oriented study

INTRODUCTION

The research-oriented study of informatics at the Department of Information sciences, at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb is a single major study that educates future informatics experts.

Competencies acquired by the student completing the programme:

The objective of this programme is to enable students for working in organizations, institutions, and information centres in which there exists a need for specific knowledge about organizing and designing information systems, Web programming, setting up of databases. The competencies that a student has to develop in the course of study can be divided into general and specific. The first part of the study, the undergraduate study, is focused on the acquirement of general competencies, but also those specific competencies that will enable students to carry out some simple routine operations and procedures concerning the basic knowledge of algorithms, data structures, programming languages. The student should become familiar with the concept, the possibilities and the role of databases and information search systems inside information structure. Later in the course of graduate study the student is expected to acquire additional specific competencies, for example, to become familiar with different methods of setting up databases in the Internet environment. He/She should also become familiar with the possibilities of developing Web applications for searching and up-dating databases in the Internet environment. Practical assignments on actual projects will provide the student with the opportunity to acquire basic insights as well as proficiency in different skills of programming databases in the Internet environment, as well as to become proficient in techniques of designing active server Web pages intended for the communication with the database. The student should become familiar with the theory and techniques of logical programming. The student will be able to manage, organize, and maintain the information system, work on software projects and participate in outlining and running of information as well as informatics politics in his/her environment. After completing the programme the student is expected:

• to learn the basic concepts, possibilities and roles of the databases and the information retrieval systems
• to learn how to create a database
• to learn the various methods of managing a database by working with a database
• to learn how to create a database in internet environment
• to learn how to create a web application for retrieval and maintenance and of the databases in internet environment
• to get an insight and to master the different database programming skills in internet environment as well as to master the techniques of designing the asp and web services for the communication with the database through the practical work on the projects
• to understand the relation between the users information and technology needs
• to understand the way the information is created, transferred and used
• to understand the national and international standards for the data exchange
• to get an insight in theoretical and practical development of the field
• to be able to evaluate software
• to know how to manage and protect data
• to know how to organize, search and retrieve information and data,
• to know how to develop and maintain information system
• to know how to analyse, present and interpret data
• to know how to evaluate information needs
• to know how to conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of the software and information systems
• to know how to follow and use the recent developments of the information technology
• to know how to plan and run projects, as well as how to market them.

Title awarded: Master of Informatics

Graduate study of Social-humanistic informatics

INTRODUCTION

The research-oriented study of Social-humanistic Informatics at the Department of Information sciences, at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, is a double major study with the three modules (language engineering, lexicography, and knowledge management) that educates future experts in designing natural language modules in the systems with artificial intelligence architecture, experts in designing, encoding, evaluating, and supervising of the natural language-based information systems. The study also educates future lexicographers and experts who will be able to apply computer methods in lexicography and language processing, as well as future information experts who will be skilled in knowledge management.

The organization and realization of the programme is very similar to the following programmes:

• University of Edinburgh: course in Natural Language and Language Engineering
• University of Essex: course in Advanced Natural Language Engineering
• Cornell University: course in Natural Language Processing
• University of Brighton: course in Lexical Computing and Lexicography
• University of Exeter: course in Lexicography
• University of Georgia: course in Lexicography
• Stockholm University. Learning and Knowledge Management course
• London Metropolitan University: Information Knowledge Management course
• University of Pittsburgh: Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management course and to many other programmes of prestigious universities from all over the world.

Competencies acquired by the student completing the programme:

The objective of this programme is to enable the students for working in organizations, institutions, and information centres in which there exists a need for specific knowledge of information search and information extraction, knowledge of making complex inquiries on databases, experience of in-depth text search, knowledge of techniques of machine learning, statistical processing of natural language, and robust language processing, and specific knowledge of automatic identification of the semantics of inquiry. The competencies that the student is expected to acquire in the course of study can be divided into general and specific. After completing the programme the student is expected to:

• acquire the basic knowledge of text processing in traditional and multimedia environment
• acquire the knowledge for information organization, search and retrieval
• know how to use information technology
• learn the basic principles of the formal text processing together with the skills need for the usage of standard software for text processing
• acquire the knowledge on the application of the statistical methods and algorithms for the natural language processing as well as to understand the way it functions
• train them for the acquisition, analysis and conducting the statistical analysis of the collected data
• acquire the theoretical and practical knowledge of the basic principles of knowledge engineering which is one of the most important types of intelligent system in information era
• to understand the basics of the word based systems and sentence based systems
• to understand problems of the design, development, evaluation and implementation of the natural language based dialog systems
• to master the theoretical and practical knowledge in order to participate, plan and prepare project that are dealing with all the aspects of natural language
• to get and insight in specific styles of lexicographic processing according to the type, size and purpose of the dictionary, number of languages etc.
• to develop the skill of creating the dictionary entry-word
• to develop the skills for designing definitions in monolingual and multilingual dictionaries
• to know how to create the micro-sample of one's own thesaurus based on the collection of certain conceptual/semantic field
• to determine the appropriate structure and format of the knowledge management system and to allocate sources and methods of knowledge acquisition
• to learn how to independently use bibliometric methods as well as planning, organization and administering of the quantitative research of the knowledge and natural language processing

Titles awarded: MSc in Social-humanistic Informatics

Graduate programme of museum study and heritage management

INTRODUCTION

The master programme of museum study has been established on the good practices of the previous third and fourth years of the Study of Information Science, course of Museum Study, as well as the two-year Additional Museum Study. It admitted students of the 5^th semester of any study of the University of Zagreb thus providing the possibility not only for the students of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb but also the students of law, architecture, journalism, geography, etc. to combine the knowledge and skills in museology with their respective basic disciplines.

Similarly, the new study tried to respect the international "Curricula Guidelines for Museum Professional Development", adopted in June 2000 (http://museumstudies.si.edu/ICOM-ICTOP/comp.htm), and it used also the experiences of the most distinguished curricula of museum studies in Europe:

• Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester (http://www.le.ac.uk/museumstudies) (Museum studies)
• and
• Department of Cultural Policy and Management, City University, London (http://www.city.ac.uk/artspolicy/index.html) (Museum and Gallery Management)

However, in designing the programme special attention was paid to the needs of the museum community in Croatia, which has had the opportunity to express its opinion about the new curriculum on several occasions. At the university level, apart from general knowledge and skills necessary to perform work at the museums, galleries and other institutions of heritage, the community proposed a module that will qualify the museum educators and other professional in the field of museum communication. It also accepted the offered module of specialization in the field of heritage management, which is becoming more actual, due to the orientation of the country toward cultural tourism.

Competencies acquired by the student completing the programme:

Competence for applying theoretical points of reference of museology in practise, competence for independent study in the field of museology and theory of heritage; competence for managing items and information about the heritage, competence for planning, organizing and basic design of various communication methods in museums or related institutions, with special focus on exhibitions and educational activities; competence of basic management at all levels; competence of basic planning and developing of marketing activities and all the resources of museums and the related institutions; competence of dialogue on an equal footing with the economic entities, especially the tourist sector.

Tasks the student can perform:

Jobs of curators, museum educator in museums and galleries, manager at cultural institutions, and jobs of professionals for communication and management of heritage in the field of culture, tourism and relevant economic branches.

Title awarded: Master of Museum Study and Heritage Management