Course Description

Information, People and Technology presents the high points of an education in the College of Information Sciences and Technology. It opens an intellectual journey through the ideas and challenges that IT professionals face in the world. It will address major questions such as: How can we use technology to organize and integrate human enterprises? How can technology help people and organizations adapt rapidly and creatively? What can we do about information overload? What is the individual role in privacy & security?

Three perspectives (or facets) address the core issues: information or the basic science of data encoding, transmission and storage; people or the interactions among technologies, institutions, regulations and users; and technology or the design and operation of basic information technology devices. Students completing the course will be confident users and consumers of information technology. Students will learn how evaluate specific devices and understand how those devices function in larger socio-technical systems. Students will be able to predict and anticipate the impact of new technologies on human institutions as well as understand the potential impact of institutions on the use and design of information technologies.

IST 110 is the introductory course in IST, and, as such, serves as a prerequisite for 200-level (intermediate) IST courses. It is a required course for all majors and minors in IST, and meets requirements for a General Education or Bachelor of Arts Social Science (GS) course.

Course Composition and Objectives

• Describe the information-people-technology framework
  • Explain the purpose of hardware components (microprocessors, memory, motherboard, graphics, networking hardware such as routers, etc.) in representing and processing information
  • Explain the relevance of various software types such as operating systems, applications, and networking protocols for the overall design of information technology artifacts
  • Explain the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web; and identify key enablers such as TCP/IP, and standards
  • Describe Moore’s Law and its influence on the pace of technology change
  • Explain the binary number system and how bits and bytes are used to encode information
  • Describe the data→information→knowledge→wisdom hierarchy
  • Explain relational databases
  • Explain system usability and the user interface
  • Describe System architecture approaches such as abstraction, modularity and layering.
  • Describe the uses of key languages such as XML, HTML, JAVA
  • Explain Singularity and the convergence of human and machine intelligence
• Analyze how you are shaping technology & how technology is shaping you
  • Describe who digital natives are and their expectations for connectivity, interactivity, and privacy
  • Explain the different ways that data can be searched and tagged, including indexing, ontologies/folksonomies, user tagging and metadata
  • Explain how gaming, virtual experiences, multi-player games, avatars and the way that these are changing the way we experience the world
  • Describe the way that social media (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) is changing how people interact and connect with one another
  • Explain the accessibility, importance and permanence of an online identity
  • Make informed decision about creating and maintaining an online presence & identity.
• Explain how Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) are impacting and transforming the enterprise
  • Explain how Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) enable distributed work and outsourcing
  • Explain the impact that ICTs are having on commerce, including the transformation of industry sectors (for example, entertainment, news media), e-commerce and virtual enterprises
  • Illustrate the role that data plays in business analytics and decision-making
  • Explain the security concerns of the connected/networked enterprise
  • Describe how crowd sourcing and social media are changing the dynamics of the enterprise (for traditional activities such as marketing and innovation)
• Explain how Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) are impacting and transforming society
  • Identify the role that ICTs (primarily mobile technologies) are playing in economic development and globalization
  • Explain the digital divide, the resulting access to opportunities, and the role ICTs are playing in creating opportunities at the Bottom of the Pyramid
  • Provide examples of how social media is influencing politics and social movements (such as the Arab Spring, the Twitter Revolution)
  • Illustrate the way that ICTs are transforming the reporting and capturing of news and assess the responsibility that the consumer of that news has for fact checking and verification
• Instructors Choice: Instructors may choose topics and learning objectives that meet the spirit of the course as defined here. Instructors may choose to devote more time to the learning objectives listed above or to add additional, complimentary objectives. Supplementary material and objectives should not overlap with the defined content of other courses in the curriculum
  • Examples of potential topics:
    • Describe System architecture approaches such as abstraction, modularity and layering.
    • Describe the uses of key languages such as XML, HTML, JAVA
    • Explain Singularity and the convergence of human and machine intelligence
    • Explain the future of the semantic web and how it will transform search