Chapter 13

Information Experiences in the Workplace:

Foundations for an Informed Systems

Approach

Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

Abstract

Informed learning can be enlivened through explicit and persistentattention to using information to learn during collaborative designactivities. The resulting information experiences and accompanyinginformation practices in the workplace, when combined withsystems principles, can produce transferable individual and group(and, ultimately, organizational) capacity to advance knowledge inever expanding professional contexts.

In development in North America since 2003, the Informed SystemsApproach incorporates principles of systems thinking and informedlearning though an inclusive, participatory design process that fostersinformation exchange, reflective dialogue, knowledge creation, andconceptual change in workplace organizations. It also furthers expres-sion of collaborative information practices that enrich informationexperiences by simultaneously advancing both situated domainknowledge and transferable learning capacity. Integrated designactivities support participants’ developing awareness of the con-ceptions of information experience and informed learning, in acyclical and iterative fashion that promotes and sustains continuouslearning.

A shared learning focus evolves through intentional use of informa-tion to learn, including collective reflection on information sources,collaborative practices, and systems functionalities, which further

Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice

Library and Information Science, Volume 9, 203�220

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participants’ topical understandings and enrich their informationexperiences. In addition, an action-oriented intention and inclusiveparticipatory disposition ensures improvements of real worldsituations.

Keywords: Informed learning; organizational learning; systems design;informed systems approach

13.1. Introduction

The Informed Systems Approach incorporates principles of systemsthinking and informed learning through an inclusive, participatory designprocess that fosters information exchange, reflective dialogue, knowledgecreation, and conceptual change in workplace organizations. In thischapter, we will outline its origins, theoretical underpinnings, and practicalapplications, in order to demonstrate how it illuminates our understandingof information experience.

The Informed Systems Approach furthers expression of collaborativeinformation practices that enrich information experiences by simulta-neously advancing both situated domain knowledge and transferable learn-ing capacity. Integrated design activities support participants’ developingawareness of the conceptions of information experience and informedlearning. Applied research results (Hughes & Bruce, 2012; Mirijamdotter &Somerville, 2009) demonstrate that informed learning can be enlivenedthrough explicit and persistent attention to using information to learn dur-ing collaborative design (and redesign) sessions. A shared learning focusevolves through intentional use of information to learn, including collectivereflection on information sources, collaborative practices, and systemsfunctionalities, which further participants’ topical understandings andenrich their information experiences. In addition, an action-oriented inten-tion and inclusive participatory disposition ensures improvement of realworld situations.

Furthermore, the Informed Systems Approach, being inclusive and par-ticipatory, also produces shared understanding of ideal outcomes for beha-vioral activities and enabling systems (Mirijamdotter, 2010; Somerville &Howard, 2010). It involves participants in collaborative and learning-focused design processes, which, in turn, contribute to efficient and effectivechange management. Our results demonstrate that when iterative designand evaluation is integrated into organizational workflows, an inquiry-based culture focused on varying information experiences in expandingprofessional contexts emerges.

204 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

13.2. Authors’ Perspective on Information Experience

Within an intentional learning organization, the Informed SystemsApproach can promote topical understanding and systems critique. Incombination, this can simultaneously advance both situated domain knowl-edge and transferable learning capacity (Bruce & Hughes, 2010; Bruce,Hughes, & Somerville, 2012; Bruce, Somerville, Stoodley, & Partridge,2013), which is core to the concept of informed learning. If well contextua-lized, information experiences can both reflect prior learning and advancepersonal understanding, whereby an encounter with information becomes acatalyst for learning.

From our perspective, individuals’ information experiences in the work-place are characteristically multifaceted. This understanding of informationhas evolved through various capacity building initiatives over the lastdecade. It is most clearly expressed in the recently formulated InformedSystems Approach, which integrates two complementary approaches:Bruce’s informed learning theory (2008) with its emphasis on varyingexperiences of using information to learn; and Checkland’s Soft SystemsMethodology (SSM) (1999, 2011) with its emphasis on organizationaldesign and inquiry activities. Together, the two theories create intentional-ity and enable sustainability.

