This presentation introduces the idea of 'information landscapes' with reference to Lloyd's (2010) original formulation of the idea and plenty of parallels with 'real' landscapes, for illustration. There is also an introduction to the idea of 'mapping' an information landscape, what this can show and how this can be a learning exercise.

1. EDUC61711 Digital, Media
and Information Literacy
Week 2: Information Landscapes, and an introduction to
mapping them
Note: there is no audio file embedded in this presentation.

2. The nature of information
• Information is real. It has real effects upon the
world.
• But it is intangible. Although encoded into a
variety of resources (see later), information is, in
itself, non-physical.

3. This intangibility is what gives information its rapid
speed of movement; in the digital/satellite era, it can
move more-or-less instantly around the world.
But we also lack the right lang-
uage to talk about the structures
and effects of intangibles, tending
as a result to resort to metaphor.

4. Three metaphors…
Three metaphors are presented in the week 2 materials,
all useful for thinking about information and its effects.
Information…..
landscapes
[discussed in the remainder
of this presentation]
[discussed in the YouTube
video and the activity]
overload
obesity

5. Landscapes…
…display enormous diversity…
Clockwise from top left: Ullswater;
Morecambe Bay; Sydney; the River
Wharfe, Yorkshire
…even though all have the same basic
ingredients (water, rock, life)

6. There are particular types of landscape: the previous
slide showed mountain, coastal, urban and lowland/
woodland landscapes. There are others (e.g. deserts).
Nevertheless each landscape
is essentially unique, even
within the types.
The Lake District (left)…
…looks quite different from the
Blue Mountains of Australia,
even though both are ‘mountain
landscapes’

7. Landscapes do not just appear, they are formed, as the result of
small-scale changes and pressures iterated over many thousands
of years.
The nature of these formations can be ‘read’ in a landscape, if one
knows what to look for. For example…
This is Finse, Norway. Approx 18,000 years
ago the whole of that country would have
been covered in ice caps resembling this.
As the glaciers retreated, the valleys
they had carved in the landscape were
filled by the sea, resulting in Norway’s
famous fjords (this is Lysefjord).
The existence of fjords is therefore evidence
of prior glacial action on a landscape.

8. Human activity clearly has a significant influence on
landscapes…
…both for good and bad. Landscapes can be damaged, but also nurtured,
sustained and managed by careful attention to them over a long period.

9. On the other hand, landscapes also shape human activity, often at quite
profound levels. There are many examples of this but to name just a couple…
Most large cities originally grew around
some kind of strategic point in the land-
scape — e.g. a river crossing, or a fortifiable
hill (as with Edinburgh, pictured here)
Isolated and relatively inaccessible
landscapes are less likely to have
developed industrially — but
nowadays will also attract tourism;
places like the Lake District are thus
subject to special regulations intended
to curb industrial development

10. And ‘information landscapes’?
This term was used by Annemaree Lloyd as the title of her book (2010).
It is a good metaphor because the things mentioned so far about
(geographical) landscapes can be seen as applying to information as well.
Information landscapes are formed — the collective result of practices
that take place in organisations and communities

11. The ‘ingredients’ of information landscapes include printed texts
(e.g. books, newspapers), online resources (web sites, social media),
and also knowledge that is inside the minds of friends, colleagues,
teachers, etc.
Yet as with geographical landscapes, these ingredients appear in
many different forms and configurations.

12. General types of landscape exist. for
example, one university looks
somewhat like every other (and I mean
here not just the physical appearance of
the campus, though that is part of it)….
…but not identical.
These three institutions (Manchester,
Alabama, Bergen) may value and
handle information in similar ways —
but they nevertheless play host to differing
practices, systems and cultures.

13. And a university structures, values and presents information
in quite different ways from other educational institutions
(like schools), which in turn differ from informal educational
settings (like a football club). And so on.
Linking back to what we talked about last week — each
landscape may exhibit cognitive authority differently.

14. Information landscapes can be nurtured and managed in healthy
and sustainable ways, or they can be damaged by lack of care
and attention.
They can also be ‘read’ if one knows what to look for — allowing
one to see the trends and activities which have shaped the
information landscape over time.
These are complex ideas…
and time is short!
Let’s move on for now. But keep
these important ideas in mind if
you can.

