Professional characteristics: Information management majors mainly study the composition, distribution and characteristics of information, the theory, principles, principles and methods of information system development and design, solve a series of important problems such as information acquisition, processing, retrieval, control and utilization, and provide high-quality information services for scientific research and management decision-making. Highlight the broad-caliber and compound characteristics, pay attention to the cross-infiltration of multiple disciplines, and cultivate high-level professionals in information management and information technology with solid foundation, wide knowledge, strong ability, good foreign language, high quality and innovative spirit.
Curriculum system: This major is an interdisciplinary major combining information management with computer technology, system science, management science and economics. While emphasizing the content of information management and information system in the curriculum, it also increases the intensity of computer technology and business courses and increases the courses of marketing and e-commerce.
Teaching mode: As a teaching mode, the project "Research on Practical Teaching Mode of Management Information System Specialty" carried out by Information Management Department fully embodies the characteristics of educational environment relying on "big project background" and enables students to grow into talents in engineering practice. Compared with the traditional "college-style" training mode, it can make students have more pioneering spirit and engineering consciousness. Because many new teaching modes have been introduced in the design of research content, especially interactive teaching, situational teaching and case simulation teaching have greatly mobilized students' subjective initiative in learning, which is conducive to cultivating students' awareness of independent innovation and laying a good foundation for cultivating innovative and applied talents. This teaching research project won the second prize of provincial teaching achievement in 20001year by Hubei provincial people's government.
I. Information management and information systems
Training objectives:
This major adapts to the needs of national economic development, and cultivates application-oriented senior professionals with modern management theory, computer science and technology and application ability, knowledge and ability to master system thinking, information system analysis and design methods and information management, strong basic ability of information organization, analysis and research, dissemination and development, and strong computer and foreign language application ability.
Main course:
Western economics, introduction to management, accounting principles, marketing, production and operation management, financial management, advanced computer programming, operational research, organizational behavior, computer operating system, database technology, computer network technology, introduction to information management, enterprise application system development platform, system analysis and design, information storage and retrieval, project management, intelligent decision-making technology, e-commerce, data warehouse and data mining, etc.
Jobs that graduates can engage in:
Can be engaged in information management and information system analysis, design, implementation, management and evaluation in national management departments at all levels, banks and financial institutions, industrial and commercial enterprises, logistics enterprises, scientific research and education units.
Three development modes of information management specialty
According to the two sources of information management specialty: management background and library background, we can summarize three development modes of the specialty at this stage. They are described as follows:
(1) major in information management and information systems under the School of Management or the School of Business Administration. This should be the main mode of information management specialty. Besides Tsinghua and Fudan mentioned above, Huazhong University of Science and Technology and East China University of Science and Technology were also established in this way. Generally speaking, the colleges and universities affiliated to this major are very strong. In addition to the professional knowledge of information management, students have to study many courses of economic management, with excellent knowledge background and good employment, which is a hot subject.
Of course, the focus of talent training in different schools is still different. Tsinghua, a discipline that combines IT and management, has shown new charm with the popularization of enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce, and Tsinghua's position in related information technology and industrial engineering disciplines has obviously consolidated the strength of this major. It seems that the training of talents in Tsinghua is almost all-round, such as economics, information technology, industrial engineering, management science and engineering. Of course, only Tsinghua can have these resources, and most schools still focus on cultivating management talents. Fudan claims that its goal is to take the application and management of information systems (including e-commerce) as the main research object, and how enterprises can use information technology/information systems to improve their competitiveness and management level as the goal, and to carry out teaching and scientific research in basic theory, enterprise management mode, information system strategic planning, information system and its management, information system development methods and information technology application, which should represent the mainstream training goal of most management colleges.
(2) From the original library department to the independent information management (resources) department, there are information management and information systems majors. In the past, this kind of college had strong discipline strength, formed its own discipline team and superior discipline, and it was difficult to merge with other departments. They often set up independent information management colleges to be responsible for the development of information management disciplines in their schools. For example, school of information management, Peking University Department of Information Management. In the process of discipline adjustment, the National People's Congress once intended to merge the information management major of the School of Information and the information management major of the Archives College into one. However, on the basis of the original discipline planning, the Archives College finally established its own School of Information Resources Management.
These actions can be understood as helpless choices, but more can be understood as efforts to break through the predicament. For example, in 1992, the major of library science and information science in Peking University was renamed as the Department of Information Management. In 2003, China Renmin University established the School of Information Resource Management on the basis of the original Archives College.
