Universidade Federal do Ceará
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação

  Program Curriculum Components

 Code

 Credits

THEORETICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF INFORMATION SCIENCE  (MANDATORY)

SYLLABUS: Reflections on the epistemological status of Information Science, analyzing its historical trajectory and constitution as a science, with an emphasis on the implications that different disciplines have on its object of study. Emphasis is placed on the importance of interdisciplinary research in the field. The course covers principles, concepts, theories, and methods frequently adopted in Information Science at the national and international levels, drawing distinctions and relationships between Archival Studies, Library Science, Museology, and Documentation. It also highlights the role of information technologies and Mathematical Theory in its consolidation.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN INFORMATION SCIENCE (MANDATORY)

SYLLABUS: Theory and epistemology of knowledge. Theoretical-philosophical assumptions of scientific research. Major trends and currents in scientific research in Information Science, scientific methods, and data collection techniques. Ethics and bioethics in scientific investigation. The Research Project.

TEACHING INTERNSHIP I (MANDATORY)

Syllabus: Development and implementation of a pedagogical intervention plan in undergraduate courses in Library Science, linked to the concentration area of the Master’s in Information Science and its respective research line, under the supervision of the advising professor.

RESEARCH SEMINAR (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Discussion seminar on research as a means of monitoring dissertation projects, aiming at qualification and defense through the joint participation of advisors and their respective students.

SPECIAL TOPICS  (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Encompasses aspects related to contemporary discussions in Information Science, focusing on its political, social, cultural, and technological dimensions, highlighting its interdisciplinarity and complexity.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE  (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Presents, discusses, and analyzes the fundamental concepts of Information Architecture (IA). Studies the manifestations of IA in information retrieval systems (IRS), including web systems. Positions IA as an active element to be planned and realized in all IRS. Discusses IA evaluation criteria and methods, as well as best practices related to the development of efficient IAs.

DOCUMENTARY LANGUAGE, INFORMATION REPRESENTATION, AND COMMUNICATION  (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Studies on the communicative function of documentary languages, emphasizing the theoretical and methodological accumulation that allows the identification of information organization as a field of knowledge. The role of documentary or terminological languages as technologies for the representation and communication of information, taking into account socio-cognitive aspects. Institutional parameters of languages and terminological frameworks in information organization and retrieval. Construction of thesauri.

INFORMATION INDEXING POLICY (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: The information indexing policy, within the scope of Organization and Information Processing, serves as a strategic approach for optimizing services and streamlining processes in information retrieval systems. This includes its function and methodology within the context of information systems. The administrative context of information units and their role in knowledge dissemination. Key elements for defining information processing policies. Evaluation and development of information processing manuals.

REPRESENTATION OF INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Genesis and evolution of the concept of representation and its applicability in Information Science. Cognitive understanding of the representation of information and knowledge related to theoretical, technical, and instrumental aspects. Conceptual modeling of Thematic and Descriptive Information Representation. Semantic networks. Study of semantic relationships and the process of developing representation systems. Concept maps, taxonomies, and ontologies.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Fundamentals of Information Systems: concepts and definitions. Information systems in organizations and in society: social, legal, and ethical issues in information systems. Privacy and information security. IT infrastructure and management, and emerging technologies. Information security management. Data management and knowledge management: Competitive intelligence and information systems. Decision-making process and Information System.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE HEALTHCARE FIELD (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Health information. Information policies for health. Information and Communication Technologies in the context of healthcare. Health Information Systems. National and International standards for health information. Sanitary documentation. Coding and metadata. Curation and digital preservation.

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Discusses human limitations related to access to information, contextualizing them with functional disabilities. Introduces assistive technologies, their potentials, limitations, and trends. Explores the use of assistive technologies in the daily lives of individuals with functional disabilities, extending the discussion to the use of these technologies by individuals without disabilities. Also addresses the use of assistive technologies as a factor in improving the quality of life, competitiveness, maximizing resource utilization, and integrating individuals into various societal niches. Seeks to understand and explore the use of assistive technologies in Information Retrieval Systems to meet informational needs.

