Many disciplines, including the broad Field of Information (iField), have been offering Data Science (DS) programs. There have been significant efforts exploring an individual discipline's identity and unique contributions to the broader DS education landscape. To advance DS education in the iField, the iSchool Data Science Curriculum Committee (iDSCC) was formed and charged with building and recommending a DS education framework for iSchools. This paper reports on the research process and findings of a series of studies to address important questions: What is the iField identity in the multidisciplinary DS education landscape? What is the status of DS education in iField schools? What knowledge and skills should be included in the core curriculum for iField DS education? What are the jobs available for DS graduates from the iField? What are the differences between graduate-level and undergraduate-level DS education? Answers to these questions will not only distinguish an iField approach to DS education but also define critical components of DS curriculum. The results will inform individual DS programs in the iField to develop curriculum to support undergraduate and graduate DS education in their local context.

Abstract The Information Schools, also referred to as iSchools, have a unique approach to data science with three distinct components: human‐centeredness, socially responsible, and rooted in context. In this position paper, we highlight and expand on these components and show how they are integrated in various research and educational activities related to data science that are being carried out at iSchools. We argue that the iSchool way of doing data science is not only highly relevant to the current times, but also crucial in solving problems of tomorrow. Specifically, we accentuate the issues of developing insights and solutions that are not only data‐driven, but also incorporate human values, including transparency, privacy, ethics, fairness, and equity. This approach to data science has meaningful implications on how we educate the students and train the next generation of scholars and policymakers. Here, we provide some of those design decisions, rooted in evidence‐based research, along with our perspective on how data science is currently situated and how it should be advanced in iSchools.

Twitter is utilized by many, including professional businesses and organizations; however, there are very few studies on how other entities interact with these organizations in the Twittersphere. This article presents a study that investigates tweets related to 5 major library and information science (LIS) professional organizations in the United States. This study applies a systematic tweets analysis framework, including descriptive analytics, network analytics, and co‐word analysis of hashtags. The findings shed light on user engagement with LIS professional organizations and the trending discussion topics on Twitter, which is valuable for enabling more successful social media use and greater influence.

The study presented in this poster aims to address the paucity of studies examining the interdisciplinary nature of Big Data research. Using bibliometric records of articles downloaded from the Web of Science (WoS), this study utilizes the co-occurrence data between Subject Categories (SCs) related to Big Data research to discover the structure and pattern of the interdisciplinary network; its distribution and evolution over time; and the structural communities of interdisciplinary collaboration. The study also provides visualizations of these interdisciplinary networks. Additionally, this study measures the degree of interdisciplinary collaboration in Big Data research based on the co-occurrences of SCs of the related research publications using Stirling's Diversity Index and Specialization Index.

With electronic book (e‐book) sales and readership rising, are e‐books positioned to replace print books? This study examines the preference for e‐books and print books in the contexts of reading purpose, reading situation, and contextual variables such as age, gender, education level, race/ethnicity, income, community type, and Internet use. In addition, this study aims to identify factors that contribute to e‐book adoption. Participants were a nationally representative sample of 2,986 people in the United States from the Reading Habits Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project ( http://pewinternet.org/Shared‐Content/Data‐Sets/2011/December‐2011‐‐Reading‐Habits.aspx ). While the results of this study support the notion that e‐books have firmly established a place in people's lives, due to their convenience of access, e‐books are not yet positioned to replace print books. Both print books and e‐books have unique attributes and serve irreplaceable functions to meet people's reading needs, which may vary by individual demographic, contextual, and situational factors. At this point, the leading significant predictors of e‐book adoption are the number of books read, the individual's income, the occurrence and frequency of reading for research topics of interest, and the individual's Internet use, followed by other variables such as race/ethnicity, reading for work/school, age, and education.

Abstract This research examines the use of Internet‐based electronic resources (e‐sources) by a group of library and information science (LIS) scholars. It focuses particularly on how scholars use, cite, and evaluate e‐sources during the research process. This research also explores the problems scholars encounter and concerns they have when using e‐sources for research. The following approaches were used to collect data for the investigation: (a) a longitudinal analysis of e‐source citations in eight LIS journals from 1991 through 1998; (b) a survey of editors of the eight journals; and (c) a survey of 201 authors with articles to be published in the eight journals. The longitudinal analysis of e‐source citations shows that there has been a notable increase in the number and proportion of authors who cite e‐sources in their research articles over the 8‐year period, although at the time of this study, e‐sources were still cited much less frequently than print sources. This result provides empirical evidence that e‐sources are increasingly used among scholars. Complementing the citation data, the results from the author survey show that e‐sources are becoming an important component in scholars' research, and are serving a wide range of purposes and functions. The number of access points and self‐perceived overall ability to use the Internet are identified as the two significant variables affecting frequency of e‐source use. The results of this study also suggest that a limited number of criteria can be implemented in practice for scholars to evaluate electronic sources and systems. When citing e‐sources, scholars consider some factors that are unique to e‐sources, in addition to the factors they consider for print sources. Although the advantages of e‐sources promote citing, some drawbacks of e‐sources at this stage serve as a barrier. The survey of editors also reveals a lack of clearly stated editorial policies regarding citing e‐sources. The major problems and concerns reported by scholars regarding using e‐sources are summarized, and both the theoretical implications and practical applications of the findings are discussed.