This lower-division survey course will provide an introduction to the study of information, an interdisciplinary science that draws on aspects of computer science, sociology, economics, business, law, library studies, cognitive science, psychology, and communication. The course is organized into modules that may cover topics such as social bookmarking, networks and web security, human-computer interaction, interface design, technology and poverty, law and policy, business models and entrepreneurship.

An introduction to high-level computer programming languages covering their basis in mathematics and logic. This course will guide students through the elements that compose any programming language including expressions, control of flow, data structures, and modularity via functions and/or objects. Covers traditional contemporary programming paradigms including sequential, event-based, and object-oriented programming; multi-person programming projects and debugging strategies.

Lectures and small group discussions focusing on topics of interest, varying from semester to semester.

This course explores the history of information and associated technologies, uncovering why we think of ours as "the information age." We will select moments in the evolution of production, recording, and storage from the earliest writing systems to the world of Short Message Service (SMS) and blogs. In every instance, we'll be concerned with both what and when and how and why, and we will keep returning to the question of technological determinism: how do technological developments affect society and vice versa?

Methods and concepts of creating design requirements and evaluating prototypes and existing systems. Emphasis on computer-based systems, including mobile system and ubiquitous computing, but may be suitable for students interested in other domains of design for end-users. Includes quantitative and qualitative methods as applied to design, usually for short-term term studies intended to provide guidance for designers.

In this course, students will first gain an understanding of the basics of how search engines work, and then explore how search engine design impacts business and culture. Topics include search advertising and auctions, search and privacy, search ranking, internationalization, anti-spam efforts, local search, peer-to-peer search, and search of blogs and online communities. Open to all undergraduate students and designed for those with little technical background.

Introduction to interdisciplinary study and design of New Media. Survey of theoretical and practical foundations of New Media including theory and history; analysis and reception; computational foundations; social implications; interaction, visual, physical, and narrative design. Instruction combines lectures and project-based learning using case studies from everyday technology (e.g., telephone, camera, web).

This course looks at the quickly developing landscape of mobile applications. It focuses on Web-based mobile applications, and thus covers issues of Web service design (RESTful service design), mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, Symbian/S60, WebOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, BREW, JavaME/JavaFX, Flash Light), and the specific constraints and requirements of user interface design for limited devices. The course combines a conceptual overview, design issues, and practical development issues.

This course focuses on understanding the Web as an information system, and how to use it for information management for personal and shared information. The Web is an open and constantly evolving system which can make it hard to understand how the different parts of the landscape fit together. This course provides students with an overview of the Web as a whole, and how the individual parts fit together. It provides students with the understanding and skills to better navigate and use the landscape of Web information.

An introduction to high-level computer programming languages with emphasis on strings, modules, functions and objects; sequential and event-based programming. Uses the PYTHON language.

This course will encourage students to think broadly about the interplay between technological systems, social processes, economic activities, and political contingencies in efforts to alleviate poverty. Students will come to understand poverty not only in terms of high-level indicators, but from a ground-level perspective as 'the poor' experience and describe it for themselves. The role played by individuals and societies of the developing world as active agents in processes of technology adoption and use will be a central theme.

A seminar focusing on topics of current interest. Topics will vary. A seminar paper will be required. Open to students from other departments.

Individual study of topics in information management and systems under faculty supervision.

Organization, representation, and access to information. Categorization, indexing, and content analysis. Data structures. Design and maintenance of databases, indexes, classification schemes, and thesauri. Use of codes, formats, and standards. Analysis and evaluation of search and navigation techniques.

The relationship between information and information systems, technology, practices, and artifacts on how people organize their work, interact, and understand experience. Individual, group, organizational, and societal issues in information production and use, information systems design and management, and information and communication technologies. Social science research methods for understanding information issues.

Law is one of a number of policies that mediates the tension between free flow and restrictions on the flow of information. This course introduces students to copyright and other forms of legal protection for databases, licensing of information, consumer protection, liability for insecure systems and defective information, privacy, and national and international information policy.

Technological foundations for computing and communications: computer architecture, operating systems, networking, middleware, security. Programming paradigms: object oriented-design, design and analysis of algorithms, data structures, formal languages. Distributed-system architectures and models, inter-process communications, concurrency, system performance.

As information and information systems projects have become increasingly strategic, information workers at all levels and in all environments must demonstrate higher levels of professionalism, not only to perform their duties competently, but to remain competitive in the job market. This course, in conjunction with the School of Information final project, gives students insight into the source and best practice of professionalism, and gives students the chance to refine the essential skills in a simulated but realistic working environment.

The role of information and information technology in organizations and society. Topics include societal needs and demands, sociology of knowledge and science, diffusion of knowledge and technology, information seeking and use, information and culture, and technology and culture.

User interface design and human-computer interaction. Examination of alternative design. Tools and methods for design and development. Human computer interaction. Methods for measuring and evaluating interface quality.

