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Online discussion research has mainly been conducted using case methods. This article proposes a method for comparative analysis based on network metrics such as information entropy and global network efficiency as more holistic measures characterizing social learning group dynamics. We applied social learning optimization analysis of networks (SLOAN) to a data set consisting of Coursera courses from a range of disciplines. We examined the relationship of discussion forum uses and measures of network efficiency, characterized by the information flow through the network. Discussion forums vary greatly in size and in use. Courses with a greater prevalence of subject-related versus procedural talk differed significantly in seeking but not disseminating behaviors in massive open online course discussion forums. Subject-related talk was related to higher network efficiency and had higher seeking and disseminating scores overall. We discuss the value of SLOAN for social learning and argue for the experimental study of online discussion optimization using a discussion post recommendation system for maximizing social learning.

Contribution: This research illuminates information entropy's efficacy as a pivotal educational tool in programming, enabling the precise quantification of algorithmic complexity and student abstraction levels for solving problems. This approach can provide students quantitative, comparative insights into the differences between optimal and student implemented solution, and allowing educators to offer targeted feedback, thereby optimizing the learning and abstraction processes in algorithm design through deliberate practice. Background: Abstraction is considered one of the most important skills in problem solving. Many studies in programming have shown that higher abstraction capability can significantly simplify problems, reduce program complexity and improve efficiency. However, it is difficult to develop criteria to measure the level of abstraction, and there is still a lack of relevant systematic research. Research Questions: 1) How can students' abstraction ability in programming be effectively measured? and 2) How to develop programming education and training methods based on the measurement of abstraction ability? Methodology: Forty-six grade 10 students participated in the experiment, divided into two groups for programming training using information-entropy-based assessment and traditional learning methods. Their level of computational thinking, algorithmic efficiency improvements, and test scores were used to measure performance and to analyze the effectiveness of the training methods. Findings: Through empirical research, this article finds that information-entropy-based assessment can reflect the differences in problem solving among students possessing varying capabilities. Information entropy can be crucial for evaluating and improving students' abstraction performance and algorithm efficiency.

In this paper, we demonstrate how to identify whether different groups of students (classified by their major) provide different quantities of information in their student ratings of instruction (SROIs). As a corollary, we identified specific groups of students who provided a greater/lesser quantity of information in their responses. All calculations were undertaken using Microsoft Excel, and no prior statistical training was required to create or interpret our information measures. We used SROI data taken from a first-year logical reasoning course for health professions majors and found that the quantity of information provided by pharmacy and other health majors in their SROIs exceeded the quantity of information provided by nursing majors for every single SROI question. We also found that specific majors gave relatively greater quantities of information (relative to other majors) for specific types of SROI items.

A study of online search, especially search performance, is vital because people heavily rely on the Internet nowadays. The purposes of this study are thus to examine the gratification needs affecting Internet users' intention to search information online, to explore the antecedents of online search performance, and to investigate online information-seeking behavior according to each search purpose. A survey of Internet users in Thailand is carried out. Data are collected extensively both from students and workers. Four hundred fifty-three questionnaires are collected online. Individuals use the Internet to search for information differently, for academic/ working achievement, problem-solving, and personal information needs. The main gratifications are information seeking and Internet ambiance. Internet search intention is a strong determinant of a user's online search performance and corresponding behavior. The theoretical implication is that researchers could apply the research framework to other contexts such as the specific information search. Information source providers could use the findings to modify online resources and their presentations for users effectively. Teachers/ managers could guide their students/ workers to search effectively. This study combines the U&G and the TPB theories. The novel aspects of gratifications i.e., antitraditional media sentiment and Internet ambiance are also explored.

Labeling information is a precarious and risky enterprise. Catalogers have the task of fitting unique concepts within established and rigid language frameworks while also minimizing personal bias. The way information literacy librarians interact with labeled information also influences how users interact with information. Labeling moves beyond the role of categorizing; it also contributes to meaning making and knowledge building. Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" serves as a philosophical footing to illustrate how the labeling of things, in this case information, shapes the way we give things meaning. Critical librarianship and philosophy of information theory add to the discussion by considering how personal perspective, power, and bias to manipulate the game of naming information that takes place in the information literacy classroom. This paper is an invitation for librarians to reflect upon the relationship between labeling and how all users of information engage with labels and subsequently create meaning and knowledge.