The Informed Systems Approach aims to advance informationexchange, sense making, and knowledge creation activities that sustaininformation use and learning relationships within enabling organizationalsystems. In this chapter, we welcome the opportunity to make further senseof our decade of research collaboration and, in so doing, contribute to thegrowing body of literature on information experience.

13.3. The Informed Systems Approach

The Informed Systems Approach has a distinctively Scandinavian charac-ter. Appropriately, we proposed its name at a Swedish School of Libraryand Information Science research seminar in April 2012. This name reflectsthe information experiences that are integral parts of inquiry processesoccurring within designed organizational communication systems.

In this approach, we recognize that all human practices and informationexperiences are social. They originate from interactions (and ultimately rela-tionships) among community members and within communities-of-practice(Wenger, 2000). Our approach reflects a holistic systems perspective, whichacknowledges that any organization is part of a larger enterprise, in otherwords, “an autonomous whole while at the same time being a functioning

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part in a larger whole” (Checkland, 2011, p. 490). Reflective of Swedishsocial informatics, we incorporate both face-to-face and technology-mediated strategies to construct (and continuously improve) workplacecommunications and relationships. Finally, again reflecting its Scandinavianorigins, our participatory action research aims to advance society, throughfurthering informed learning capabilities in a variety of settings (Bruceet al., 2012, 2013).

The Informed Systems Approach emerges from a decade of library ser-vices, systems, and facilities design activities (Howard & Somerville, 2014;Mirijamdotter & Somerville, 2009; Somerville, 2009, 2013; Somerville &Brown-Sica, 2011; Somerville & Farner, 2012; Somerville & Howard, 2008,2010). In addition, we build upon others’ investigations of workplace infor-mation literacy and information practices (Bruce, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2013;Lloyd, 2010, 2011, 2013). Our work also assumes that people can learn tocreate knowledge on the basis of their concrete experiences, through obser-ving and reflecting on that experience, by forming abstract concepts andgeneralizations, and by testing the implications of these concepts in newsituations, which lead to new concrete experience that initiates a new cycle.This assertion fortified our aspiration to develop reflective practitionerswho learn through critical (and self-critical) collaborative inquiry processesthat foster individual self-evaluation, collective problem-formulation, inclu-sive contextualized inquiry, and professional development.

The Informed Systems Approach aims to further informed learning inthe workplace — “the kind of learning made possible through evolving andtransferable capacity to use information to learn” (Bruce et al., 2012,p. 522). We define the workplace organization as a purposeful social inter-action system. We recognize that collective information experiences andnew knowledge develop through workplace socialization processes. Fromthis standpoint, our projects aim to establish and embed the sustainablesocial interactions which, through organizational systems animated by care-ful attention to information experiences, dialogue and reflection, enableinvestigation and negotiation of the interests, judgments, and decisions bywhich people learn interdependently.

We explicitly guide participants to consider their information experi-ences. Iterative (re)design activities build on this foundation, aiming toadvance understanding of the topic under discussion and simultaneouslyfurther improvements of organizational systems and information practices,which in turn enable information experiences for constituencies served.

Within this context, culture is understood as a shared basis of apprecia-tion and action, developed through communication and maintainedthrough relationships within an organization. Our Informed SystemsApproach uses inclusive design and evaluation practices to further profes-sional information practices to strengthen contextualized information

206 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

experiences and thereby promote informed organizational learning.Practical learning outcomes include collective alignment and shared under-standing of the organization’s purposes and priorities, which guide fiscaland human resource allocations, as well as day-to-day decision making. Inaddition, pervasive “systems thinking,” that incorporates and valuespeople’s information experiences, encourages understanding self and othersas part of a larger whole, for example, the academic library within theuniversity and beyond to higher education. In combination, these elementsinform concerted action to ensure that the academic library continues tofoster informed learning as an essential part of teaching, learning, andresearch through evolving organizational structures, services, processes,and roles.

