The
iSchool is offering several 100- and 200-level courses in the Fall 2022
semester. Many of these courses fulfil General Education requirements.
Additionally, two courses, INST104 and INST204, are requirements for the
new BA in Technology and Information Design.
Please see below for a listing of available courses.
If you have any questions please contact an iSchool Undergraduate Advisor at InfoSci@umd.edu.
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INST104 Design Across Campus
Course Description
What is design, who does it, and how is it done? There is no one answer to this question--it depends on who you ask. The answers to these questions vary across disciplines and across the University campus. This course, designed with modules from contributors in UMD programs including Information Studies, Human-Computer Interaction, Graphic Design, Immersive Media Arts, Journalism, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Engineering, and Policy, will introduce students to the goals and values, approaches, skills, and practices of diverse fields of design. It will enable students to identify grand challenges in design and serve as a sorting hat to help students find a design practice that matches their own values, approaches, skills and goals.
INST123 Databases for All
Course Description
DSSP
An introduction to relational databases for students with no previous programming experience. Provides a means for students of diverse backgrounds to successfully learn how to store, retrieve, and maintain data in relational databases. Topics include a brief comparison of database systems with an emphasis on relational databases, fundamental relational database concepts, and data types. Includes technical approaches to accessing information stored in relational databases.
INST151 Becoming A Social Media Influencer
Course Description
DSSP
Teaches students how to create, grow, and manage influential social media accounts. Topics will include tools for content creation, analyzing and strategizing with analytics, building community, and defining their niche and approach.
INST152 "Fake Checking": Battling Misinformation and Disinformation in the Real World
Course Description
DSSP
Examining the phenomenon of "fake news" using the principles of information literacy, students will develop their skills in locating, analyzing, and evaluating different information sources--in the classroom, in their personal lives, and in the workplace.
INST153 Records Scandals & Data Vandals: Public & Private Sector Controversies Ripped From The Headlines
Course Description
DSHS/SCIS
Expressly organized around case studies involving well-known individuals and organizations involved in controversies that have generated scandals and controversies around the world. it places these events in a larger historical, legal, technological, ethical and societal context. Drawing upon contemporaneous records in a variety of media, as well as presentations from invited speakers representing the greater archival, historical, and public interest communities, the course seeks to deepen students' appreciation of the role that records and information plays in issues going to the heart of government transparency, corporate accountability, and social justice.
INST155 Social Networking
Course Description
DSHS/SCIS
Introduces methods for analyzing and understanding how people use social media--social networking websites, blogging and microblogging, and other forms of online interaction and content generation--and their societal implications. Introduces students to the science and social science of network analysis. Through real world examples, including analysis of their own social networks, students develop skills for describing and understanding the patterns and usage of services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others.
INST204 Designing Fair Systems
Course Description
DSHS/SCIS
Reviews how specific values are built into different automated decision-making systems as an inevitable result of constructing mechanisms meant to produce specific outcomes. These values create differential outcomes for the different people enmeshed in these systems, but both these values and these systems can be changed to support different values and different outcomes. The class serves as an introduction to the emerging field of algorithmic bias that bridges the disciplines of information science, computer science, law, policy, philosophy, sociology, urban planning, and others.
