CPI 101: Introduction to Informatics

Fall 2007 Dianne Hansford

What is Informatics?

• Study of how information is collected, stored, manipulated, classified, organized, retrieved, visualized, ....

• How does it differ from > Information Technology?

> Information Science?

> Computer Science?

Origins of ‘Informatics’

• 1962 France: Phillipe Dreyfus, a French information system/software pioneer Combination of “information” and “automatic” “tic” in Greek = “theory” • 1962 US: Walter Bauer founded a company named Informatics. • Today Europe: “Informatics” = Computer Science • Today US: widely used in application contexts: medical informatics, chemical informatics, bioinformatics

Importance

• Every day we are touched/influenced by informatics – Email, Google, YouTube, Blogs, FaceBook, Travelocity, GPS systems, iTunes, Univ. Resgistrar, .........!

• data-centric world – new data acquisition devices – everyone is creating content • data  information  knowledge – key to advances in science, engineering, medicine, ...

‘Tools for ...’ Approach

• People & systems view of informatics • Tools for – memory, – routine activity, – modeling, inference, and visualization, – decision making and problem solving – communication, networking, and interaction • Still a combination of how information is collected, stored, manipulated, classified, organized, retrieved, visualized

No escape now!

• Data keeps coming – data acquisition tools – everyone publishes • People with needs and hunger for tools • Systems encapsulate functionality • Result: Tools for....

Informatics!

Central Goal of Informatics: Data



Information



Knowledge

• Data acquisition explosion – {Remote} sensing/scanning technologies, motes, ....

– Automated data collection • Biology: Experiments can collect 1 Gigabyte (GB) / day (10^9 bytes) • Astronomy: 1 Terabyte / day (10^12 bytes) • Information – Automated “curation” of data – Store, organize, manipulate, retrieve • Knowledge – Automation of hypothesis formation & experimentation: “machine learning” – Working on this!

• Informatics delivers this process as a system

Flood of Information

• Study estimated that all phone calls in 2002 contained about 17 exabytes (EB) of new information – 1 exabyte = 1 billion GB – good luck FBI!

• All conversation ever had by human beings (saved as text) = 5 EB (maybe) • Huge gap in data aquisition and information  knowledge capacity

Example: Bioinformatics

• Unprecedented access to biological data – data acquisition • Managing biological databanks with numerous contributors and users – store, organize, networks • Extracting useful information from large and dense biological data – manipulate, visualize • Assembling molecular pieces into predictive models of biological systems for

in silico

experiments – modeling, inference – scientific computing: multiprocessor, faster processors

Informatics as the Bridge

• Connects people through IT to discipline (domain) areas • Focus on applications: use of highly sophisticated applications and development of new applications, designed so people can use them • Brings us back to the ‘Tools for ...’ structure of course!

Building the Bridge Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

• HCI design is key to building this bridge • (Cognitive) psychology an important field of work for creating tools that make us – efficient – creative – able to envision better computational tools • But ... fundamental computer science research is important too • `It takes all types!’

Humans Computers

(Need for a Bridge) • slow • prone to error • irrational • emotional • inferential • random • unpredictable • ethical • intelligent • fast!

• error-free (sort of) • deterministic • apathetic • literal • sequential (mostly) • predictable • amoral • stupid (mostly) Caveat: This is a bit of a hyperbole to make the point.

Informatics Certificate

• CPI 101: Overview of courses to com – Experience with ‘Tools for’ – Breadth rather than depth • CPI 200: “Computational Thinking” • Next level – CPI 410 Tools for storing, organizing, retrieving – CPI 460 Tools for problem solving, decision-making • Elective – choose one – From given list or from your degree program • Website: http://sci.asu.edu/undergraduate/informatics_cert.php

References

• Wikipedia • Mike Dunn, School of Informatics, Indiana Univ.

http://www.informatics-schools.org/ppt.php?page=1 • ‘Champing at the Bits’, Nature March 2006