INFO 5940

Last Updated

  • Schedule of Classes - May 7, 2024 7:29PM EDT
  • Course Catalog - May 7, 2024 7:06PM EDT

INFO 5940
Special Topics in Information Science

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024.

Study of topics not currently covered in INFO offerings, as determined by faculty and student interest.

When Offered Fall, Spring.

View Enrollment Information

Syllabi: none

  •   Regular Academic Session.  Combined with: INFO 4940

  • 3 Credits Stdnt Opt

  • Topic: Building Inclusive Comp Orgs

  •  9563 INFO 5940   LEC 001

  •  

  • Instruction Mode: In Person

Syllabi: none

  •   Regular Academic Session.  Combined with: INFO 4940

  • 3 Credits Stdnt Opt

  • Topic: U.S. Copyright Law

  •  9597 INFO 5940   LEC 002

  •  

  • Instruction Mode: In Person

Syllabi: none

  •   Regular Academic Session.  Combined with: INFO 4940

  • 3 Credits Stdnt Opt

  • Topic: Technology and Social Change Practicum

  •  9604 INFO 5940   LEC 003

  •  
    • TR Upson Hall 216
    • Jan 22 - May 7, 2024

    • Mitrano, T

  • Instruction Mode: In Person
    Prerequisites: 4240 or permission or instructor. Making technology means simultaneously making politics, facilitating or impeding justice, increasing or decreasing inequality and exploitation. Every product or service is created by people – be it compiler or car, teargas or vaccine – so political and social valences are “baked in” at every step. Throughout a product design lifecycle, from specification to engineering bench work, through to Series C funding and marketing campaigns, tech remakes society and reconfigures the planet. Can a technologist consciously address this responsibility while also juggling technical requirements? DTSI-Practicum builds on the central premise of INFO/STS4240: how to make arguments about and through design. Where 4240 focuses on values, criticism, ethics, and analysis of technology, dipping into new designs, Practicum aims to help a technologist practice synthesizing ethical tech considerations mindfully and creatively, as they will have to do for the rest of their career, and combining this with an organizational mindset. Through exercises, role-playing, discussions, guest lectures from activist technologists, and wide-ranging readings, students will practice connecting broader implications of their designs with technical choices. Practicum seeks to arm students with many diverse ways of reflecting on their authorial relationship to technology, drawing from art and design to political science and anthropology. Course participants will be encouraged to focus on areas of personal interest, enumerating the social, political, and economic parameters of particular technical systems: parameters that are as important as power consumption, usability, or efficiency.