15. Mapping landscapes
Mapping has a long history as a method by which humanity has
developed and represented its knowledge of landscapes.
The first maps date from prehistory.
This is the ‘Hereford Mappa Mundi’,
a medieval map of the world which
resides in Hereford Cathedral, UK.
Jerusalem is at the centre*, with the
British Isles to bottom left, on the edge.
* What this kind of thing says about the political implications of mapping is important, but we
will come back to it later.

16. As mapping and surveying techniques have improved over time
we can now make very precise and finely-detailed maps of the
world.
The UK Ordnance Survey maps are exceptionally good. There is
a huge amount of information embedded onto a map like this, as
there is on other map types (e.g. Google Maps).
The map and the photograph are both two-dimensional representations
of the same geographical space (Wast Water, Cumbria, UK); but the
map has a lot more information on it than the photograph.

17. Note, though, that a map must be selective in what information it displays.
This map is great if one wants to do a walk in Wasdale (which is what the
blue line represents, by the way)…
…but not for telling you what is
ten centimetres beneath your feet, in
other words, geology.
For that you need a map like this one
(same place, albeit a smaller scale).

18. Maps, in short, are one way of summarising
the information that is known about a
landscape.
They can serve to communicate that
information to others.
They can also be used to
suggest routes of exploration
through a landscape, even
if one has never been there.
This is a map of Kilimanjaro
in Tanzania. One can imme-
diately tell a great deal about
this landscape just from the
map, and plan routes of
ascent up the mountain —
should one be so inclined*.* I’m going up in June or July 2015.

19. Mapping the intangible…
Not only is it possible to map information
landscapes in much the same way… We
in fact do this all the time.
This is a map of an organisation.
In the same way as geographical maps
(although we have not really explored
this yet), it uses certain conventions
(e.g. boss at the top, instead of north at
the top), emphasises certain properties,
can be used for navigation, etc.

20. Informally we may use all sorts of methods to ‘map’ information,
helping us to bring together different ideas, organise our activity,
remember key points, etc.
I saw this ‘timeline’ doodle on a colleague’s desk last year. It is a
good example — but, of course, a very personal one.
Even something like a short ‘to-do list’ is a basic map. It selects
information from a broader landscape and highlights it, in order
to help the user ‘navigate’ their way through the tasks.

21. Concept and mind maps
A more formal approach to mapping information landscapes.
The two terms (concept mapping, mind mapping) are claimed by
different academic ‘camps’, but basically they are the same thing.
[This map was created by a MA: DTCE student in 2014, using the
software Mindmeister. The red box in the centre defines the topic of
the map.]

22. Concept maps have many possible applications in helping assess
cognition — that is, what someone knows.
Achieving knowledge of one’s own knowledge is called metacognition
— in effect, a posh word for ‘study skills’…
References and further reading on
concept maps will be found on Black-
board. You will need to look at this
in order to complete the week 3 joint
DMIL/ETC activity.
Individuals can use it to organise their thoughts on a topic.
Or a group (as pictured here) can
collectively work on mapping a
landscape, sharing different per-
spectives on problems, resources, etc.

23. Concept mapping and
information literacy
• The effective use of information is made more likely if the user can
make connections between what they hear or read, and what is
already in their mind.
• Concept mapping can help reveal connections between resources in
the landscape.
• What resources are accessible? What might be more useful, but less
accessible? What are the gaps in knowledge and, thus, what are
possible information needs?
[NOTE: this can actually lead to blocks
on learning, as if the information is very
challenging it might be rejected. But we
will talk more about that next week (week 3)

24. Conclusion
• Hopefully this presentation has given you a sense of the
potential richness of the ‘information landscape’ idea.
• There is a chapter from Lloyd (2010) on Blackboard which is
guided reading…
• … and in week 3 (ETC) you will get some practical
experience with mapping your own information landscapes.
• Look also at the other (YouTube) presentation and the short
activity which consider ‘information overload and
information obesity’.