School of Information Sciences

New courses for 2016-2017

Information Science and Technology

INFSCI 1090 Special Topics: Programming
Serious Game Development with .NET

with Dmitriy Babichenko

This course is designed to serve as an introduction to design and implementation of serious games - games designed for education and training. Throughout the course of the semester we will explore different techniques for designing serious games across multiple domains - medicine (physician training and critical decision-making), computer science, EMT training. While we will consider different platforms for designing and implementing games, the primary platforms for this course will be Microsoft .NET, DirectX, and HTML5 and the primary programming language will be C#. This course will be a combination of lectures by the instructor, guest speaker presentations, and hands-on workshops. We will learn how to effectively develop software using Microsoft Visual Studio IDE, how to work with multiple types of databases, and how to leverage functionality provided by .NET framework to reduce the amount of code (how to not reinvent the wheel). Students will be working in teams with real stakeholders and will be required to design, implement, and present a fully functional serious game by the end of the semester.

INFSCI 1091 Special Topics: Behavioral
Decision Making in a Dynamic IT Marketplace

with Leona Mitchell

Changing forces in the marketplace, along with the emergence of cloud computing and smart devices, have dramatically changed the “IT landscape”.  These changes are having a profound impact on the industry creating extraordinary opportunities as well as unprecedented challenges for IT professionals.   Learning to successfully navigate through this new landscape requires strong skills in problem solving, decision making, risk management, and consultative selling. The emergence of cloud computing along with smart devices has changed how businesses consume IT.  As an IT professional being able to adapt in this new landscape and be recognized as a leader requires a different approach, as well as a different set of skills. 

INFSCI 1092 Special Topics: Systems
IT Management: A Class That Will Help You Jumpstart Your Career

with Patricia Carr

In Fall 2015, we’ll again be offering INFSCI 1092, a special topics course in IT Management.   This course was designed to help you develop key workplace skills essential for IT professionals.  You’ll learn how to:

INFSCI 2230: Cybercrime

with David Thaw

This course examines legal and policy aspects of computer and electronic crimes and related issues. The primary focus will be on modern "cybercrime," including the legal frameworks, prosecutorial tools/discretion, and other measures available for deterring, investigating, prosecuting and punishing criminal acts which leverage, target, or otherwise involve modern information systems. Topics will include "hacking," electronic surveillance, the Fourth Amendment and technology, digital forensics, cyberbullying, identity theft, electronic espionage, cyberterrorism, digital copyright and related issues, privacy, the era of "forced disclosure," and the challenge of cross-jurisdiction enforcement.

INFSCI 2625: Cybersecurity & Privacy Regulation

with David Thaw

This course examines the legal frameworks in place to protect consumer privacy and maintain necessary information security protections for privately owned and operated infrastructure, with a strong focus on regulatory and compliance issues. Taught collaboratively with the Schools of Law and Information Sciences, students will collaborate on projects simulating the types of problems both legal and technical professionals confront in actual practice. Some individual writing will be required, and a written paper option may be available for students in lieu of group projects with the consent of the Instructor. Topics covered will include the privacy and information security regulatory activity of the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Health and Human Services, federal financial regulators, and other state and federal actors. A basic introduction to the concepts of cyberlaw, the Internet, and other information technologies will be provided, and other topics will include the data breach notification regime, the role of computer crime law in information security, and other exigent privacy and security policy topics.

INFSCI 2955: Toward a Science of Cybersecurity

with Eric Hatleback

Explore the potential for a science of cybersecurity and the use of experimentation in science:

INFSCI 2965 / 3150: Seminar Special Topic: Gender and the Global Information Technology Sector

with Kayla Booth

The growing trend toward outsourcing, off shoring, and dispersion of work across national boundaries means that students entering the workforce in the twenty-first century must be prepared to deal with a global client base and global colleagues. Part of this preparation includes understanding the gender diversity of colleagues, clients and users with whom you will be working -- both virtually and face-to-face -- to develop, deploy and use information technology solutions. This course takes a cross-cultural examination of gender as it relates to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields in general, and the information technology field, in particular. Understanding the gender and cultural diversity of both colleagues and users will have ramifications for the way in which work is accomplished, user requirements for technology are understood, and interaction with computer-based tools is accomplished. However, to varying degrees around the world, women are underrepresented in the in STEM, generally, and in the IT field, in particular. They are under represented both in the IT workforce and in the conceptualization of the IT user. Similarly, a dominant model of masculinity is associated with technology development, deployment and use. For these reasons, it is necessary for those working in STEM fields to have an understanding of gender issues in order to have a complete understanding of users, and to work productively with colleagues.

Library and Information Science

LIS 2120: Informetrics

with Christinger Tomer

The course is an introduction to the study of quantitative aspects of information, including the production, dissemination, and use of all forms of information, and encompassing the following fields: bibliometrics, which studies quantitative aspects of recorded information; altmetrics, which is concerned with non-traditional metrics that have been proposed as an alternatives to more traditional citation impact metrics; scientometrics, which studies quantitative aspects of science; and webometrics, which studies quantitative aspects of the World Wide Web.

LIS 2630: Human Information Interaction

with Leanne Bowler

This course takes an ecological approach to explore the situational and individual factors that influence interaction between information, technology, and humans. Special emphasis will be on the role of information systems and services in mediating the complex relationships embedded in the processes of human information interaction. 

