Greetings,
   Readers have been asking for more discussion in this community, so 
here's a set of questions to work with.
   I have been cruising around LIS programs recently, and noticed that in 
many syllabi that I can find, many courses ask (in terms of workload) a 
few exercises, two-page essays, and a multiple-choice final exam.
   Here are my three questions:
   1) Is this workload requirement graduate education? If so, why (as 
opposed, for example, to the composition of a twenty-page term paper).  If 
not, why not?
   2) Are university graduate students supposed to feel "comfortable" in 
their educational experience (as reported in the local newspaper), and not 
feel challenged to "exceed their grasp"?
   3) What are the five most challenging classes offered to LIS students 
across the LIS discipline (school doesn't matter), and why?  Answers could 
include challenging thinking, workload, tasks, original research, 
information technology skills, work within the community and support of 
community efforts.
   This could be a really tough question.  If there are any responses I'll 
put together a committee of respected individuals and there will be a 
collective decision. But the question is really intended to stimulate 
conversation.
    --gw

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Gretchen Whitney, PhD, Retired
School of Information Sciences
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996 USA           [log in to unmask]
http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/
jESSE:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/jesse.html
SIGMETRICS:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
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