The article describes the main types of mental information processing in the context of a systematic structural method. The author analyses the semantic theories of information. The author reviews the mechanisms of information processing and its qualitative properties. The article describes the mechanism of textual presupposition accommodation.

While limited research on the information behaviors of community college students exists, the theories of Elfreda Chatman have not been used to develop understanding of this population. Community college students are more likely to be people of color and/or lower income than their peers in four-year colleges, making them potentially more likely to experience information poverty. This study explored if and how Chatman's theories explain the information behaviors of students at a highly diverse, urban community college. Thirteen students were interviewed using open-ended, qualitative prompts to describe their information seeking and use as it pertains to their college experiences, specifically advisement, financial aid, and understanding course requirements. Students indicated that they used interpersonal and online resources in some combination for all of their information needs for school and in everyday life. The students did not describe the information poverty theorized in many of Chatman's studies. However, it became clear from their responses that the students' information seeking and use, as well as their understanding of their own information behaviors, support a view of the community college as a small world that privileges information seeking as a normative behavior.

Communication theory can be challenging to teach in an engaging manner. The following original teaching activity suggests a way to incorporate the phenomenon of escape rooms into your theory classroom. Courses: Communication Theory, Introduction to Communication. Objectives: In this activity, students will apply the basic tenets of several communication theories--emotional contagion, cultivation theory, exemplification theory, and politeness theory--in solving a puzzle. Students will also apply theory by examining their own group processes during the activity through the lens of the functional perspective on group decision making.

This article reports on an experience where arts-informed pedagogy was combined with the traditional lecture-style teaching in a course on information and communication theories delivered at the Masters level in the School of Journalism and Communication Sciences (EJCAM) at Aix-Marseille University in France. After the course content had been delivered orally, students were required to work in groups to create art exhibits that showcased how information and communication theories operated in different historical or contemporary situations in the society. Sixteen impressive art projects were created by the students, and an arts exhibition was held within the school premises. To gauge students' reception of how the arts-informed pedagogy contributed to their appropriation of the course content, they completed an online survey two months after the course. Their responses showed an overwhelmingly positive reception and demand for more creative modes of learning in information and communication studies. The arts approach complemented the verbal mode of learning by creating a recursive and collaborative learning environment that enhanced students' participation, self-esteem, and creativity and served to illustrate the interdependence between theory and practice.

The study of communication through the framework of established theories is central to communication education, and most undergraduate communication programs include a course dedicated to surveying theoretical perspectives. This activity guides students to review and synthesize theoretical knowledge in a March Madness-style end-of-semester competition. The purpose is threefold. First, students revisit theories covered over the semester, providing a valuable review opportunity. Second, students gain experience evaluating strengths and weaknesses of individual theories in comparison with others. Third, by considering theories in competition, students engage with broader metatheoretical questions in the study of communication. Courses: Communication Theory, Advanced Interpersonal Communication, Organizational Communication Theory. Objectives: The purpose of this end-of-semester activity is to demonstrate (1) students' ability to compare and contrast communication theories, (2) students' competency in evaluating communication theories, and (3) students' proficiency in discussing broader theoretical issues in the study of communication.

The measurement of knowledge contribution in collaborative knowledge building is an important research topic in computer-supported collaborative learning. The information measures of knowledge contribution based on information theory are proposed in this study, which includes two measures: amount of information and information gain. Discourse data collected from a collaborative knowledge building activity were analyzed to validate these measures. The results showed that our information measures can complement the traditional behavioral. With the help of the two measures, community-level variation tendency and individual-level knowledge contribution characteristics could be analyzed in collaborative knowledge building activities. A log function was used to fit the community knowledge variation tendency to measure the convergence of knowledge building. Students were clustered into five types according to their behaviors and contributions in collaborative knowledge building. Both teachers and researchers can benefit from these two information measures by using them in practice.

How do children learn to communicate, and what do they learn? Traditionally, most theories have taken an associative, compositional approach to these questions, supposing children acquire an inventory of form-meaning associations, and procedures for composing / decomposing them; into / from messages in production and comprehension. This paper presents an alternative account of human communication and its acquisition based on the systematic, discriminative approach embodied in psychological and computational models of learning, and formally described by communication theory. It describes how discriminative learning theory offers an alternative perspective on the way that systems of semantic cues are conditioned onto communicative codes, while information theory provides a very different view of the nature of the codes themselves. It shows how the distributional properties of languages satisfy the communicative requirements described in information theory, enabling language learners to align their expectations despite the vastly different levels of experience among language users, and to master communication systems far more abstract than linguistic intuitions traditionally assume. Topics reviewed include morphological development, the acquisition of verb argument structures, and the functions of linguistic systems that have proven to be stumbling blocks for compositional theories: grammatical gender and personal names.

