Course Syllabus

Course Description

This survey course sets the stage for the study, design, and develop information technology for the good of people, organizations, and society. This includes ideas on what information is in relation to data, knowledge and wisdom; where information comes from; how people create, categorize, store, find, filter, interpret, manipulate, and use information; and how information, systems and technology can be powerful, at times beneficial and at times harmful. The course positions these topics not as neutral technical activities, but as socio-technical ones rich with human values. The course engages how information systems both reflect and embed, and can counter historical and structural forms of oppression and exclusion, especially in relation to race, gender, and ability.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, you will:

1. Have a foundational understanding of what constitutes information.
2. Understand relationships among data, information, knowledge and wisdom.
3. Understand the role of culture in our construction of information and knowledge.
4. Understand computing technologies (writ large) as information technologies.
5. Understand that information systems are fundamentally socio-technical systems which are shaped by and then shape important human experience and human values.
6. Understand basic methods for designing information technologies, including research, ideation, and prototyping.
7. Apply basic analytic, conceptual, and empirical methods to understand information and information systems.
8. Understand how information systems can reflect, embed, and counter historical and structural forms of oppression and exclusion, especially in relation to race, gender, and ability.
9. Understand careers in information, information systems, and information technology.

Required Course Materials

We will use one book: Foundations of Information, by Amy J. Ko. (Yes, that's me). This book represents one perspective on information among many, but I have worked with many iSchool faculty to ensure that the book reflects our broader expertise and perspectives. I wrote the book for a broad audience, and host it online to make it easier to access and read. The book is always evolving; send me feedback if you have it and suggestions for resources.

In addition to the book, you will be reading research papers, book chapters, and/or listening to podcasts. All of these additional resources will be found online in digital libraries and elsewhere on the internet, and are linked in the book. You'll need to use the UW Libraries Proxy Bookmarklet to access restricted articles off campus.

We will rely on several technologies in the class:

• Ohyay for lecture and lab sessions, allowing us to have full class discussions.
• Discord for asynchronous sharing outside of class time.
• Google Sheets to facilitate activities in lectures and labs.
• Google Docs to draft reports.
• YouTube to post presentations.

Because we will be relying heavily on Google services, be sure to activate up your UW Google Workplace account. This is not the same as a personal Google account, as it is tied to your UW NetID. We will use your UW NetID for all permissions, so be sure you're logged in via your UW NetID when accessing course materials. We will ignore all requests to add personal Google accounts to resources; if you don't have access, it's probably because you're not logged in with your UW account.

Course Format/Structure

The course involves several activities:

• Attending synchronous twice-weekly lectures (<4 hours/week), where we will discuss the reading together and engage in an in-class activity for credit. Slides and lectures will be recorded and posted on the course schedule after class. See below for alternative activities for credit.
• Attending synchronous weekly lab (<1 hour/week), where you will work with your teammates and classmates on analysis and design reports. Labs will not be recorded, but you can access slides after lab, and make up the lab activities with teammates.
• Reading reflections (<4 hours/week), including chapters from the course textbook, Foundations of Information, as well as optionally presenting a reading or podcast in one of the lectures for extra credit.
• Analyzing and designing information systems (<5 hours/week), including brainstorming, writing, prototyping, and presenting with your teammates.

If you're spending more than 15 hours a week on this class, talk to your TA about tips for reducing your workload. If you're spending less than 10 hours a week, you may not be putting enough effort into the class.

Note: I maintain an INFO 200 playlist to create ambiance for the course. Send me song ideas or post them in Discord #share if you have suggestions!

Office hours are a key resource. Visit them and meet your TA and come to my office hours to talk about the class, its topics, or anything related to school or life. By default, office hours are group conversations, but we can also have private 1 on 1 conversations as well, in case you have sensitive or private information you need to share.

Assignments

Projects

There are two major team projects in the class:

• Analyze a design
• Envision a design and communicate it.

Both are done in small teams of 2 or 3. Each one lasts 5 weeks, and is scaffolded by lab activities and class time. Overall, you should have at up to 2 hours per week in lab and lectures to meet with your teammate(s) and coordinate your work. You may need to schedule other time outside of class to work together.

All projects are team graded.

Readings

The readings are your primary source of knowledge in the class; my lectures, your presentations, and in-class Q&A will simply supplements the reading. All other activities build upon what you read. The lecture periods will review, synthesize, and build upon the ideas in the reading. It's therefore critical that you do the reading before each class.

