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Before embarking of a reading course, you must arrange to meet with the Program Director to discuss a potential topic and reading course logistics. The Director will evaluate and coordinate supervision. Come to the meeting prepared to discuss your proposed topic, and plan.

Students enrolled in the MI or combined degree program, who have completed at least four three-credit graduate-level courses, and have a GPA of 3.3 (B+) or higher, may apply to complete a reading course.

After meeting with the Director and your supervisor, you must submit a complete reading course proposal. This must be submitted to your supervisor for approval by the agreed upon deadline. 

Note: These deadlines are guidelines. Please confirm deadlines with your supervisor.

Your proposal must include:

• Reading course proposal form (signed)
• Title
• Introduction
• Purpose/objectives
• Relevance to the Information Management field
• Relevance to the MI Competencies
• Selected reading list
• Methodology (including requirement for ethics approval)
• Timeline for activities in the course
• Method of evaluation
• Abstract
• Research cluster to which your reading course belongs

Research Clusters

Data, information and knowledge management including cloud computing; collaboration; data management; digital preservation; information management; information systems; knowledge management; privacy (collection, use, disclosure, security, destruction of information); records management; research data management; health program evaluation, open data.

Data science including big data; big data analytics; big data management; big data processing; citation analysis; cloud computing; cloud computing at scale; computational social science; empirical innovation studies; ethics; natural language processing; network analysis; personal information security; digital forensics.

Educational and informational services including children’s services; collaboration; collections development; community engagement; community-led services; data literacy; information literacy instruction; pleasure reading; readers’ advisory services; reading and literacy; young adult services; mediated information searching; scholarship of teaching and learning.

Human information interaction including accidental information acquisition; e-learning; geographic information behavior and use; group/collaborative information interactions; human-computer interaction; individual differences; information needs and behaviours; mobile interface theory; online catalog retrieval systems (pleasure reading); organizational learning; perceptions of internet-based technology; privacy; serendipity; social media; user engagement; web-based discovery systems.

Information and society including books for children and teens; business history; digital governance; ethics; geographic information identity; information governance; information policy; information society; informed civic engagement; innovation; knowledge systems; labour history; literature and film studies; print culture; privacy; privacy policy; publishing industry and its history; social media.

Information organization and representation including archival description; cataloguing; classification; data visualization; folksonomies; geographic information systems; geographic representation; images as information; information architecture; information systems; information visualization; knowledge organization; metadata; network science; organization of information; privacy; social tagging; taxonomies; thesauri; archival appraisal, archival outreach, health policy and procedure; information system implementation and evaluation.

Scientific information including environment management; fisheries management; grey literature; information networks; information use and influence; integrated coastal and oceans management; marine and oceans issues; marine governance; oceans data management; patent informatics; privacy in research and science; public policy and decision making; science-policy interface; scientific information portals; scientometrics; state of environment reporting; information in decision making; ontologies.

If you require assistance, contact your supervisor.

If a reading course involves research with human subjects, ethics approval must be obtained.  Ethics approval is granted at the Faculty level; your supervisor can help you liaise with the Faculty of Management’s Associate Dean (Research) for the appropriate forms.

The Program Director will evaluate and coordinate supervision. Potential supervisors could include: a full-time Department of Information Science faculty member, members of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. In special circumstances, an adjunct or external supervisor could co-supervise.

Your supervisor can advise you about opportunities for presenting your research. All students completing a reading course are encouraged to present in the Information Research Forum held in the Winter term.

MI students may take a maximum of two reading courses during their program.