INFORMATION ANALYSIS, ONTOLOGIES AND DIGITAL DIDACTIC MATERIALS (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Qualitative study of information through categorization, description and analysis of information and content and their usability in virtual environments, with a view to the quality of digital didactic materials and their interfaces in Virtual Learning Environments. Human-computer interaction and the graphic interfaces and languages that act in the dissemination and production of collaborative knowledge. Ontologies: concepts, uses, approaches, languages and information sharing.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND SOCIAL AND DIGITAL INCLUSION (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Literacy, diversity and digital inclusion through the use of Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICT) in education. Free software and the fight against digital exclusion. Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) and Distance Education (DE) in the process of collaborative learning and continuing education. The advances and popularization of ICT and multimedia integration on the Internet. Knowledge production and collaborative processes and group interaction in VLEs.

CULTURE AND INFORMATION MEDIATION (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Theoretical approaches related to the study of cultural and informational mediation. Reflections and analyses on info-communicative processes and socio-cultural mediations of information. Forms of mediation, reception, and appropriation of information by the user, as well as their critical, interpretative, and re-signification actions. Representations and symbolic contents of informational culture in society.

INFORMATION LITERACY, CREATIVITY AND HIGHER EDUCATION (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: The development of information literacy and its interrelationship with creativity in the construction of knowledge as a differentiator in the job market. It is concerned with learning processes in higher education as a fundamental aspect for better academic, scientific and professional performance, as well as for permanent, collaborative learning and its applicability to social reality.

INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Conceptual and relational aspects of knowledge and information management in the context of Information Science. Theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organizational knowledge management. Sharing and use of knowledge in organizations for information demands and needs. The value of information and knowledge in organizations: culture and informational behaviour.

SOCIAL INFORMATION AND INFORMATION CULTURE (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Social information and the construction of information literacies as factors determining factors for local and regional cultural development. The relevance of the mediation of information and informational culture for the reconfiguration of social thinking from the perspective of the human condition, the sociology of knowledge and education for sustainability and citizenship.

INFORMATION FOR THE MEDIA: PROCESSES AND CULTURAL MEDIATIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONTEMPORARY REALITIES (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Study of the theories and concepts applied to cultural studies and methodological proposals for measuring the mediations between information, information processes and their use by the media. Reflections and analysis of the forms of mediation that are established between culture, information processes and flows and the media, in the production, dissemination, emission and reception of cultural and media phenomena. Measurement and analysis of information phenomena in the media and the production, circulation and reception of contemporary information and media realities. Reflections on the new realities and symbolic mediations caused by the information flows that feed the media.

MEDIATION AND INFORMATION LITERACY IN INFORMATION ENVIRONMENTS (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Theoretical and conceptual approaches to information mediation. Relationships between mediation and the development of information competence in information environments. Information competencies and skills underlying the process of apprehending and appropriating information and knowledge. The constitution of interactionist, dialogic, educational and cultural practices in information environments under new conceptual and methodological bases. Social protagonism, dialogic mediation, appropriation and empowerment.

INFORMATION PRACTICES, MEDIATION AND ETHNOGRAPHY (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Study of information practices based on the relationship between information, technology, society and culture. In this sense, it reflects on the way in which information and communication processes can have direct implications for individuals’ lifestyles and worldviews. Based on the idea that the current context not only favors the emergence of varied information flows mediated by technology, but also carries with it symbolic traits of the individuals who use them, reflected in their daily practices regarding information, ethnography is a research method that makes it possible to investigate the supply and demand for information in the various media and interaction spaces in which individuals participate, and also to understand how information flows can trigger different modes of action related to information in contemporary life.

SOCIOLOGY OF INFORMATION (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Study of information as a fundamental element of human action, seeking to interpret it as a dialectical movement between society and man, referring to the historicity of both the cognizing subjects and the cognizable objects. It aims to provide a reflection on information phenomena, taking into account the reordering of identities, subjectivities, modes of sociability and information demands of the individuals and groups in which they find themselves. From this point of view, it covers the emergence and expansion of the mass media up to the information age, brought about by the globalization of technologies. In the field of Information Science, it enters a sociological context that allows us to understand the contemporary world, paying attention to the unfolding of information in multiple dimensions, as a good of social, cultural, ideological and economic value.

INFORMATION USERS (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Information and knowledge of the community of information users as a starting point for searching, accessing, mediating, assimilating and appropriating information. Interaction between users and information services in the context of scientific and technological information, categorizing and focusing on the user, client, as receiver, subject of action, in order to carry out studies of information needs and behaviour to support the planning and organization of services in information environments.