(3) The original department of library and information archives was established, but due to the relatively small scale of the original department, most of them belonged to the compound in the process of discipline adjustment, forming a relatively capable faculty. This development model should be a feasible way for the transformation of most library, information and archives disciplines, and we can use the resources of our own college to form our own disciplinary characteristics. For example, CUHK put the Department of Information Management in the School of Information Science and Technology, and Nantah set the Department of Information Management in the School of Management. In the process of discipline integration, Sun Yat-sen University reorganized the School of Information Science and Technology 1997 in July. At present, it consists of seven units, including Computer Science Department, electronics and communication engineering Department, Information Management Department, Computer Basic Education Center, Computer Software Research Institute, Computer Application Research Institute and Electrical and Engineering Software Research Center. Among them, the information management department has three undergraduate majors: library science, archival science, information management and information system; Three master's programs in library science, archival science and information science; At present, I am applying for a doctoral degree in library science. Initially, a multi-level, multi-type and multi-disciplinary professional education system has been formed, with undergraduate education as the mainstay and junior college, undergraduate and graduate students as the supplements. The number of undergraduate majors and master's degrees ranks in the forefront of similar departments in many universities across the country. It has technical advantages to set the information management department under the Institute of Information Technology. School of Public Administration of Nanjing University is an important base for training and bringing up professionals engaged in administrative management, social management, information management, educational management and ideological and political work. It is a new college with the characteristics of the times. There are 3 doctoral programs, 9 master programs and 1 master program in public administration (MPA), including the Department of Politics and Administration, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Information Management, the College of Higher Education and the Teaching and Research Section of Moral Education. The Department of Information Management has doctoral programs in information science, three master programs in information science, archival science and library science, and four undergraduate majors in information management and information system, editing and publishing (electronic publishing), library science and archival science. The Department also owns the Nanjing Research Base of National Information Resource Management. This model is still representative in universities with library background. For example, Northwest University School of Management, Jilin University School of Management and Anhui University School of Management are all of this type.
A preliminary study on the prospect of information management specialty
1) Subject Orientation of Information Management Specialty
(1) information management and information resource management
The two are closely related and overlap to a great extent; But there are also some differences. Generally speaking, information resource management is only an important part of information management. However, if we define the concepts of "information resources" and "information resources management" broadly, it will be more difficult to distinguish the differences between them. For example, information management is a popular subject name in the field of library and information science in China, but a considerable number of people advocate the use of "information resource management", including many famous experts and scholars. At present, there are basically two concepts about the relationship between information management and information resources in academic circles: one is that they are equivalent, that is, information management is information resource management; The other is that they are inclusive, that is, the scope of information management is much wider, and information resource management is only a part of information management or a development stage of information management.
China's information resources management is still in the transitional stage from the traditional management period to the technical management period. Although there are great changes in technical means, it is basically characterized by collecting, storing, sorting and retrieving information, and does not manage information as a resource; People's information awareness is not strong, and the demand for information is not urgent; Theoretical research is still weak, scattered and incomplete, and it is difficult to give correct guidance and summary to practice; Imperfect government management, lack of administrative means such as laws, regulations and policies, and so on. This shows that the rise of IRM in China still lacks a solid social foundation, and there is still a big gap with the international average level, about 10 years later. [ 16]
(2) Information management and management information system
Management information system is generally composed of information, information receivers, information processors and information managers, and it is a computer-based information management system. Its main task is to collect, store, process and disseminate information through manual, mechanical or computer management information systems in enterprises, organizations or a wider scope, and provide all kinds of information needed for management in time and accurately, so as to serve the decision-making of leaders or management departments or the management of production operators. Obviously, this is not only related to the concept and content of "information management", but also obviously different. They involve different information scope, service function and social significance. Management information system collects and manages specific information, with narrow scope, clear and specific functions and objectives, mainly serving the decision-making and management of specific fields and institutions; Information management should comprehensively manage all kinds of information and its related elements, provide information services for the whole society, and effectively meet the information needs of society. Therefore, management information system is only an integral part of the field of information management. Before the Ministry of Education adjusted the specialty setting, management information system was always an independent specialty, and later it was classified as information management specialty.
(3) Information management and books, information and archives.
Library science, information science, archival science, etc. In the long-term development process, they have formed a unique research object and have their own discipline system structure, principles and methods. But in essence, it can be regarded as an integral part of information management, and it is an information management with literature management as its representative and main feature. For example, library science mainly studies the micro-management of information, such as book collection, classification, cataloging, book protection, reader psychology and so on. , including some middle management (such as library management, architecture, economics, etc. ) and certain macro management (such as library undertaking, comparative library science, specialized library science, library futurology, etc.). In a word, from the perspective of management, books and archives are mainly concentrated in the field of micro-information management, and from the perspective of information carriers, they are also concentrated in certain information categories. The first-class discipline of library, information and archives newly established by the Ministry of Education belongs to information resource management. In this sense, information resource management should be subordinate to information management.
2) the relationship between information management discipline and other disciplines
(1) and management science
Management science is a science that studies the phenomena and laws of human beings in management practice. It originated from the organized social activities of human beings, and it is the universal knowledge of all artificial systems. Content can be divided into: management principles, behavior management, management psychology, accounting, statistics, forecasting and decision-making. The purpose of "trust management" is to manage and use a certain kind of information well and serve the social practice of human beings using information. It belongs to a branch of management science and has become an important aspect of modern management science. Different from other branches of management science, in this discipline, more attention is paid to the basic principles of management, and modern information technology is widely used. Due to the multi-industry application of this discipline, students' communication and communication skills are emphasized. In the subject catalogue of the Ministry of Education, the major of information management belongs to management science and engineering.