13.3.1. Origins of the Informed Systems Approach

Although only recently named, the Informed Systems Approach originatedin 2003 when Mary Somerville began employment at California PolytechnicState University (Cal Poly) in the United States. In the role of AssistantDean for Information and Education Services in the University Library, shewas charged with transforming a marginalized campus unit into a relevantacademic enterprise. This required that library structures, processes, ser-vices, and roles evolved (Somerville, 2009). Relevancy required that Librarystaff members transition from “their inherited position as the mediators of aprint-focused, highly controlled environment to become collaborators in amultimedia rich, user-empowered, disintermediated free-for-all where theirvalue will be proven only by demonstrably improving outcomes in learning,teaching, and research” (Wawrzaszek & Wedaman, 2008, p. 2). TheInformed Systems Approach evolved in response to such inalterablychanging circumstances.

13.3.2. Philosophical Underpinnings

Although we have worked together as research partners since 2003, weactually met over a decade earlier at Lulea University of Technology inSweden. Mirijamdotter’s research focus was information systems designmethodology, including managerial structure, which supports a holistic andviable organizational life. During a Fulbright residency in Sweden,Somerville experienced how Scandinavian social democratic principles wereexpressed in Swedish workplaces through shared leadership, which invitedand enabled employees’ participation in decisions likely to affect theirwork. Somerville learned that through participatory codesign and partici-patory action research, influence and power were (re)negotiated through

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purposeful reflection and dialogue that ensured decision making and actiontaking were informed by multiple perspectives.

This intensely democratic approach placed strong emphasis on userinvolvement in systems development; for instance, future systems users, con-sidered experts in their work, were understood to be essential codesigners ofsuccessful systems. Reflective of variance within workplace cultures, varia-tion in forms and degrees of involvement affected users’ degrees of actualinfluence and power. The range of representative, consultative, and colla-borative practices in Sweden contrasted sharply with practices elsewherewhich placed designers in cubicles working in isolation without the benefitof user interaction.

In the academic realm, Somerville met Scandinavian “humanistic” com-puter scientists who embraced the soft approach to systems design, whichappreciated the human user experience, in contrast to the hard mechanisticapproach in vogue elsewhere. The SSM approach advanced by Britishresearcher, Dr. Peter Checkland, was particularly popular among theseresearch scientists. There were several reasons for this, first and foremost,that SSM encouraged inclusive inquiry to explore, engage, and extend rela-tionships among people and ideas. Furthermore, Checkland’s approachacknowledged that neither technology nor information is neutral; rather, itis used for many purposes and serves different requirements (Bratteteig,2004). Therefore, varying agendas must be successfully negotiated.

During this time, Mirijamdotter spent a lengthy period at LancasterUniversity in the United Kingdom, with Dr. Peter Checkland and his collea-gues and students, to learn more about SSM. Simultaneously, she workedas a lecturer with responsibilities for curriculum development and teaching,as well as supervision and management of the informatics and systemsscience department. In 1998, she became head of education in the humancentered information systems design department, where she supervisedPh.D. students. Mirijamdotter and her students regularly collaborated withSomerville on projects (e.g., Mirijamdotter, Somerville, & Holst, 2006,2012).

From these early beginnings, we have forged a joint research agenda thatexpresses democratic Scandinavian values through a practical design metho-dology originating in England and fortified by high-level theory foundedin Australia. Over the last decade, through organizational developmentinitiatives in three North American organizations, we have discovered thatworkplace information experiences and practices can be advanced throughcollaborative design of organizational systems for communication, decisionmaking, and planning when these systems purposefully and simultaneouslyenable both information use and learning (Bruce & Hughes, 2010). It fol-lows that learning is a part of information use, learning affects informationuse, information use affects learning, information use and learning interact,

208 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

and information use is part of learning (Kari & Savolainen, 2010; Lupton,2008).

13.3.3. Guiding Principles

Informed Systems Approach, as a framework for cocreating organizationallearning and agile responsiveness, applies principles of systems thinking andinformed learning to establish an appreciative setting (Somerville & Farner,2012) for the codesign of workplace systems and research initiatives. Thus,it incorporates notions of parts existing within a whole and varying informa-tion experiences as a vital part of using information to learn.

