Christina's LIS Rant

Communication, a major area, so 4 hours to write 2 essays, in a row, without a break. (sure I could get up and get water, etc., but I didn't want to waste time).

I got there pretty early, which was good. First thing, had to get someone to open the door. The student worker at the desk had no clue what I was asking her. The proctor (the associate dean) came through with keys and asked if I had checked to see that everything was set up - I hadn't because I couldn't get in. She let me in - no computer, no printer. No IT person (she's on vacation this week). Trotted down a couple of flights of stairs, luckily other IT support person there, but knew nothing about it. Very quickly, he found a laptop labeled "comps" and handed it to me (basically wiped clean and wireless disabled).He even gave me a power cord and a separate keyboard (I might bring a mouse tomorrow). Got it upstairs and it wasn't cleaned off. Had the last person's exam. So I called him and he came up and cleaned it to the proctor's satisfaction. (he was very fast, very helpful, yay!)

With all that, I started the exam on time! (apparently, my questions were awol 24 hours out. Luckily they got hold of my committee chair and he sent them or I'd have to reschedule and who knows when that would be what with work and all)

From memory. First essay: pick 1 of

- Rogers' (2003) Diffusion of Innovations - describe, how diffusion of innovations changed from pre-web, web 1.0, to web 2.0. Does this theory work for most or all ICT innovations?

or

- Role of gatekeeper in Allen and Cohen (1969). How changed.

(I did pick 1 but should have picked 2 - after all of our recent talk on if "gatekeeper" is good or bad - and one of the readers is one of the people who sees it as I do)

Second essay: pick 1 of

- Scientists have a lot of communication technologies. Paradigm shift or same old same old?

- [edit] propose an innovative service for scientists taking into account their information behavior (or something like that)

I got up and paced a little and stretched between the first and the second.  At about 3:35 in, people started talking and laughing outside the room. I started to get up and snarl at them, but decided against it. Then at like 3:45 they got really loud. Doesn't take much to break your concentration at that point.

Trying to study for tomorrow - well not study, but freshen up.  I'll be really burned this weekend and then have to go back for the last 4 hours on Monday!

[edited 7/16 to add the second question]