Discussion of IA education

["Livia Labate" <liv AT livlab.com>]

some more (which might be duplicating ideas):

- UCD Concepts and Principles
- Goal-Directed Design (Cooper)
- Localization
  or Globalization (l10n + i18n)
- High Fidelity Prototyping (e.g. HTML)
- ROI metrics
- SWOT Analysis (business technique?)
- Usability (as in building guidelines next to accessibility)

If you look at http://interactionary.com/files/disciplines_radial.gif you
can probably elicit a lot more stuff. Some of the items listed are very
specific (Low Fidelity Prototyping) while others are too broad (Qualitative
Research). Maybe a hierarchy could help evaluate this better (what an IA
thing to say...) It's hard to say what's missing really. I think the
difficulty is having principles, theories, skills and deliverables all mixed
up together.

P.S: I'm not sure what's implied in Bibliometrics.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Victor Lombardi" <victor AT victorlombardi.com>
To: <aifia-education AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 2:12 PM
Subject: [Aifia-education] sanity check: list of competencies

Hi,

Scott Robinson and I - part of the AIfIA Education Curriculum initiative -
have compiled the below list of information architecture-related
competencies. We plan to use them in a survey to ask whether each one is a
core competency, related to IA, or not related to IA with regards to
teaching students.

We're hoping you could scan the list first and let us know:
* Are any of these unclear?
* Are we missing any similar items?

Thanks,
Victor Lombardi
------
Personal: http://www.noisebetweenstations.com/
Professional: http://aifia.org/

====

Qualitative Research (ethnographic/contextual inquiry, etc.)
Task analysis
User categorizations (e.g. card sorting)
Quantitative Research (e.g. surveys)

Audience analysis (profiling/personas)
Modeling behavior (storyboards/scenarios)

Usability Testing

Cognitive Psychology
Mental Models

User interface design (i.e. multiple platforms)
Interaction design

Accessibility
Internationalization

Fundamentals of Business Strategy
Fundamentals of Business Operations
Requirements Gathering
Vertical Industry Expertise
Competitive & Functional Analysis
Organizational Psychology/Development
Branding
Marketing
e-Commerce

Computer Science History
Information Theory
Fundamental Programming Concepts
Web Front-End Development (e.g. XHTML, CSS)
Application Programming
System Metrics (e.g. analyzing server logs)
Security Concepts
Limitations of Information Systems (e.g. databases and queries)
Database Management
Content Management Systems
Search Engine Technology
XML

Information Science History
Organization Schemes
Controlled Vocabularies (e.g. taxonomies, thesauri)
Metadata
Classification
Automated Classification
Indexing

Navigation systems
Labeling systems
Search systems
Hypertext

Visual Design Concepts and Principles
Visual Design Skills
Display Template Systems
Information Visualization
Information Design

Business Use Cases
System Use Cases
Diagramming Tools
Workflows
Conceptual Maps
Blueprints & Wireframes
Functional Specifications
Technical Specifications
Presentations

Content Analysis
Content Strategy
Writing
Content Audits & Inventories

Collaboration Skills
Client Relationship Skills
Project Management
Creative Idea Generation Techniques
Creative Direction

Diagramming Software
Information/Interface Prototype Tools
Low Fidelity Prototyping (e.g. paper)

Knowledge Representation
Ontologies

Knowledge Management

Language Processing

Physical Wayfinding

Information Ecologies
Social Network Analysis
Social Informatics

Bibliometrics
Statistics and Statistical Laws (e.g. Pareto, Zipf)

====

Consolidated from:
* Tal Herman's & JJG's "What an IA does"
* IA Library subjects
* IA Wiki index