Students across disciplines struggle with sensemaking when they are faced with the need to understand and analyze massive amounts of information. This is particularly salient in the disciplines of both history and data science. Our approach to helping students build expertise with complex information leverages activity theory to think about the design of a classroom activity system integrated with the design of a collaborative open-source network-analysis software tool called Net.Create. Through analysis of network log data as well as video data of students' collaborative interactions with Net.Create, we explore how our activity system helped students reconcile common contradictions that create barriers to dealing with complex datasets in large lecture classrooms. Findings show that as students draw on details in a historical text to collaboratively construct a larger network, they begin to move more readily between small detail and aggregate overview. Students at both high and low initial skill levels were able to increase the complexity of their historical analyses through their engagement with the Net.Create tool and activities. Net.Create transforms the limitation of large class sizes in history classrooms into a resource for students' collaborative knowledge building, and through collaborative data entry it supports the historiographic practices of citation and revision and helps students embed local historical actors into a larger historical context.

Introduction: This paper elaborates the picture of information sharing and knowledge sharing as forms of communicative activity. Method: A conceptual analysis was made to find out how researchers have approached information sharing and knowledge sharing from the perspectives of transmission and ritual. The findings are based on the analysis of one hundred and two key studies characterising the above viewpoints. Results: Information sharing and knowledge sharing represent similar communicative activities when looked at from the viewpoints of transmission and ritual communities. The former view emphasises one-way communication from sender to recipients, and the sharing activity appears as transfer, diffusion or provision of information or knowledge. From the ritual point of view, the sharing activity has been conceptualised in terms of exchange depicting two-way communication between interacting participants. The activities of knowledge sharing have mainly been examined in work-related contexts, while information sharing has also been investigated in non-work contexts. Conclusions: As communicative activities, information sharing and knowledge sharing have more similarities than differences. However, the terminological questions become more complicated if the focus is shifted to what exactly is being shared while sharing information or knowledge, due to multiple interpretations of the concepts of information and knowledge.

This teaching activity explores whether the meaningful communication case for diversity in groups, organizations, and communities rests in ideas of justice, equity, and basic employee responsibilities and rights (O'Leary & Weathington, 2006. Beyond the Business Case for Diversity in Organizations. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 18(4), 283-292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-006-9024-9) rather than in the business case. This article responds to neoliberal multiculturalism to articulate how a justice case for diversity might instead be presented in the classroom. The justice case may provide a more robust orientation to diverse communicators in future small group, organizational, and community contexts. Courses: Communication Theory, Organizational Communication, Small Group Communication. Objectives: This activity introduces students to two major rationales for organizational diversity--the business case and the social justice case--and allows exploration of how attitudes toward diversity might be affected by challenges presented in diverse organizations. The debriefing discussion encouraged students to explore the arguments for diversity presented by each case and the resilience of pro-diversity arguments in light of possible challenges. This activity can also be used as a prompt for students to reflect on the arguments for diversity presented across the curriculum.

Often, users of information systems (both automated and manual) must analyze those systems in a "black box" fashion, without being able to see the internals of how the system is supposed to work. In this case of business process outsourcing, an insurance industry customer encounters an ongoing stream of customer service issues, with both the original provider and outsourcing organization. To understand and validate what is happening with his account, the insurance customer (Edward) and his representative (Penny) must deduce the operations, business rules, and data flows of the organizations. Most importantly, have the operations of these organizations released anyone's data inappropriately? And are these same customer service issues happening to other customers, who may not be in a position to spend the time and energy needed to catch and resolve them?

It is proposed that the problem of the mind-brain relationship can be overcome by a non-classical materialistic model of personality based on the information defined as a special form of negentropy with a structure and activity, which in five intra-individual categories, organizes all and each of the levels of the personality, and, in an extra-individual category organizes the society. This concept of information leads to a monistic view of the universe and turns into conceptions of society, personality, consciousness, and mental activity based on a theoretical framework that explains the nature of the social individual.