LIS 2672: Technologies & Services For Digital Data

with Daqing He

The goal of this course is to prepare students to work creatively and productively in digital environment. With the focus on the technologies and services around digital data in web information context, this course includes the development of theoretical knowledge and a practical understanding of digital data. Taking a social-technical perspective, this course will help students to develop a broad understanding of digital data rather than solely view digital data as technical achievements. The course consists of three broad modules: overview of digital data, technologies supporting the life cycle of digital data, and services built around digital data in current networked participatory daily and professional environments.

LIS 2676: Research Data Management

with Liz Lyon

This topical course is designed to introduce students to the conceptual and practical challenges of research data management and takes a highly innovative approach by "immersing" the participants in disciplinary research settings in subject domains beyond LIS, as part of the learning process. The seminar will explore disciplinary data diversity, but will also examine how universities and other organizations are developing policy, roadmaps, plans and tools to facilitate good research data management practice. The seminar will investigate roles, responsibilities, and relationships of key stakeholders engaging with legal and ethical data issues, advocacy and training methods, and the costs of providing such research data management services in institutions. A pragmatic approach will be supported by reference to case studies and exemplars, which show how researchers, librarians, technologists, administrators, and others are responding positively to the data challenge.

LIS 2677: Research Data Infrastructures

with Liz Lyon

This seminar program will build on LIS 2975 Seminars Special Topics Research Data Management, and will focus on the elements of research data infrastructure which facilitate and enable effective data management. The program will examine approaches to data storage, data repositories and preservation practice, selected standards, schema, protocols and formats for describing datasets, data registries and catalogs enabling data discovery and the data publication process. We will explore developments in data citation and metrics to track data provenance and attribution. In each of the listed areas, there will be case studies and exemplars to illustrate the challenges and experiences of pilot implementations and fully operational services. Finally we will also consider public engagement with data, including the landscape of citizen science initiatives and the emergence of data science concepts and practice.


"Research Data is now a major new development area in academic libraries, archives and data centers, with recruitment for new positions and roles appearing in the media on a frequent basis. This RDI course (and the related Research Data Management course), have a strong practitioner focus and both aim to provide the foundational knowledge and skills to enable graduates to make professional career moves into emerging data librarian, data curation and data stewardship roles, and to help to build capacity and capability within the broader domain of data science."
-- Liz Lyon

LIS 2678: Data Science For Library And Information Professionals

with Matt Burton

This course provides an introduction to data science for library and information professionals so they can participate in the emerging ecosystem around data science. This course will survey the landscape of data science and explore the role library and information professionals play in the evolving ecosystem of academic and industrial data science. In the course, students will learn the concepts, practices, and technologies of data science, both within academia and industry. It will provide students with hand-on experiences as well as critically exploring how librarians and information professionals can work and provide value in data-adjacent roles. Topics include data collection, cleaning, analysis, and visualization. There are no technical requirements for this course, but students should be prepared learn about and use various technical tools and ideas related to data science.

LIS 2975 / 3970: Seminar Special Topic: Gender and the Global Information Technology Sector

with Kayla Booth

The growing trend toward outsourcing, off shoring, and dispersion of work across national boundaries means that students entering the workforce in the twenty-first century must be prepared to deal with a global client base and global colleagues. Part of this preparation includes understanding the gender diversity of colleagues, clients and users with whom you will be working -- both virtually and face-to-face -- to develop, deploy and use information technology solutions. This course takes a cross-cultural examination of gender as it relates to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields in general, and the information technology field, in particular. Understanding the gender and cultural diversity of both colleagues and users will have ramifications for the way in which work is accomplished, user requirements for technology are understood, and interaction with computer-based tools is accomplished. However, to varying degrees around the world, women are underrepresented in the in STEM, generally, and in the IT field, in particular. They are under represented both in the IT workforce and in the conceptualization of the IT user. Similarly, a dominant model of masculinity is associated with technology development, deployment and use. For these reasons, it is necessary for those working in STEM fields to have an understanding of gender issues in order to have a complete understanding of users, and to work productively with colleagues.

Telecommunications and Networking

TELCOM 2811: Hacking for Defense

This course will teach students how to build products and services using lean methods. This will be done by solving real-world military and intelligence community problems. The course uses the lean launchpad platform for entrepreneurship. This is a highly customer-centered hypothesis-test approach to developing a mission modes, and is particularly well-suited for technology startups. It incorporates customer needs and user testing to build a minimum viable prototype. At the conclusion of the course, students will be able to understand the problems/needs of searching for product-market fit; understand all the stakeholders, deployment issues, costs, resources, and ultimate mission value; deliver minimum viable products that match customer needs in an extremely short time; produce a repeatable model that can be used to launch other potential technology solutions.

TELCOM 2829: Advanced Cryptography

with Prashant Krishnamurthy

In this course, we will explore some advanced topics related to cryptography building on the basics from INFSCI 2170/TELCOM 2820: Cryptography. One day a week will be devoted to lectures and the other day to paper presentations by students. Topics covered include sponge functions and SHA-3, quadratic residues and encryption, cryptanalysis (Pollard’s rho, index calculus method, side channel attacks), and cryptographic hardware. This class will count as a doctoral seminar for Telecom Ph.D. students.

TELCOM 2931: Special Topics in Networking: INTERNET OF THINGS

with Prashant Krishnamurthy and David Tipper

This special topics class will focus on an exploration of the Internet of Things (IoT). The course considers different aspects of (and perspectives on) IoT – sensor networks, pervasive computing, applications, consumer devices, and intelligent services. The course will review network protocols for IoT (Bluetooth, 802.15.4, LTE, 6LoWPAN, RFID, etc), discuss several IoT hardware platforms, describe software tools and web services that support IoT, and examine the security and privacy issues. Case studies will be discussed throughout the course. 

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