Reading assignments involve the following:

• Read the assigned chapter. You can see which chapter we're discussing at the top of each lecture period in the course schedule. Read it the assigned chapter before class.
• Choose a second reading or podcast. Each chapter will have a list of references and possibly podcasts. You'll choose one of these to read or listen to, with the goal of connecting the ideas in the required reading to the ideas in the selected reading:
  • One of the research papers cited. You do not need to understand every word of research papers in detail; instead, your goal is to understand what question the paper posed and what answer it found. Read the introduction and conclusion first, and if you need more information to understand them, read the middle sections of the paper. The links in the chapters should work on campus; to access these off campus, use the UW Libraries off-campus proxy.
  • A chapter from one of the book's cited. You do not need to read the whole book; read the book's Introduction or the 1st chapter. To access these, you may be able to find excerpts on Google Books or the digital copies at UW Libraries; some books are freely available online if you search. Expect to do a bit of work to retrieve book text. But it's worth it! Books can be far more engaging than research papers.
  • A podcast. Many chapters include a list of relevant podcasts, most of which have transcripts. Listen to the podcast or read its transcript. All of these should be available for free, and range from 20-60 minutes in length.
• Submit a reflection to Canvas. Your reflection should include four short paragraphs, responding to these four prompts:
  • Paragraph 1. In the Foundations of Information chapter, what was an idea you found interesting, surprising, or confusing? Describe the idea and why it resulted in one or more these reactions.
  • Paragraph 2. In your selected reading or podcast, what was an idea that you found interesting, surprising, or confusing? Describe the idea and   why it resulted in one or more these reactions.
  • Paragraph 3. What was one connection you observed between the required chapter and your selected reading or podcast? Describe the connection. Connections might be a similar idea, conflicting ideas, or other themes.
  • Paragraph 4. What are one or more questions you have for the teaching team that emerged from your reading? These might be asking for more depth about an idea, for clarification about a confusing idea, other other curiosities. You'll post these question in the Q&A widget during lectures and Amy and the TAs will answer and discuss them.

Reading reflections will be graded on a 2 point scale. They do not need to be long; 9-12 sentences will probably be sufficient to cover the points above. If your reflection demonstrates that you read the chapter, you will receive 1 point. If it also demonstrates that you read a selected reading or listened to a podcast, and analyzed the connection between it and the book chapter, you will receive another 1 point. If you don't include at least one question, you'll get 0 points, so don't forget to include questions! Your TA will grade your reflections, and give feedback on reflections that do not demonstrate evidence of reading or analysis.

Additionally, you can earn 1 extra credit point on a reading assignment if you volunteer to share with the class what you read for your selected reading. You only need to speak for ~1 minute to earn the credit; your summary should explain what you read or listened to, who authored it or who was interviewed, and what you learned from reading it, optionally connecting it to other ideas that I or other students have shared. During class, I will call for volunteers to come to the Ohyay stage up. You can read what you wrote in your reading reflection if you wish, or prepare something specifically for presentation. If for any reason you can't attend class but would still like extra credit, you can send a link to a recorded video of your 1 minute summary to Amy in Discord before lecture begins and she will present it during class. You can get extra credit up to 3 times this quarter, but you can volunteer to share as many times as you like!

All readings are individual credit.

Note: Readings do not have a grace period, unlike the labs and activities. This is because they can be completed asynchronously. Complete them before the day they were due so you are prepared for class.

Labs

The purpose of the labs is to advance your project work. The first five labs will focus on guiding your analysis report, and the second half will focus on the design report, and your design communication. The labs are also where this large class gets to feel smaller: by the end of the quarter, you should know your classmates' names, have a stronger sense of class community, and perhaps even make a few friends.

The students in your lab section also form the basis of your community during the two lecture periods. Discussions and activities will be divided by lab section, and so you should have a sense of the same small group of students even during lecture periods.

All labs are individual credit, and involve submitting work from the lab's activities before the second lecture period of each week.

If you cannot attend lab (for any reason, including illness, time zones, etc.), you can read the slides and meet with your teammates at some other time, completing the lab activity to the best of your ability. Submit the required content to Canvas no later than seven days after lab for full credit.

Activities

The purpose of the in-class activities is to connect the concepts in the readings to relevant skills and to the collective diversity of the students in the class. Each activity will have its own requirements and involve submission on Canvas. 

If you cannot attend class (for any reason, including illness, time zones, etc.), you can watch the recording, complete the in-class activity to the best of your ability, submitting the required content to Canvas no later than seven days after lecture for full credit. In addition to submitting the activity, also list the question that idea that you found most interesting from the lecture, presentations, and discussion. Note: many activities involve interactions with peers; do your best to approximate those to the extent possible (including reaching out to classmates after class or using residual content from class on Discord).