(2) the relationship with economics
The word economy is always associated with economy and high efficiency, and there are many branches of economics involving information issues, such as information economics in the process of development. From the perspective of economics, information is equivalent to resources such as capital, raw materials and talents. With the help of the basic principles and methods of economics, it will play a very positive role in the development of this major to study how to collect, process, transmit and utilize information efficiently. In addition, information management and information system construction often directly serve economic construction. Without the basic knowledge of economics as the background, it is difficult to imagine how to apply professional technology. Information management majors in Tsinghua and Fudan University attach great importance to students' knowledge of economic management, with a solid foundation and broad caliber.
(3) the relationship with computer science
Modern computer science theory and technology have developed rapidly and are widely used. Its subject system can be divided into software and hardware from one angle, and can be divided into theory and application from another angle. In terms of software, it can be divided into system software and application software. The former refers to the software that manages the computer's own resources, while the latter refers to the software that uses computers to manage other resources. Application software can be divided into data processing, computer, artificial intelligence and so on. Computer science knowledge is at the core of information management specialty. It can even be said that without the support of computer technology, this subject could not have developed to the present stage. However, the information management major is different from the computer major after all. On the basis of the same computer technology, the information management major is biased towards management, and the computer major is biased towards technology.
3) the prospect of information management specialty
Facing the development of information science and technology, the development prospect of information management specialty should be very promising, and the demand for information management graduates is increasing. With the discipline construction, the strength of the discipline of information management, which was established by the original library, information and archives specialty, has gradually increased, and the modern transformation of traditional disciplines has been completed under the impact of information science.
Generally speaking, information management majors should build the foundation (core) of information management discipline on the platform of information management, computer science and management science. The specific contents shall include:
(1) Information management courses: information management, information resource construction, information organization, information storage and retrieval, information analysis and research, management information system analysis and statistics, literature information management system analysis and research, information retrieval language, information management of scientific and technological archives, etc.
(2) Computer science courses: computer foundation, operating system, computer language, programming, data structure, computer network, multimedia technology, database technology, etc.
(3) Management courses: management principles, production and operation principles, marketing, organizational strategy and behavior, economic principles, information economics, knowledge economics, etc. [ 17]
Facing the development prospect of information management specialty, we try to elaborate from three parts:
(1) Integration and Complementarity of Related Fields
Based on the relationship between information management and information resource management, management information system, library information science and archival science, we can see that the development process of information management specialty is also a process of mutual integration and complementarity of related disciplines. Generally speaking, whether it is business administration or information management, management information system is the core course in the school of management. At present, books and information files are all classified into the category of information resource management, and these traditional majors will take information management as the direction and guide of their discipline construction. There are many overlaps in the research scope of these fields, and the integration of various fields can concentrate the most advantageous resources, which is undoubtedly the only way for information management majors to be competitive.
(2) Cross and expansion of related disciplines.
To sum up, the discipline of information management is closely related to management science and engineering, economics, computer science and engineering. The intersection of these disciplines is not only conducive to students' knowledge expansion, but more importantly, with the arrival of the information society, the intersection and expansion of related disciplines has become a new growth point for the development of various disciplines, or the future development vitality of information management specialty lies in the intersection of related disciplines, not in the discipline itself. This should be the * * * feature of all applied disciplines.
Here, I would like to mention the relationship between information management and computer science. At present, there are two tendencies in computer education of this kind of major in China: one is to overemphasize the instrumental nature of computers and only teach students some basic computer knowledge and traditional management methods, so that computerization is completed; The other exaggerates the importance of computers, hoping to teach all computer courses to students and turn the information management department into a quasi-computer department. This is because there is no clear position and role of computer science in the structure of professional knowledge. We know that information management and information system are the fields that students majoring in information management will engage in in in the future, not computer algorithm theory or hardware theory, nor the management of computer resources, but only as tools and means, so the study of computer science knowledge should focus on application. This requires us to first correct our attitude and base ourselves on service and application; Secondly, it is important to develop and maintain application software to set relevant courses according to the specific situation of computer application. Or it can be divided into technical, engineering and management types in talent training. [ 18]
(3) the convergence trend of the three models
We still remember Tsinghua people's confidence. They said that other information management majors were transformed from library, information and archives majors, and only they were direct descendants, including neighboring Peking University. This may be determined by their strength, after all, they rank first in the information management professional rankings. However, with the passage of time and the completion of the transformation of traditional disciplines of library, information and archival science in various schools, Tsinghua will have to admit that other people's information management majors are also real information management majors, regardless of their original origins. In this sense, we can say that the above three models are only unique phenomena in the field of information management education in China. In a few years or even longer, people will no longer pay attention to the background of information management major, because it has no meaning, except that we can see that there may be some differences in their training direction, but this is no longer important. In the process of professional development with the tendency of convergence of these three models, the employment prospects of students majoring in this major, or the recognition of the society, are undoubtedly decisive, just as this major came into being with the advancement of informatization in China. It is in this sense that universities attach equal importance to highlighting their own characteristics and cultivating compound talents.