SOCIETY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE IN BRAZIL (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Dynamics of Brazilian society, economy, culture and politics since the early years of the 20th century. Configurations of the Brazilian State and its education and information policies. Production, dissemination and use of information. Education and professionalization in the information sector. Foreign influences and the configuration of the job market. Responses from the professional and educational organization of information professionals.

ETHICS OF THE INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL IN BRAZIL (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Organization of the world of work in Brazil. Professional development. Social recognition and status of occupations and professions. The professional organization of the information sector. Education of librarians, archivists and museologists. The information professional in Brazil: identities, values and conduct.

PUBLIC INFORMATION POLICIES (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Discusses public policies in the context of information based on the actions and strategies adopted by different institutions in the state sector, through public documents. In this sense, it analyzes public information policies from a complex scenario made up of various agents, agencies and processes, observing everything from their formulation to their implementation, validation and evaluation, from an interdisciplinary perspective with Information Science. It also addresses perspectives for the democratization of access to information, outlining debates about the actions of the Legislative Branch related to censorship and control of information, in order to understand it as a public good.

ANALYSIS OF INTERACTION IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Study of interactional processes mediated by digital technologies. Exploration of approaches on how people learn through interaction. The linguistic, cognitive, technological, and dialogical aspects of interaction. The phenomenon of contingency. Perspectives for interaction analysis: Categorial System, Ontologies, and Interactional Ethnography.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL IN ANALOG AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Information retrieval is the process of obtaining information resources relevant to an information need from information sources, through the formal specification of three basic elements: the representation of the documents, the representation of the information need by means of a search expression and how these two elements will be compared, the search function. Taking the concerns of Information Science as a reference, the subject aims to discuss the retrieval of analogue and Web information: principles, models, methods, criteria, standards and standardization, evaluation metrics, interoperability between sources and areas of application. It also discusses new models of representation and retrieval that have emerged from Semantic Web technologies. It also presents some techniques that assist information retrieval, such as automatic indexing and Natural Language Processing.

MANAGEMENT OF SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Information management as a resource for the development of science and technology in different contexts and social organizations. Scientific and technological information: conditions, validity criteria, reliability, dissemination and use in digital environments. Open Access. Processes and techniques for evaluating and monitoring the production of information as a tool for the development of science and technology and for the management of decision-making processes in organizations. Government programs and actions in the area of scientific and technological information.

EMPOWERMENT, SOCIAL PROTAGONISM AND INFORMATION ACTIONS (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Theoretical-conceptual approach to empowerment and social agency, with a focus on information and mediation actions aimed at autonomy and citizenship. Pragmatic approach to interventionist practices of information empowerment with the goal of promoting agency, taking into consideration information as a human and social phenomenon.

TAXONOMIES AND ONTOLOGIES AS TERMINOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS FOR INFORMATION REPRESENTATION AND RETRIEVAL (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Study of theoretical and methodological principles for the development of terminological instruments, such as taxonomies and ontologies, in the context of information representation and retrieval.

 SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: The process of scientific communication, its characteristics, channels, models, barriers, and its influence on the dissemination of research results, as well as on the progress of science. Scientific dissemination or popularization of science and its importance in the current world with the advent of information and communication technologies, their impacts on knowledge generation, teaching, and research, and the process of transformation of scientific communication. Vehicles for scientific texts and their specificities in the pre and post-submission process of publications, such as choosing a journal for publication, classification system, and relationships in the publication process (author, editor, peer review, and referee). Scientific communication in the digital age and the initiatives of the Open Access Movement and the proliferation of “predatory journals.”

INFORMATIONAL PROCESSES IN ONLINE DISTANCE EDUCATION (EAD) (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Theoretical-conceptual approach to Distance Education (EaD), its elements, components, and implementation models. Practical-experimental approach to the processes of planning, production, and management of EaD courses, and the digital information and communication technologies applicable to these processes.

DISCOURSE AND POWER IN MICHEL FOUCAULT AND PIERRE BOURDIEU (OPTIONAL)

Syllabus: Study of the theoretical and methodological perspective of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu applied to Information Science, with a focus on the relationship between discourse and power as a starting point.

QUALIFICATION (MANDATORY)

PROFICIENCY (MANDATORY)

DISSERTATION (MANDATORY)

COMPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES (MANDATORY)