Digital technologies

Many diverse fields–including literary analysis, wine production, the reading of x-rays, and the development of autonomous vehicles–now use digital technologies

Trends towards virtualization (the creation of a virtual version of an object), and digitization (representing an object in a digital format) are shaking up many spheres of society that have not previously been associated with technology.

This trend towards digitization is not only accelerating, we are also observing “combinatorial” effects as digitization develops in tandem with technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and data analytics, all interacting to create new value propositions in many sectors.

This poses both opportunities and challenges for information scholars in a fast-moving field. On the one hand, it is impossible to be an expert in all of the many contexts in which the study of information is important. On the other hand, research about information and the social and technical systems that use it has a history that dates back to the 1970’s. Knowledge and theories about the role played by information and digital technologies can now be applied to almost all aspects of life, work and play.

Alan Turing’s ground-breaking work will soon turn 100 years old and remains arguably one of the most consequential applications of information technology to society. In many universities, Information-related disciplines date back to at least the 1970’s. This means that scholars of information have a body of information- and technology-related knowledge that spans more than 50 years to draw on. This includes (for example) extensive insights into how new technology innovations diffuse; how and why they are adopted, continued with, or abandoned; how people behave with regard to seeking and using information; how to foster technology innovation; and how to leverage the “data lake” that is created by increasing digitization.

While there is a core set of knowledge, conferences, journals, and course curricula that many information studies, information systems and information science schools around the world share, our school is increasingly characterised by its rich relationships with many other disciplines.