Introduction

Course News

03/25: No News is Good News!

Course Description

This course is described in the SILS catalog as: "Contemporary topics of information science, information systems, information technology, information design, and information management. Assessment of future impact of new developments."

The overriding theme of this course will be the concept of "innovation," as it pertains to design and development of new forms of communication. We are in a period of immense growth on the web, with new products and services appearing which weren't possible or even imaginable only five years ago. This course will give students a deeper understanding of the product development cycle, including product and population research, storyboarding, and theoretical backing for market decisions.

By taking this course students will:

• Understand the many ways in which products are created, designed, disseminated, and used
• Comprehend the value of information and information tools, and their role in society and the economy
• Develop a sense of the role of information in society, including historical and future roles
• Have a sense of emerging issues in the research literature.

As a means to work towards those goals, students will:

• Choose one type of tool and focus on the on its development process throughout the entire semester. Students will form groups and observe the tool in use, and will attempt to redesign the tool for extra, unforseen uses, like programmability, social organization, communication, and play.
• Become more technology and issue literate by blogging and posting their reports to a web page administered by themselves. This, hopefully, will enable an innovative mindset for life after graduation.
• Read recently published research from conferences and journals.

Assignments

Blogging (60 Points = 20%). I have set up a blog for this class. We'll spend class time in the first two classess setting you up and teaching you how to post to the blog. I would like each student in the class to submit at least two entry per week on the subject we're talking about that week. The topics are posted on the "schedule" next to the week number. We will discuss blog entries in class. (Blogging Rubric)

Class Participation (60 Points = 20%). This is a seminar. This means that participation is a very important part of the class. The class will only be as interesting as you, the students, make it. Please also see the art of participation for a more complete view of my expectations. The upshot of the participation grade is that it is only possible to have a successful / interesting class if everyone takes part. Also, I'm hoping that you will take pity on your classmates. Take heed! Because every student will be responsible for leading discussion for a part of one class, it'll be a pretty painful experience for everyone if no one talks. (Participation Rubric)

Analysis (30 Points = 10%). Each student is responsible for leading discussion for a set of readings.  This is not a straight presentation of the readings, as you should assume that everyone in the class has already read them. (!!!) The goal of this task to to get the class to critically discuss the readings, and not to make a presentation. (Analysis Rubric)

Group Project (135 Points = 45%):In this class, you will be working in a group of no less that two people, and no more than four. The general scope of the group project is to analyze and redesign a New Media artifact choosing from: the telephone, camera, audio device, or web application. The group project consists 6 sub-projects and a presentation, where the group will:

On the last day of class we will present our projects. I'll invite faculty and other students to come and watch. It's fun to show off.

• Home
• Schedule
• Readings
• Projects

• Home
• Schedule
• Readings
• Projects

Assignments and course outline based on New Media course taught by Marc Davis, Peter Lyman and dana boyd at the School of Information Management Systems at University of California at Berkeley
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is146/s05/

• School of Information and Library Science
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill