Information Science in Action: System Design, 1983
Volume I
NATO Science Series E: Series, Vol. 1

In August 1978, one hundred or so scholars from several countries around the world met in Crete, Greece to discuss the progress made in designing information systems and the relation of information science to this activity. This was the Third Advanced Study Institute supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Brussels, Belgium. The first Institute was conducted in 1972 and held in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. The results of this Institute were published by Marcel Dekker and titled Information Sc. ience: Search for Identity. The'second Institute was held at the College of Librarianship, Aberystwyth, Wales in the summer of 1974. The proceedings were published by Noordhoff International Publishing, Leyden, The Netherlands, entitled Perspectives of Information Science edited by A. Debons and Hilliam Cameron. The three institutes that were conducted shared a common purpose, namely, to assess the state of affairs of information science and to share this assessment with inter­ national community. Information science can be said to have emerged during the past two, three decades in response to the significant increase in data-knowledge processing technology, the growth of knowledge as the result of these trends and the increase in problem solving, decision making complexity that faced all institutions at all levels throughout the world. Information systems, for many reasons, remain as an abstraction. Nevertheless, considerable funds and human efforts are being expended on them. Thus, such systems are of vital concerns to both scientists and technologists who are involved in them.

I.- Opening Remarks.- Rhoten Smith.- Tilo Kester.- II.- Information System Design in Context.- III.- Tutorial.- A Tutorial on Designing Information Systems.- Tutorial: Impact of Information Systems.- Tutorial: Resources.- IV.- 1: Terminology and Perspectives.- On Terminology.- Human Information Processing and Information Display.- An Economist’s Reflections on an Institute for the Advanced Study of Information Science.- On the Structural Differences o£ Descriptions.- Information Utilization and User Initiative.- 2: Philosophical Issues.- Effects on Design of an Evolutionary Model of Information.- Matter-Energy and Information Processing in Military and Other Living Systems.- Keeping Ahead of the Computer: Old Groundrules versus New Process Patterns.- 3: Laws - Principles.- Empirical Laws for Information Systems Design.- Some Psychological Requirements to a Theory of Information Science.- Aspects of Information Systems and Semantics.- Environments and Information Systems.- Natural and Artificial Systems: Some Effects of a General Systemic Approach on R&D.- 4: Design Process.- Information Systems Analysis and Design.- Informatological Anasynthesis.- Management and Problem Solving Styles: An Assessment of Information System Designs.- Is It Possible to Successfully Implement Information Systems?.- Mini-and Microcomputer Design Mistakes.- 5: Design Applications.- Aircraft Systems Considered as a Model for Information System Design.- General Information Systems Theory in Design, Modelling and Development.- Information Processing Approaches to Information System Design.- Some Design Considerations for the Zog Man-Computer Interface.- Management of Redesign.- Applying Systems Theory to the Conduct of Systems Research.- An Informatics Approach and Interdisciplinary Design of a Model for Computer-Based Learning Systems, Aimed for Use in a Nationwide School System, Design Principles, Objectives, System’s Environment.- Interactive Use of Computers in Recreational Planning.- Information Systems for Accountability.- Rate Model for Design of an Information Search System.- Toward Synthetic Information Systems.- Linkage: The Connecting of the Information System to the Decision Maker - A Response to Rich.- 6: Design Applications: Data Base Organization.- Distributed Data Base System: The Design Process.- The Database Design Process - an Organization Modeling Approach.- Legol-2: A Language for Specifying Formal Organizations.- The Development of National and International Information Systems and Networks Involving Combinations of Print and Non-print Media.- Author Index.