The situated real world initiatives of the Informed Systems Approachare conducted according to SSM processes, which necessarily include multi-ple stakeholders and beneficiaries who share information and professionaland positional perspectives during structured discussion and debate(Somerville, Rogers, Mirijamdotter, & Partridge, 2007). The process, whichinvolves using information to learn, engages participants in a variety ofinformation experiences typically consists of these elements:

• Enter a situation deemed problematical and take part in improving it;• Find out how the situation is understood and identify multiple world

views;• Make purposeful activity models based on declared pure world views;• Use models to question the real world, structuring discussion and

debate;• Use the discussion/debate to find accommodations among conflicting

world views, to allow action-to-improve which is both systemically desir-able and culturally feasible;

• Take the action; and• At a meta-level, continually iterate among the above to ensure sustained

learning (adapted from Checkland, 2011).

In a recurring fashion, the preceding elements generate evidence frommultiple perspectives, which inform intentional dialogue and reflection onboth the research investigation content and process and also the enablingworkplace systems and structures.

13.3.4. The Role of Information Experiences

Inspired by Swedish cultural practices and guided by Checkland’s facilita-tion tools, the Informed Systems Approach also integrates Bruce’sinformed learning conception (2008) to purposefully advance participants’

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consideration and experience of the role of information in ever expandingprofessional contexts. Bruce’s research into information literacy (1997)demonstrates the need for workplace learning to recognize that peopleexperience information and use information to learn in differing ways.Therefore, the Informed Systems Approach places information in everexpanding professional contexts through purposefully varying individualand group information experiences.

For instance, a successful web-scale discovery service implementationoriginated with technical services leadership in 2010. Over the course of thenext 23 months, various task forces applied their collective professionalexpertise to advance the discovery service lifecycle from selection andprocurement to implementation and customization. Throughout, meetingminutes and e-mail updates, complemented by unit level conversationsand enterprise level (Shared Leadership Team, SLT) coordination, ensuredorganization wide awareness of progress and problems, as well as “forwardthinking” anticipation of customizations and refinements (Somerville,2013). In this way, collective capacity for knowledge advancement and,ultimately, workplace reinvention, evolved.

Viewed through an information experience lens, the discovery serviceparticipants collectively expanded the information horizons of their workenvironments. While engaging with new information types and communica-tion processes, they established productive information-sharing relation-ships which extended beyond team boundaries. This example demonstratesthe interrelated elements of workplace information experience: its situated-ness; its connection with informed learning and transformative outcomes;and its cognitive and social dimensions, through critical and creativeinformation use and the generation and sharing of new knowledge.

In an iterative fashion, the Informed Systems Approach generatesevidence from multiple perspectives and informs intentional dialogue andreflection on both the research content and process and also the enablingworkplace systems and structures. This workplace information experiencecan best be characterized as “a spiral of steps each of which is composed ofa circle of planning, action and fact finding about the result of the action”(Lewin, 1946, in Checkland, 2011, p. 499). Participants therefore enter into“a problematical situation and becomes a participant as well as a researcher,using reflections on the experience gained as his or her source of learning”(Checkland, 2011, p. 499).

13.4. Informed Systems Approach in Practice

Moving from theory to practice, this section presents a series of exampleswhich illustrate the potential of Informed Systems Approach to improve

210 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

professional capacities in real world situations. Specifically, they reflectinformed learning experiences at the Auraria Library, which serves theUniversity of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver,and Community College of Denver.

13.4.1. Shared Leadership Workshops

A series of workshops conducted at the Auraria Library in March 2009 byAnita Mirijamdotter enabled the creation of an evidence-based organiza-tional culture grounded in shared leadership principles and fortified byreflective decision making and strategic planning practices. This focusemerged from a previous workshop, facilitated by organizational develop-ment consultant Maureen Sullivan in November 2008, in which groupscritiqued the state of the organization’s communication, decision making,and planning systems. Sullivan’s consultancy indicated the need to:

• organize systems for receiving and sending communications,• identify what’s important to know within an organizational context, and• select appropriate tools to achieve desired communication outcomes.