The acceptability of sentences in natural language is constrained not only grammaticality, but also by the relationship between what is being conveyed and such factors as context and the beliefs of interlocutors. In many languages the critical element in a sentence (its focus) must be given grammatical prominence. There are different accounts of the nature of focus marking. Some researchers treat it as the grammatical realization of a potentially arbitrary feature of universal grammar and do not provide an explicit account of its origins; others have argued, however, that focus marking is a (grammaticalized) functional solution to the problem of efficiently transmitting information via a noisy channel. By adding redundancy to highlight critical elements in particular, focus protects key parts of the message from noise. If this information-theoretic account is true, then we should expect focus-like behavior to emerge even in non-linguistic communication systems given sufficient noise and pressures for efficiency. We tested this in an experiment in which participants played a simple communication game in which they had to click cells on a grid to communicate one of two line figures drawn across the grid. We manipulated the noise, available time, and required effort, and measured patterns of redundancy. Because the lines in many cases overlapped, meaning that only some parts of each line could be used to distinguish it from the other, we were able to compare the extent to which effort was expended on adding redundancy to critical (non-overlapping) and non-critical (overlapping) parts of the message. The results supported the information-theoretic account of focus and shed light on the emergence of information structure in language.

Monitoring and control over the process of studying the distance learning course are based on solving the problem of making out an adequate integral mark to the educatee for mastering entire study course, by testing results. It is suggested to use the degree of correspondence between educatee's thesaurus and the study course thesaurus as an integral mark for the degree of mastering the distance learning course. Study course thesaurus is a set of the course objects with relations between them specified. The article considers metrics of the study course thesaurus complexity, made on the basis of the graph theory and the information theory. It is suggested to use the amount of information contained in the study course thesaurus graph as the metrics of the study course thesaurus complexity. Educatee's thesaurus is considered as an object of measuring educational material learned at the semantic level and is assessed on the basis of amount of information contained in its graph, taking into account the factors of learning the thesaurus objects.

Introduction: Rolf Landauer declared in 1991 that "information is physical". Since then, information has come to be seen by many physicists as a fundamental component of the physical world; indeed by some as the physical component. This idea is now gaining currency in popular science communication. However, it is often far from clear what exactly this statement means; exactly how is information physical? And why this should matter for information science? The purpose of this paper is to clarify just what is meant by the physical nature of information, and the significance of these considerations for our discipline. Methods: A selective literature review and conceptual analysis, based on literature from both physical science and information science. Results: The prospect of attempting to make links between objective and subjective conceptions of information has been strongly advocated by some authors and doubted by others. The physical nature of information can be understood from three main perspectives: the relation between information and physical entropy; the strongly informational nature of the quantum view of nature; and the possibility of recasting physical laws in informational terms. Conclusions: Based on this analysis, we muse on the relevance of such issues to information science, with particular reference to emergent properties of information. Apart from the added public awareness of the i-word in a very different context from the norm, it may that that there are general laws and principles, or at least useful metaphors and analogies, linking the concept of information in the physical, biological and social domains. [This paper was published as part of: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark, 19-22 August, 2013.]

Digital educational games (DEGs) possess the potential of providing an appealing and intrinsically motivating learning context. Usually this potential is either taken for granted or examined through questionnaires or interviews in the course of evaluation studies. However, an "adaptive" game would increase the probability of a DEG being actually motivating and emotionally appealing. In order to adapt the game to the learner's motivational and emotional state "while" engaged with a particular game scenario, an ongoing assessment of these states is required. An explicit assessment, e.g. by questionnaires occurring repeatedly in short time intervals on the screen would probably destroy the learner's flow experience. Thus, it is necessary to apply an approach that assesses the learner's current states in a non-invasive way. In the course of this paper we describe such a non-invasive, implicit assessment procedure which is based on the interpretation of "behavioral indicators". A set of behavioral indicators has been elaborated whereby some of them are derived from the theory of "information foraging" (Pirolli and Card, 1999). Values for each behavioral indicator (e.g. amount, frequency, seconds, etc.) are gathered after equally long lasting "time slices". After each time slice, these values serve as weighted predictors to multiple regression equations for the dimensions of a motivation model, an emotion model and a construct called clearness. The motivation model is based on the two dimensions of "approach" and "avoidance motivation". The emotion model encompasses the dimensions "valence" and "activation". Clearness is defined as appropriate problem representation. A comparison of the resulting values on these dimensions between the current and previous time slices cove rs fluctuations of the learner's states over time. The assessment of such changes forms the prerequisite for providing in-game adaptations which aim to enhance the learner's state, targeting towards a full exploitation of DEGs' pedagogical potential. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

The study explains the process of learners' listening comprehension within Halliday's information theory in functional grammar, including the skills of identifying focuses while listening in college English teaching. Identifying information focuses in listening is proved to improve the students' communicative listening ability by the means of a classroom research, in which 87 students were involved. (Contains 1 figure.)

Introduction: The study contributes to the conceptual investigation of information use by reviewing the conceptions of epistemic work proposed by Cook and Brown, and knowing in practice proposed by Orlikowski. The above conceptions are developed in the field of organization science. Method: The key articles by Cook and Brown, and Orlikowski were scrutinized by means of in-depth conceptual analysis. The main focus was placed on the comparative analysis of the conceptions of epistemic work and knowing in practice. Results: The approach to epistemic work conceptualizes information use as the employment of tacit and explicit knowledge in the service of knowing. Knowing is understood as epistemic work that is done as an inherent part of action. Orlikowski approaches information use as construction and reconstruction of knowledgeability in and through action. Conclusions: The conceptions of epistemic work and knowing in practice provide holistic frameworks for the study of information use in context, while not probing the details of information use processes per se. (Contains 1 table.)

Searching for information is critical in many situations. In medicine, for instance, careful choice of a diagnostic test can help narrow down the range of plausible diseases that the patient might have. In a probabilistic framework, test selection is often modeled by assuming that people's goal is to reduce uncertainty about possible states of the world. In cognitive science, psychology, and medical decision making, Shannon entropy is the most prominent and most widely used model to formalize probabilistic uncertainty and the reduction thereof. However, a variety of alternative entropy metrics (Hartley, Quadratic, Tsallis, Rényi, and more) are popular in the social and the natural sciences, computer science, and philosophy of science. Particular entropy measures have been predominant in particular research areas, and it is often an open issue whether these divergences emerge from different theoretical and practical goals or are merely due to historical accident. Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, we show that several entropy and entropy reduction measures arise as special cases in a unified formalism, the Sharma-Mittal framework. Using mathematical results, computer simulations, and analyses of published behavioral data, we discuss four key questions: How do various entropy models relate to each other? What insights can be obtained by considering diverse entropy models within a unified framework? What is the psychological plausibility of different entropy models? What new questions and insights for research on human information acquisition follow? Our work provides several new pathways for theoretical and empirical research, reconciling apparently conflicting approaches and empirical findings within a comprehensive and unified information-theoretic formalism.

This paper reports on an experiment of using a hybrid pedagogical approach to tackle the challenge of teaching "Information and Communication theories" to students enrolled in Master of Communication and Digital Content at the School of Communication and Journalism of Aix Marseille University in France. The hybrid pedagogical approach combines the classical textual/verbal approach with an arts informed pedagogy, augmented by creative writing and storytelling activities. The fact that the arts-informed approach was not used in isolation but in combination with the traditional textual/verbal approach and creative writing and storytelling activities offered students a wide choice of learning modalities through which they could express themselves. Our preliminary findings suggest that using a hybrid pedagogical approach rather than one single pedagogical approach improved students' understanding of the abstract concepts implied by the communication theories discussed during the lectures. Students illustrated their understanding of these theories by recasting them in various real life or plausible situations during the creative writing activity which we call "Communication Stories" or cStories.

Given a system of multiple random variables, a new measure called the "L"-multivariate association coefficient is defined using (conditional) entropy. Unlike traditional correlation measures, the L-multivariate association coefficient measures the multiassociations or multirelations among the multiple variables in the given system; that is, the "L"-multivariate association coefficient measures the degree of the association for the given system. The "L"-multivariate association coefficient for the system of two random variables is also called the "L"-bivariate association coefficient. The association measured by the "L"-multivariate association coefficient is a general type of association, not any specific type of a linear or nonlinear association. Unlike the K-dependence coefficient, which is an asymmetrical measure, the "L"-multivariate association coefficient is a symmetrical measure. A direct application of the "L"-multivariate association coefficient is in variables selection or variables reduction. This paper also explores the relationship between the "L"-multivariate association coefficient and the "K"-dependence coefficient.

