Community Informatics

Course Description

This course combines theory and practice to help students develop a contextualized understanding of community as a conceptual lens for understanding human history and human experience. This course examines the history of community, and of interactions between community and information technology, emphasizing how possibilities and practices of community have been transformed by information technology through the last half century, and currently. The course includes opportunities for students to engage with, and thereby come to understand and appreciate local community institutions off campus. Thus, in the tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology, the course directly utilizes the local community itself as a living laboratory for the study of community informatics. The objective of the course is to help students think critically about community and technology in society, and more specifically, about the how information technology can be used to shape human participation in and experience of community. The course is an honors course. It is run as a small class. It is taught by a research leader in the field of community informatics. The class environment is dominated by debate and discussion. And the course has challenging assignments, involving direct interaction with local community groups.