Informing About Semantic Information: A Set of Exercises and Lessons Learned

Information is a ubiquitous term that in both academic and practical settings is taken seriously while used carelessly (Lee 2010; McKinney and Yoos 2015). While used poorly, a growing number of recent publications on information identify the importance of the term for both IS research and practice (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2011; Floridi 2011; Kettinger and Li 2010; Mingers 2013). While the academic community is now engaging the topic, most students are unaware of how they become informed. We believe informing is related to meaning, that information changes a mind. To help students understand the implications of this semantic aspect of information we have developed a number of classroom exercises. We’ve used these exercises with freshmen, EMBA students, and in management, statistics and MIS courses at three institutions and in small and large lecture formats. This paper introduces these exercises. It is organized from shortest and simplest exercises to longest and most complex. In turn we briefly describe semantic theories of information, criteria we use in designing the exercises, the exercises themselves and lessons learned.