Download Information Ecology www.AssignmentPoint.com In the context of an

Information Ecology
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In the context of an evolving information society, the term Information Ecology marks a
connection between ecological ideas with the dynamics and properties of the increasingly
dense, complex and important digital informational environment and has been gaining
progressively wider acceptance in a growing number of disciplines. "Information ecology"
often is used as metaphor, viewing the informational space as an ecosystem.
Information ecology is a science which studies the laws governing the influence of
information summary on the formation and functioning of bio‐systems, including that of
individuals, human communities and humanity in general and on the health and
psychological, physical and social well‐being of the human being; and which undertakes to
develop methodologies to improve the information environment (Eryomin 1998).
Information ecology also makes a connection to the concept of collective intelligence and
knowledge ecology (Pór 2000).
Language of ecology
Information ecology draws on the language of ecology - habitat, species, evolution,
ecosystem, niche, growth, equilibrium, etc. - to describe and analyze information systems
from a perspective that considers the distribution and abundance of organisms, their
relationships with each other, and how they influence and are influenced by their
environment. The virtual lack of boundaries between information systems and the impact of
information technology on economic, social and environmental activities frequently calls on
an information ecologist to consider local information ecosystems in the context of larger
systems, and of the evolution of global information ecosystems. See also list of ecology
topics.
Networked information economy
In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, a
book published in 2006 and available under a Creative Commons license on its own
wikispace, Yochai Benkler provides an analytic framework for the emergence of the
networked information economy that draws deeply on the language and perspectives of
information ecology together with observations and analyses of high-visibility examples of
successful peer production processes, citing Wikipedia as a prime example.
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Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day in their book "Information Ecologies: Using Technology with
Heart," (Nardi & O’Day 1999) apply the ecology metaphor to local environments, such as
libraries and schools, in preference to the more common metaphors for technology as tool,
text, or system.
In different domains / disciplines
Anthropology
Nardi and O’Day’s book represents the first specific treatment of information ecology by
anthropologists. H.E. Kuchka situates information within socially-distributed cognition of
cultural systems. Casagrande and Peters use information ecology for an anthropological
critique of Southwest US water policy. Stepp (1999) published a prospectus for the
anthropological study of information ecology.
Knowledge management
Information ecology was used as book title by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak
(Davenport & Prusak 1997), with a focus on the organization dimensions of information
ecology. There was also an academic research project at DSTC called Information ecology,
concerned with distributed information systems and online communities.
Human-computer interaction
Practitioners in human-computer interaction have been using a variant of information
ecology, known as the 'ecological cognition framework' for some time. Research have found
it to be useful for understanding active participation in online communities and what
instigates the user to desire to do so
Law
Law schools represent another area where the phrase is gaining increasing acceptance, e.g.
NYU Law School Conference Towards a Free Information Ecology and a lecture series on
Information ecology at Duke University Law School's Center for the Study of the Public
Domain.
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Library science
The field of library science has seen significant adoption of the term and librarians have been
described by Nardi and O'Day as a "keystone species in information ecology", and references
to information ecology range as far afield as the Collaborative Digital Reference Service of
the Library of Congress, to children's library database administrator in Russia.
Biology
There has also been increasing use of "information ecology" as a concept among ecologists
involved in digital mapping of botanical resources, including research by Zhang Xinshi at the
Institute of Botany of the China Academy of Science; also see a presentation to the
Information Ecology SIG at Yale University's Forestry School.
Human Ecology
From the analysis of specific examples of the nature and physiology are determined 10
axioms and laws of information ecology, which serves as the basis for creating information
strategies and tactics in social, economic, political and other spheres that affect human health
and human communities.
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