All activities are individual credit.

Grading

There are 100 points in the class, detailed below. We will use the iSchool Standard Grading Scheme to convert your points to 4.0 grades.

• Projects
  • Analyze a design (20 points, team).
    • Late analysis reports receive half credit.
    • Before the deadline, you can ask your TA for an extension of up to a week, for any reason and without providing a justification. Avoid this if at all possible, as work on the second project begins right after the analysis report is due, so work will pile up.
    • To help you learn to improve your writing, the analysis report can be submitted for a regrade a single time prior to Monday of the last week of class before finals. You can earn up to full credit through your regrade (and up to half credit if your original report was late). Upload your revision to Canvas, then email your TA in Canvas to notify them that you would like a regrade. The purpose of this regrade is to allow you to learn from feedback, and use that learning to improve your writing in your design report. You can request a regrade even if your initial submission was late or you requested an extension.
  • Envision a design (20 points, team).
    • Late analysis reports receive half credit.
    • The design report cannot be submitted for a regrade, nor are there extensions. Think of the design report as a chance to demonstrate the analysis skills you learned in the analysis report.
    • You may write Amy to ask for an incomplete to get more time to finish the design report. You don't need to explain the reason for the request, but reasons might include crisis, illness, or other disruptions.
  • Communicate your design (10 points, team). You will present your design to the entire class. Your grade will be informed by your classmates' reactions to the presentation's clarity, but ultimately selected by Amy and the TAs.
• Readings (36 points, individual). There are 18 chapters, each worth 2 points each. Reading reflections are due before each class period in which the assigned chapter is discussed. It is critical that you've read the readings before we discuss them in class, and so late reading reflections only receive half credit. Write your TA if you believe circumstances were out of your control, and we may restore full credit. You may also earn extra credit by presenting a reflection in class.
• Labs (7 points, individual). There are 9 labs, each worth 1 point each. We will drop your two lowest lab scores to account for illness, scheduling conflicts, connectivity issues, and other problems. Labs are graded credit/no credit. See the section above for rules about making up labs.
• Activities (7 points, individual). In each lecture period, there will be an in-class activity that deepens your understanding of the topic for the day, and requires submission of some evidence of participation. There are 18 activities, each worth 0.5 points each. There are up to 9 points possible, so you can miss up to four activities without penalty, accounting for illness, scheduling conflicts, connectivity issues, and other problems. See the section above for rules about making up in-class activities.

If you have any questions about your grades, go to your TA first: they are the ones assigning grades. They can escalate to Amy if necessary; you can escalate to me if you do not agree with their decisions.

Resources

Student Resources
A number of challenges from a variety of directions can affect your ability to bring your optimal attention and energy to a course. Student Resources is a set of links to campus resources that UW makes available to students in trying to mitigate and cope with some of these challenges.

iSchool Technology Requirements
The iSchool has a set of technology requirements for both online and residential students. We highly recommend that students adhere to these standards which are updated annually. Students who do not meet these standards may experience technology problems throughout the course.

iSchool Learning Technologies Support Site
Knowledge base for Canvas, VoiceThread, Zoom, and other learning technologies tools.

UW Libraries
In this course you may be required to access a large number of databases through the Internet. Several of these databases are publicly available, but some are proprietary and access requires authentication through the UW Libraries. Information about logging in to use these databases is available on the Connecting to the Libraries page.

Academic Conduct

Please review the iSchool Academic Policies which cover:

• Academic and Behavioral Misconduct
• Academic Integrity
• Copyright
• Privacy
• Concerns About a Course
• Evaluation of Student Work

Religious Accommodation

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Inclusivity

The Information School is committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive learning environment. Faculty are encouraged to write or adapt a statement of values in their own voice, display this prominently in their syllabus / course website, and discuss it with students on the first day of class. The statement should address topics such as:  

• Learning in an environment of mutual respect in the classroom, and giving behavioral examples of what that means.  
• Establishing guidelines for discussion of sensitive topics or having difficult conversations.
• Promoting active listening and establishing the classroom (both in person and all virtual extensions) as a safe space for the sharing ideas and contrasting perspectives.  
• Use vocabulary and language the signals awareness of ideas and concepts regarding  equity, inclusion, and social justice.  
• Identifying one’s own positionality as it may relate to the subject matter of the course.