Mentor Cana @ SCILS

Mentor Cana @
Ph.D. Candidate in Information Science

About...

In these few paragraphs, I would like to summaries my interests that led towards my decision to start the Ph.D. program here at SCILS - Rutgers University.

After finishing my masters in telecommunication engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in May 1997, I embarked upon a career as Information Systems Architect / Engineer / Analyst, primarily in the telecommunication industry. During my masters program at Stevens-Tech I worked as a teaching assistant and instructor where I came in close contact with freshman students while teaching the basics of Internet, HTML, electronics and microprocessors labs, C++, etc. In addition to this I worked with Engineering Information as content designer and consultant on their home pages. For further details on my employment history please see my resume.

Throughout my educational and working career, I have been always puzzled by the fact that many tasks and processes are performed very inefficiently, when it is almost obvious that there is an efficient or a better way of performing the same. This becomes even more evident with projects that span across multiple business units in a particular organization. The lack of communication and the miscommunication among the participants can be identified as major obstacles. This is partly because employees keep the knowledge to themselves believing that if “Knowledge is Power” they should not share it easily. The other element seemingly results from the fact that employees do not necessarily know what others around them know, hence reinventing the wheel all to often. Certainly, an organization can perform better if it tries to discover and learn what it actually knows (“If We Just Knew What We Know”) and apply the knowledge appropriately.

Why a Ph.D. ?
In the attempt to find an answer and study the reasons behind such lack of communication and the miscommunication among team members (and across various business units), I came across information technology related readings dealing with groupware and collaboration tools, online discussion forums, virtual discussion groups, virtual teams, knowledge management systems and processes, decision support systems, etc. These tools and processes were described as capable to play an important role in discovering, sharing and utilizing the knowledge, experiences and skills, with the ability to effectively minimize the gap between the knowledge available for utilization and how much the participants know about its availability at a particular instance.

Having said the above, my particular interest at the start of my Ph.D. were directed towards:

The utilization of information systems and the related information technology tools, and their impact on individuals, society and organizations.
Knowledge Management (KM) as a process for discovering, creating and sharing knowledge and its related use as a tool to drive organizations towards learning organizations.
The Internet as information and knowledge exchange medium and its impact on grassroots activities to further human rights and freedoms around the world by informing and influencing governments and other relevant international institutions.

The teaching assistant (TA) experience from Stevens Institute of Technology added to my desire to further my education such that I can work in the academia. I liked teaching, being with the students, answering their questions. The Ph.D. degree would enable this opportunity and provide the venue for serious theoretical study.

Why a Ph.D. @ SCILS?
After extensive search for a Ph.D. program that would engage me in a discourse related to the above matters of interest to me, I came to realize that the Ph.D. program in Information Science at the School of Communication Information and Library Studies at Rutgers provide versatile yet specific courses taught by renown faculty in their respective field of study.

I'm in, what now (my questions in Fall 2003)?
I guess my main concern is deciding on an area I would like to focus going forward. Before coming to SCILS (started part time in Fall 2001) and during the first semester, I was mostly thinking knowledge management and collaboration tools for knowledge management. While I'm still interested in knowledge management, in the past few semesters I've been exposed to many other interesting research problems. The challenge I face now is deciding on the research problem/area that I would like to continue further. How does one chose among few competing interests?

One good way of finding the strengths and revealing the interests that are worth pursuing further, is to read the papers and research projects written/done for the previous classes, in order to asses any patterns of interest and discourses presented in them. If we wrote meaningful papers, there ought to be some revealing patterns. :)

Research interests:
From the courses I have taken so far (as of Spring 2003), 601, 610, 663, and 612 have helped me discover, identify, and narrow my research interests. Certainly, the topics covered in the Human Information Behavior (HIB) and the Seminar in Information Studies class were challenging and academically most appealing. At this point, it appears that my research interests are closely related to the type of material covered in the HIB class. I’m especially interested in the interplay between information and information systems, and the social structures within which they are imbedded.

To this extend, articles and materials related to knowledge management, collaboration, information systems design, the actor-network theory and methodology, and social constructionism, were the most illuminative and informative.

I’m looking forward to further narrow my research interests in the next two semesters (Fall 2003 and Spring 2004).

(Dated: 7/1/03; also available at
http://www.kmentor.com/socio-tech-info/archives/000076.html)

My personal Blog:
Socio-technological Rendering of Information

Blogs of interest: