Information Management and Retrieval

Course Objectives

The course aims to:

• Enable students to develop the ability to understand, evaluate, and compare different Information Management and Retrieval approaches and tools;
• Make students aware of opportunities and threats concerning Information Management and Retrieval techniques;
• Train students to think critically about today's use of Information Management and Retrieval techniques for the Web.

Course Description

Information Management and Retrieval (IM&R) concerns production, acquisition, storage, protection, manipulation, and distribution of relevant data with a variety of means and devices, mostly exploiting digital technology. This course is directed to people who are (or will be) involved in those activities supported by digital technologies.

The course builds on foundations of information management in the Web (markup languages, server side generated web pages, HTTP cookies, and Content Management Systems) and information retrieval (structured and unstructured data, information retrieval techniques, search engines, knowledge representation for the Web, and artificial intelligence techniques).

Learning methods

The course is organized in formal lectures complemented by tutoring activities on the individual work and student presentations.

Attendance

Class attendance is required (unless not possible for specific reasons).

Evaluation procedures & grading criteria

The evaluation will be based on:

• A 2-hour written exam, worth 70%, including conceptual questions, true-false questions, and exercises on all topics of the program;
• Individual or group work, worth 30%.

Required materials

Slides by the lecturer, available on the icorsi.ch platform and containing references to relevant textbooks and papers freely available on the web.