Concepts and methods of needs and usability assessment. Understanding users' needs and practices and translating them into design decisions. Topics include methods of identifying and describing user needs and requirements; user-centered design; user and task analysis; contextual design; heuristic evaluation; surveys, interviews, and focus groups; usability testing; naturalistic/ethnographic methods; managing usability in organizations; and universal usability.

This course covers the practical and theoretical issues associated with computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems (e.g., email, newsgroups, wikis, online games, etc.). We will focus on the analysis of CMC practices, the relationship between technology and behavior, and the design and implementation issues associated with constructing CMC systems. This course primarily takes a social scientific approach (including research from social psychology, economics, sociology, and communication).

As it's generally used, "information" is a collection of notions, rather than a single coherent concept. In this course, we'll examine conceptions of information based in information theory, philosophy, social science, economics, and history. Issues include: How compatible are these conceptions; can we talk about "information" in the abstract? What work do these various notions play in discussions of literacy, intellectual property, advertising, and the political process? And where does this leave "information studies" and "the information society"?

Policy and technical issues related to insuring the accuracy and privacy of information. Encoding and decoding techniques including public and private key encryption. Survey of security problems in networked information environment including viruses, worms, trojan horses, Internet address spoofing.

An examination of the nature of corporate, nonprofit, and governmental information policy. The appropriate role of the government in production and dissemination of information, the tension between privacy and freedom of access to information. Issues of potential conflicts in values and priorities in information policy.

This course focuses on managing people in information-intensive firms and industries, such as information technology industries. Topics include managing knowledge workers; managing teams (including virtual ones); collaborating across disparate units, giving and receiving feedback; managing the innovation process (including in eco-systems); managing through networks; and managing when using communication tools (e.g., tele-presence). The course relies heavily on cases as a pedagogical form.

Using a mix of theory and case studies, the course provides students with different backgrounds a unifying view of the design life cycle, making them more effective and versatile designers.

The measurement and analysis of the role information plays in the economy and of the resources devoted to production, distribution, and consumption of information. Economic analysis of the information industry. Macroeconomics of information.

"Behavioral Economics" is one important perspective on how information impacts human behavior. The goal of this class is to deploy a few important theories about the relationship between information and behavior, into practical settings — emphasizing the design of experiments that can now be incorporated into many 'applications' in day-to-day life. Truly 'smart systems' will have built into them precise, testable propositions about how human behavior can be modified by what the systems tell us and do for us. So let's design these experiments into our systems from the ground up! This class develops a theoretically informed, practical point of view on how to do that more effectively and with greater impact.

Application of economic tools and principles, including game theory, industrial organization, information economics, and behavioral economics, to analyze business strategies and public policy issues surrounding information technologies and IT industries. Topics include: economics of information; economics of information goods, services, and platforms; strategic pricing; strategic complements and substitutes; competition models; network industry structure and telecommunications regulation; search and the "long tail"; network cascades and social epidemics; network formation and network structure; peer production and crowdsourcing; interdependent security and privacy.

Introduction to legal issues in information management, antitrust, contract management, international law including intellectual property, trans-border data flow, privacy, libel, and constitutional rights.

The philosophical, legal, historical, and economic analysis of the need for and uses of laws protecting intellectual property. Topics include types of intellectual property (copyright, patent, trade secrecy), the interaction between law and technology, various approaches (including compulsory licensing), and the relationship between intellectual property and compatibility standards.

Theories and methods for searching and retrieval of text and bibliographic information. Analysis of relevance, utility. Statistical and linguistic methods for automatic indexing and classification. Boolean and probabilistic approaches to indexing, query formulation, and output ranking. Filtering methods. Measures of retrieval effectiveness and retrieval experimentation methodology.

The Extensible Markup Language (XML), with its ability to define formal structural and semantic definitions for metadata and information models, is the key enabling technology for information services and document-centric business models that use the Internet and its family of protocols. This course introduces XML syntax, transformations, schema languages and the querying of XML databases. It balances conceptual topics with practical skills for designing, implementing, and handling conceptual models as XML schemas.

Standards and practices for organization and description of bibliographic, textual, and non-textual collections. Design, selection, maintenance, and evaluation of cataloging, classification, indexing, and thesaurus systems for specific settings. Codes, formats, and standards for representation and transfer of data.

Concepts and methods of design, management, creation, and evaluation of multimedia information systems. Theory and practice of digital media production, reception, organization, retrieval, and reuse. Review of applicable digital technology with special emphasis on digital video. Course will involve group projects in the design and development of digital media systems and applications.

The design and presentation of digital information. Use of graphics, animation, sound, visualization software, and hypermedia in presenting information to the user. Methods of presenting complex information to enhance comprehension and analysis. Incorporation of visualization techniques into human-computer interfaces. Course must be completed for a letter grade to fulfill degree requirements.

Communications concepts, network architectures, data communication software and hardware, networks (e.g., LAN, wide), network protocols (e.g., TCP/IP), network management, distributed information systems. Policy and management implications of the technology.

