David Dubin's Teaching Page

Although I'm not a member of the GSLIS faculty, I have taught classes in the past, and occasionally give guest presentations.

Table of Contents

Syllabi and materials from earlier semesters

My guest lectures and presentations

This is a list of guest presentations I've made in various GSLIS classes.

Introduction to Information Retrieval
I define information retrieval as "the art of unreasonable demands." IR is contrasted with DBMS. I introduce influential IR models (Boolean, Vector Processing, Probabilistic) and enabling technologies. I demo several IR and text processing utilities.
Introduction to Markup and Structured Document Standards
I contrast structural and presentation markup, and introduce ISO 8879 (SGML). I discuss SGML's advantages and disadvantages, and give examples of its use in academia and industry. I give a basic overview of elements, content models, attributes, and entities. I contrast the levels of document instance, document type definition, concrete syntax and abstract syntax. I demonstrate some SGML-aware software, and finish with a discussion of the XML dialect of SGML.
Visualization Interfaces for Information Retrieval Systems
A variety of visualization interfaces have been proposed and built for information retrieval systems. I give some basic background on this topic, discuss the attraction of such interfaces, and demonstrate the VIBE system.
Cluster Analysis in LIS Research
This is an overview of how cluster analysis works, and how it is applied LIS research. I contrast clustering with more familiar kinds of classification, and discuss both word-based and citation-based clustering.
Library and Information Science Standards
This is an introduction to de jure and de facto standards, and other kinds of public specifications. I discuss the motivation and impetus for creating a standard, the organizations that produce them, and the systems of formal approval. I usually zero in on two specific standards, the choice of which depend on the class to which I am presenting.
The Free Software and Open Source Movements
I give a layman's explanation of the various free and open source licenses that govern the distribution of application programs such as Gnu Emacs, programming languages like Perl, and the Gnu/Linux operating system. I discuss the broader implications of these kinds of licenses for the library and information systems communities.

Other links related to my teaching


last updated 06/01/00