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Aninformation school (sometimes abbreviatedI-school oriSchool) is auniversity-level institution committed to understanding the role ofinformation in nature and human endeavors. Synonyms includeschool of information,department of information studies, orinformation department. Information schoolsfaculty conduct research into the fundamental aspects of information andrelated technologies. In addition to grantingacademic degrees, information schools educate information professionals, researchers, and scholars for anincreasingly information-driven world. Information school can also refer, in a more restricted sense, to themembers of the iSchools organization (formerly the "iSchools Project"), as governed by the iCaucus.[1][2] Members of this group share a fundamental interest in the relationships between people, information, technology, and science. These schools, colleges, and departments have been either newly established or have evolved from programs focused oninformation systems,library science,informatics,computer science,library and information science andinformation science.
Information schools promote an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the opportunities and challenges ofinformation management, with a core commitment to concepts likeuniversal access anduser-centered organization of information. The field is concerned broadly with questions of design and preservation across information spaces, from digital and virtual spaces like online communities, the World Wide Web, and databases to physical spaces such as libraries, museums, archives, and other repositories. Information school degree programs include course offerings in areas such asdata science,information architecture,design,economics,policy,retrieval,security, andtelecommunications;knowledge management,user experience design, andusability;conservation andpreservation, includingdigital preservation; librarianship andlibrary administration; thesociology of information; andhuman–computer interaction.