This course looks at the quickly developing landscape of mobile applications. It focuses on Web-based mobile applications, and thus covers issues of Web service design (RESTful service design), mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, Symbian/S60, WebOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, BREW, JavaME/JavaFX, Flash Light), and the specific constraints and requirements of user interface design for limited devices. The course combines a conceptual overview, design issues, and practical development issues.

This course is a survey of Web technologies, ranging from the basic technologies underlying the Web (URI, HTTP, HTML) to more advanced technologies being used in the the context of Web engineering--for example, structured data formats and Web programming frameworks. The goal of this course is to provide an overview of the technical issues surrounding the Web today, and to provide a solid and comprehensive perspective of the Web's constantly evolving landscape.

This course examines the state-of-the-art in applied Natural Language Processing (also known as content analysis and language engineering), with an emphasis on how well existing algorithms perform and how they can be used (or not) in applications. Topics include part-of-speech tagging, shallow parsing, text classification, information extraction, incorporation of lexicons and ontologies into text analysis, and question answering. Students will apply and extend existing software tools to text-processing problems.

Introduction to relational, hierarchical, network, and object-oriented database management systems. Database design concepts, query languages for database applications (such as SQL), concurrency control, recovery techniques, database security. Issues in the management of databases. Use of report writers, application generators, high-level interface generators.

This course explores the theory and practice of Tangible User Interfaces, a new approach to Human Computer Interaction that focuses on the physical interaction with computational media. The topics covered in the course include theoretical framework, design examples, enabling technologies, and evaluation of Tangible User Interfaces. Students will design and develop experimental Tangible User Interfaces using physical computing prototyping tools and write a final project report.

How does the design of new educational technology change the way people learn and think? How do we design systems that reflect our understanding of how we learn? This course explores issues on designing and evaluating technologies that support creativity and learning. The class will cover theories of creativity and learning, implications for design, as well as a survey of new educational technologies such as works in computer supported collaborative learning, digital manipulatives, and immersive learning environments.

This course will cover new interface metaphors beyond desktops (e.g., for mobile devices, computationally enhanced environments, tangible user interfaces) but will also cover visual design basics (e.g., color, layout, typography, iconography) so that we have systematic and critical understanding of aesthetically engaging interfaces. Students will get a hands-on learning experience on these topics through course projects, design critiques, and discussions, in addition to lectures and readings.

Introduction to many different types of quantitative research methods, with an emphasis on linking quantitative statistical techniques to real-world research methods. Introductory and intermediate topics include: defining research problems, theory testing, casual inference, probability, and univariate statistics. Research design and methodology topics include: primary/secondary survey data analysis, experimental designs, and coding qualitative data for quantitative analysis.

Theory and practice of naturalistic inquiry. Grounded theory. Ethnographic methods including interviews, focus groups, naturalistic observation. Case studies. Analysis of qualitative data. Issues of validity and generalizability in qualitative research.

This seminar reviews current literature and debates regarding Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD). This is an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented field that draws on insights from economics, sociology, engineering, computer science, management, public health, etc.

This class is focused on the creation of sustainable enterprises based on ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) innovations supporting international development. We take a broad view of entrepreneurship--including starting new businesses, non-profit initiatives, and/or public sector projects. We will take a highly iterative, design-oriented, feedback-driven approach to developing and refining business plans for social enterprises.

Specific topics, hours, and credit may vary from section to section, year to year.

Specific topics, hours, and credit may vary from section to section and year to year.

It takes critical thinking, outstanding leadership, and a little magic to be a successful project manager. Come and learn not only the essential building blocks of project management, but the tricks to managing a variety of complex projects. We will have a combination of interactive lectures, guest speakers, and case studies discussions to cover globally recognized standards, best practices, and tools that successful project managers use.

Specific topics, hours, and credit may vary from section to section and year to year.

Students will build tools to explore and apply theories of information organization and retrieval. Students will implement various concepts covered in the concurrent 202 course through small projects on topics like controlled vocabularies, the semantic web, and corpus analysis. We will also experiment with topics suggested by students during the course. Students will develop skills in rapid prototyping of web-based projects using Python, XML, and jQuery.

This is a zero-unit independent study course for international students doing internships under the Curricular Practical Training program. The course will be individually supervised and must be approved by the head graduate adviser.

Colloquia, discussion and readings designed to introduce students to the range of interests of the school.

Topics in information management and systems and related fields. Specific topics vary from year to year.

Group projects on special topics in information management and systems.

The final project is designed to integrate the skills and concepts learned during the Information School Master's program and helps prepare students to compete in the job market. It provides experience in formulating and carrying out a sustained, coherent, and significant course of work resulting in a tangible work product; in project management, in presenting work in both written and oral form; and, when appropriate, in working in a multidisciplinary team. Projects may take the form of research papers or professionally-oriented applied work.

Individual study of topics in information management and systems under faculty supervision.

Discussion, reading, preparation, and practical experience under faculty supervision in the teaching of specific topics within information management and systems. Does not count toward a degree.

Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare themselves for the various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D. degree.