Over three days, employing SSM philosophy and tools, Mirijamdotterdelivered progressive workshops following the SSM process, in whichorganizational participants analyzed communication channels, respectivebenefits, and current structures, as well as workplace processes and purposesof communicating, deciding, and planning. She guided participants fromsurfacing general observations about characteristics of various communica-tions channels in the current environment to identifying design characteris-tics for ideal communications, decision making, and planning systems. Sinceideal systems must satisfy shared needs, she also elicited common concernson the “problem situation”. These included: to inform oneself, informothers, practice collaborative evidence-based decision making, avoid dupli-cation of effort, ensure team accountability, solve technological problems,share “big picture” professional frameworks, and disseminate organiza-tional policies and procedures (Mirijamdotter, 2009). In moving from needsfinding to system designing, Mirijamdotter further exercised participants’often unexamined assumptions about framing research questions, identify-ing authoritative sources, and applying interpretative frameworks.

Outcomes of Mirijamdotter’s workshop for the SLT illustrate the poten-tial of this generalizable workplace learning approach. During the session,members expressed collective appreciation for the potential of sharedleadership and common agreement on the role of this organizational over-sight group. They understood that, given the breadth and depth of the SLT

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charge, members are recruited from across the organization to ensurerich representation of functional unit perspectives, both among formallydesignated leaders (on the organizational chart) and also informal thoughtleaders, knowledge enablers, and culture shapers throughout the organiza-tion. During the workshop, SLT members produced visual renderings (“richpictures”) illustrating various perspectives on ideal workplace systems, ofwhich they were a part.

The SLT rich pictures represented a workplace environment of dialogueand reflection which provided sufficient time for fruitful discussion enabledby constructive “meaning making” behaviors. The renderings incorporatedthe inclusive inquiry processes introduced in the initial SSM needsfinding workshops, preparatory to addressing issues in the perceivedproblem situation in the second phase. In this instance, focus of concerninvolved identifying ideal modes of communication for shared leadershipthrough informed learning grounded in effective information experiences.Workshop participants evaluated the process and outcomes positively, asillustrated by the following appreciative observations: “It was a pleasureto collaboratively work together and experience commonalities, as wellas different points of view.” “The structured learning exercises offeredrich communication opportunities, which enabled decision making andaction taking.” “It’s possible to establish shared priorities” (Mirijamdotter,2009).

These intentional information experiences served to prepare staff mem-bers to continuously use information to learn within an enabling systemsinfrastructure, designed with and for them.

13.4.2. Shared Leadership Information Practices

As a direct result of these workshops, the process, outcomes, and aspira-tions of the SLT meetings continue to evolve, with the intention of creatingmore shared information experiences in which disciplinary (and trans disci-plinary) questions inform information practices. Agendas are collectivelyconstructed in advance of meetings. Time limits are allocated for agendaitems with the aim of encouraging dialogue and reflection followed bydecision making to inform action taking. Conference rooms have beenequipped with laptops and monitors, permitting simultaneous note takingthat support collective sense making. In addition, the experience of agendabuilding, meeting presentation, and minute taking offers valuable practicewith wikis and other 2.0 technologies (Somerville & Howard, 2010).

These collaboration innovations recognize that the organization’scommunication system can “flourish like an ecosystem, with the SLT asa primary source of energy radiating” (Mirijamdotter, 2009) through

212 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

appropriate communication channels employing effective informationpractices within enabling organizational systems. To ensure organizationwide benefit, SLT minutes are regularly discussed in various face-to-facemeetings to ensure ample dialogue and reflection on organizational govern-ance outcomes, of critical importance as employees reinvent themselves(Pan, 2012) and their workplace.

13.4.3. Informed Learning Design Activities

Since these Informed Systems Approach workshops, SLT members con-tinue to analyze and (re)design systems and practices. Meeting agendasexplore such questions as how to build heightened awareness of informa-tion experiences through using information to learn, rather than merelyacquiring specific skills. To further cross-functional teamwork, membersconsider how to advance social collaboration and inter professional inter-dependence, rather than emphasize individual capability.

Complementary activities cultivate organizational and team leaders, whofurther dialogue and reflection for sense making and knowledge creation.They encourage and resource robust partnerships among library employees,campus leaders, and academic beneficiaries, which extend collaborative,informed practices sustained through continuous campus wide learningrelationships (Somerville & Brown-Sica, 2011). A pilot informed learningeducation program is among the most promising applications whichemploy new workplace inquiry, research, reflection, dialogue, and planningpractices (Hughes & Bruce, 2012) to enhance information experiences(theirs and others).

Highlighting the informed learning experience, the Informed SystemsApproach cultivates recognition that workplace learning requires heigh-tened appreciation of information and improved understanding of informa-tion gathering, evaluating, interpreting, sharing, and using, given varyingcontexts. It also requires reflection followed by opportunities for partici-pants to apply their new learning to novel contexts. In this way, theInformed Systems Approach provides intentionally designed informedlearning environments, which simultaneously develop learning processesand professional practices.

13.4.4. Informed Systems Approach Reflections

In order to amplify workplace learning and organizational development,we first had to understand how participants (inside and outside the organi-zation) are experiencing both information content and use. This permitteddesign of optimal learning experiences by formal organizational leaders,

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SLT members, and others designated as thought leaders, culture shapers,or knowledge enablers. Cultivation of simultaneous discipline and processlearning also requires consideration of what constitutes knowledge fromdifferent points of view in various problem situations (Marton, 2014).

Our approach also encourages evolution of collaborative, socioculturalpractices — a constellation of skills, practices, and processes (Lloyd,2006) — within context specific environments. When supported by enablingorganizational systems (face-to-face and technology enabled) which advancecommunication and sustain relationships, employees can learn to see theworld in new or more complex ways. Such heightened interaction withinformation in context transforms both workplace learning and organiza-tional culture. In other words, the Informed Systems Approach nurturesinformed learning through the creation of new and more complex experi-ence of using information for learning.

13.5. Informed Systems Approach in Wider Contexts

Our experiences of facilitating informed learning in academic libraryworkplaces provide the basis to foster changes in experience within widerorganizational contexts. As stated by Checkland, “ideas in the head lead toour experience of the world having a particular form and content”(Checkland, 2011, p. 498). When made explicit, effective learning processeswhich use information to learn can both enable reconsideration of current(perhaps outdated assumptions and worldviews) and also cultivate a trans-ferable capacity to learn successfully in other situations.

During our decade of collaborative design activities, we have identifiedcore elements (Somerville & Howard, 2012) for advancing collaborativeinformation practices and collective information experiences — and,ultimately, informed learning capabilities — in the workplace in the follow-ing ways:

13.5.1. Designing Information Experience Systems

Designing information experiences, whereby information advances learning,depends on cultivating experiential relationships between information andpeople. Because systems necessarily involve technology, these design experi-ences advance transliteracies — competencies to read, write, and interactacross a range of platforms, tools, and media. Workplace capacity increasesas individuals and groups advance conceptualization and implementationpractices within multiple-context spaces (Andretta, 2012).

214 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

13.5.2. Establishing Collaborative Evidence-Based Interactions

In an environment of collaborative evidence-based decision making, deepunderstanding of the wants and needs of beneficiaries — whether staff orstakeholders — will inform organizational outcomes. Enabling workplaceinformation practices will evolve shared visions and common meaningsthat inform collective actions by informed staff members.

13.5.3. Building Collaborative Action Capacity

Codesign of dialogue, meaning, intention, and action through continuouslearning can build collaborative learning capacity. As employees learn toinitiate and sustain inquiries and actions which are information-centered,action-oriented, and learning-enabled, they reinvent roles, responsibilities,processes, and relationships as they cocreate their organizational futures.

13.5.4. Encouraging Workplace Culture Disruption

Intentionally varying workplace information experiences disrupts struc-tures, processes, and relationships, making possible comprehensive reconsi-deration and reinvention. This requires developing a shared commitment tobecome a learning organization “where people continually expand theircapacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansivepatterns of thinking are nurtured and where people are continually learninghow to learn together” (Senge, 1990, p. 3) with and for organization andcommunity stakeholders. As collective context and nimble responsivenessgrows, continuous learning processes challenge existing ways of seeing anddoing, and inform cocreation of ideal organization futures.

