I-Schools

I-School movement is essentially a leadership response in higher education to the demands of the Knowledge Economy and Information Society. In response to the demands of the information era and the digital age, many universities have begun to establish I-Schools. The hallmark of these I-Schools is the multi-disciplinary character in their curriculum, faculty and students. I-Schools have been initiated in the US, UK, Australia and other countries. The identity and the unique positioning of these I-Schools are derived from their heterogeneity of disciplines threaded together by their shared vision and outlook on information.

John Leslie King, School of Information, University of Michigan observes that the I-School movement is made up of novel academic programs that embrace new intellectual and professional challenges in a world awash in information. While noticing that I-Schools built on the intellectual and institutional legacies of their programs, move beyond traditional programs and straddle the academy’s ancient engagement with information and the contemporary challenges of ubiquitous information affecting all aspects of society. He further observes that I-Schools being emergent, find equilibrium in an essential tension among competing visions in a world of rapid technical and social change. While defining the I-School’s identity as elusive, he foresees a bright future for these institutions.

The iSchools project in the US is a community of I-Schools interested in the relationship between information, technology and people. Its members are distinguished by their engagement in understanding the role of information in human endeavors. The members of the iSchools project are:

To know more about the I-School movement