In multivariate statistics, the linear relationship among random variables has been fully explored in the past. This paper looks into the dependence of one group of random variables on another group of random variables using (conditional) entropy. A new measure, called the K-dependence coefficient or dependence coefficient, is defined using (conditional) entropy. This paper shows that the K-dependence coefficient is a measure of the degree of dependence of one group of random variables on another group of random variables. The dependence measured by the K-dependence coefficient includes both linear and nonlinear dependencies between two groups of random variables. Therefore, the K-dependence coefficient measures the total degree of dependence and not just the linear component of the dependence between the two groups of random variables. Furthermore, the concept of the K-dependence coefficient is extended by defining the partial K-dependence coefficient and the semipartial K-dependence coefficient. Properties of partial and semipartial K-dependence coefficients are also explored.

In item-response theory, if a latent-structure model has an ability variable, then elementary information theory may be employed to provide a criterion for evaluation of the information the test provides concerning ability. This criterion may be considered even in cases in which the latent-structure model is not valid, although interpretation of the criterion is more complex in this case. It is also possible to consider reliability results for inferences about the ability variable. Use of sampling to develop required parameter estimates is straightforward. Applications of the criterion in zero-, one-, and two-parameter logistic (0PL, 1PL, and 2PL) examples are provided.

This paper provides an example of how institutional service-learning assessment data can be used to drive organizational change. Furco's (1999) self-assessment rubric for the institutionalization of service-learning in higher education is used in modified form as the instrument through which organizational-level assessments were made. The process of organizational change over time is reported through the lens of Weick's (1995) Organizational Information Theory and specifically the double interact, comprised of act, response, and adjustment as organizational members reduce their uncertainty and make sense of organizational action and communication. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

Introduction: The article argues for a closer association between information seeking research and the practices of teaching information seeking. Findings are presented from a research project on information seeking, didactics and learning (IDOL) investigating librarians' and teachers' experiences of teaching information seeking. Method: Thirteen teachers and five librarians, teaching 12-19 year-old students in three schools, participated. Forty-five interviews were conducted over a period of three years. Analysis: The IDOL project adopted a phenomenographic approach with the purpose of describing patterns of variation in experiences. The findings were also analysed by way of relating them to four competing approaches to the mediation of information literacy. Results: A gap was identified between experiences of teaching content that focused on sources and order, and experiences of assessment criteria applied to students' work that focused on the importance of correct facts and the analysis of information. These findings indicate a highly restricted range of teaching contents when compared with the four theoretical approaches to the mediation of information literacy. Conclusion: Teaching information seeking might be enhanced by a wider repertoire of contents reflecting more varied theoretical understandings developed in information seeking research, particularly as regards the importance of content and context related to user perspectives.

The rise of learning analytics, the application of complex metrics developed to exploit the proliferation of "Big Data" in educational work, raises important moral questions about the nature of what is measurable in education. Teachers, schools and nations are increasingly held to account based on metrics, exacerbating the tendency for fine-grained measurement of learning experiences. In this article, the origins of learning analytics ontology are explored, drawing upon core ideas in the philosophy of computing, such as the general definition of information and the information-theoretic account of knowledge. Drawing upon a reading of Descartes "Meditatio II," which extends the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion into a pedagogy of intentionality, the article identifies a fundamental incompatibility between the subjective experience of learning and the information-theoretic account of knowledge. Human subjects experience and value their own information incommensurably with the ways in which computers measure and quantify information. The consequences of this finding for the design of online learning environments, and the necessary limitations of learning analytics and measurement are explored.

Interactive learning tools are emerging as effective educational materials in the area of computer science and engineering. It is a research domain that is rapidly expanding because of its positive impacts on motivating and improving students' performance during the learning process. This paper introduces an interactive learning environment for teaching and learning information and communication theory and related courses. The environment integrates several modules to meet the students' different learning styles. It contains a movie-like module, an animated hypertext introductory module that fully explains the fundamental concepts of information and communication theory. Besides those important learning modules, it also contains a self-assessment module that contains a set of interactive tests and examinations. Learners can use the environment as a standalone application or as an applet from within any web browser. Some evaluation experiments and comparative analyses of the results were performed to measure the performance of our environment in the classroom.

This paper provides an historical overview of the theoretical antecedents leading to information theory, specifically those useful for understanding and teaching information science and systems. Information may be discussed in a philosophical manner and at the same time be measureable. This notion of information can thus be the subject of philosophical discussion and the ideas about information may be applied rigorously to a wide range of practical applications where processes are studied. Theoretical Information Science and specific Information Science applications may provide tools by which questions such as "when and what information can be produced"? can be answered, as well as how to implement a system to serve a particular commercial or other specific function. These topics are discussed, and philosophical literature that might serve as a prerequisite to learning Information Science is suggested.