13.6. Informed Systems Approach as Information Experience

With a foundation in informed learning, the Informed Systems Approachrecognizes that intentional and unintentional information experiencesshould lead to understanding the world in new or more complex ways —that is, learning. It naturally follows that “working smarter” (Somerville &Mirijamdotter, 2005) in the workplace requires making sense of increasinglymore complex information experiences. At one end of the continuum, anew manager might simply implement a policy, word for word. However, amore mature manager or leader, who embraces opportunities to serve asa learning coach, knowledge facilitator, and role model

fosters and sustains workplace socialization and organizational learning

process to support informed learning … through “naturally occurring”

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encounters within the social, procedural, and physical information environ-

ment. This transforms organizational culture from reactive to proactive and

generative, enabled by rich relational information experiences and social inter-

action opportunities among workplace participants and, increasingly, organi-

zational beneficiaries. (Somerville, Howard, & Mirijamdotter, 2009, p. 123)

Therefore, a more seasoned manager might initiate a broader discussion ofthe situation prompting the policy through intentionally inviting investiga-tion and negotiation of interests, judgments, and perspectives. Such work-place dialogue might consider what constitutes authoritative information.Shared understanding of appropriate criteria for judging authority wouldserve to evolve collaborative, sociocultural, and evidence-based practiceswithin a particular context. Such shared understanding would further theconstruction of shared professional meanings through situated engagementwith contextualized information.

Additionally, the Informed Systems Approach purposefully advancesprofessional proficiencies through information practices which foster andfurther relational and situated information experiences. When designed topromote transferable learning, such experiences would deliberately connectvaried information experiences with associated learning practices. The closecorrespondence between information experiences and workplace activitiessuggests the necessity of making the experience of using information tolearn explicit within the professional practices of both individuals andorganizations. Over time and with practice, this learning approach wouldafford rich benefits to stakeholder groups and partner organizations, asinformed employees become engaged, enabled, and enriched by the social,procedural, and physical information that constitutes their ever expandinginformation universe.

Our approach to amplifying information experiences emphasizes the crea-tion of explicit workplace socialization processes that facilitate meaningfulworkplace information encounters. Thus, to catalyze collaborative inquiryprocesses fortified by formal and informal social relationships, intentionallydesigned informed learning environments are necessary. An organization,therefore, is conceptualized as a purposeful social interaction system in whichcollective capabilities develop through workplace socialization processesmediated by informed learning practices. An organization’s knowledge visionmust recognize the importance of sustaining social interactions which pro-mote collective investigation and negotiation of interests, judgments, anddecisions which catalyze interdependent learning. It naturally follows thatworkplace culture serves as a shared basis of appreciation and action.

In such a learning environment, knowledge emerges through meaningfulencounters that activate and change prior understanding within individualsand among groups. To animate learning, information encounters must beadequately situated and purposefully guided. As illustrated in previous

216 Mary M. Somerville and Anita Mirijamdotter

examples of Informed Systems Approach application, this cyclical processfor cultivating informed learning in the workplace has the potential toenhance the exchange of information and the production of knowledge —and thereby the variety of information experiences — when it is embeddedinto organizational work practices and enabling systems.

13.7. Concluding Reflections

In outlining the theory and application of the Informed Systems Approach,we have provided insights into the nature of information experienceswhich serve as enabling learning processes. We have also underscored andillustrated the importance of varying the experience of information inever expanding contexts. Such information experiences can be disruptivebecause we are bringing experience to bear — and sometimes create —“healthy chaos.” The ultimate goal remains seeking to improve informationexperiences of those who interact within and with the organization. Ourdecade of applied research results suggest that this multidisciplinary andmulti-perspectival learning approach can be successfully initiated throughinclusive design of enabling organizational systems that foster informationexchange, reflective dialogue, and knowledge creation.

Characteristically, the Informed Systems Approach builds on systemsthinking expressed as systems design enriched by informed learning theory.When integrated into workplace culture, this approach furthers coworkers’shared visions and common values. The participatory nature of thisapproach, combining systems and experiential thinking, invites relevantstakeholders to contribute their varied knowledge and offers a frameworkfor informed decision making and action taking. By inviting and enablingstaff members to participate in decisions likely to affect their work, weintentionally encourage creativity and collectivity, people and perspectives,cooperation and negotiation, thereby changing the nature of both work andthe workplace. Although the preceding examples are situated in academiclibraries, we believe that our learning focused, information centered, andtechnology enabled Informed Systems Approach is adoptable andadaptable in a variety of education and industry settings.

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