computer science

Technical Information Project

Technical Information Project is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Technical Information Project rather than just read about it. In short: The Technical Information Project (TIP) was an early database project focused on the scholarly physics literature. Its "most unique feature" was its use bibliographic coupling, a novel way to search for related documents.

Key takeaways

Technical Information Project belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Technical Information Project to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Technical Information Project from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Technical Information Project (TIP) was an early database project focused on the scholarly physics literature. Its "most unique feature" was its use bibliographic coupling, a novel way to search for related documents. The TIP included over 25,000 records. Meyer Mike Kessler began developing the TIP at MIT in April 1962, with the support of a grant by the National Science Foundation. The project's objective was to create a system that could "perform automatic search operations on bibliographic data" using bibliographic coupling. Some of the innovations in TIP included the use of wild cards, and boolean searching.

Transfer to the American Institute of Physics Around 1968, responsibility for the TIP was transferred to the American Institute of Physics, under the direction of Dr. H. William Koch. In connection with the transfer, the Institute received a $149,000 NSF grant meant to address problems "produced by the rapid growth of the published [physics] literature, which threatens a breakdown in communications among scientists". The Institute aimed to create a nationwide "physics information network" by adding indexing information to the TIP, and using it to automatically produce classification indexes for its 38 physics journals, as part of a planned "National Physics Information System".

References

External links Chronology of Information Science Archived 2011-05-14 at the Wayback Machine Bourne, C.P. and Hahn, T. B. A History of Online Information Services, 1963-1976. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Kessler, M. M. (March 1965). "The MIT technical information project". Physics Today. 18 (3): 28–36. Bibcode:1965PhT....18c..28K. doi:10.1063/1.3047262. The article PDF The Technical Information Project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. 1966. ISSN 0069-4789. Retrieved 6 May 2023. Churchhouse, Bob. "Information Retrieval". www.chilton-computing.org.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2023. Backer, S.; Valko, E.I.; Liang, M. (October 1967). "The Problems of Textile Information Retrieval1". Textile Research Journal. 37 (10): 880–894. doi:10.1177/004051756703701008. S2CID 60790487. Lingenberg, Walter (1 January 1969). "L'emploi des ordinateurs dans les bibliothèques de la République fédérale allemande". Bulletin des bibliothèques de France (in French). Retrieved 6 May 2023. Progress of the United States Government in Scientific & Technical Communications. Committee on Scientific and Technical Information, Federal Council for Science and Technology. 1965. Becker, Joseph (1973). The First Book of Information Science. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Office of Information Services. pp. 172–174.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Technical Information Project

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Technical Information Project claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Technical Information Project before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Technical Information Project ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Technical Information Project

In research: Technical Information Project appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Technical Information Project in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Technical Information Project is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Database software stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Technical Information Project outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Technical Information Project in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Technical Information Project means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Technical Information Project out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Technical Information Project in simple terms?

Why does Technical Information Project matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Technical Information Project?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Technical Information Project.