Dr. Virginia Tucker is a highly accomplished and renowned information professional with impressive credentials. She recently received full tenure after teaching at SJSU’s iSchool for more than 15 years. Throughout her career, Dr. Tucker has worked as a Physics Librarian, Law Librarian, and an Information Architect at Dialog/Thomson (now ProQuest). She received her MLS from the University of California, Berkeley and has a B.A. in Music Composition from Stanford University. Her expansive knowledge and expertise in research and information design makes her an invaluable member and resource of the SJSU MLIS community. We asked her for tips on what it takes to succeed in a course like INFO 202.
This is best expressed in the learning objectives and core competencies supported by the course. See:
I believe it helps to have an abundance of curiosity! The course focuses on design concepts and the critical thinking that goes into making information discoverable. The assignments are hands-on to help with understanding users’ needs, then how to design metadata and make information findable. Students experience the course as eye-opening and creative!
Sometimes I see students begin the course with a level of anxiety, thinking that it’s highly technical, but it’s not. It’s build around design concepts, and how we design for findability, like building structured database content, controlled vocabularies, and good navigation and labeling for websites. Also, the course content is progressive, with short exercises that build skills for larger projects. And, always check in with your instructor with questions! We’re all more than happy to help out.
There is such a wide range of interests among students in the MLIS program, and this contributes to such valuable engagement with others during the course. Studentsare typically in their first or second semester when they take INFO 202. So I’m not surprised by the students but truly delighted by the incredible range of interests, backgrounds, and experiences they bring into the course experience for everyone. All of this enriches the learning that’s possible, developing synergy through the group work and interactive exercises and discussions that are a key part of the design of the course.
INFO 202, like the other course courses INFO 200 and INFO 204, is designed to prepare students for multiple career pathways and for the many course electives offered at the iSchool. Specific skills are learned, but also core concepts that are more enduring than skills.
Dr. Tucker was honored with an Outstanding Professor award in 2018 and received the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2021. Thank you, Dr. Tucker, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with us!
