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Social Informatics

No major available.
Director: Dr. Dmitry Zinoviev

Minor in Social Informatics

The minor in Social Informatics (SI) is offered by a consortium of the Departments of Mathematics and
Computer Science, Communications and Journalism, Environmental Engineering, Government, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology. Social Informatics refers to the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses, and consequences of
information and communication technologies (ICT) that takes into account their interaction with
institutional and cultural contexts. Social Informatics research examines the roles of technologies in
social and organizational change and the social shaping of ICT. SI work can be labeled as studies of the
social impacts of computing, the social analysis of computing, studies of computermediated
communication, and information policy. SI research and SI courses are organized within diverse fields,
including information systems, telecommunications, journalism, information science, and political
science. SI researchers study the processes, policies and consequences of ICT design, development, and
use. One key goal of the field is to shape ICTs and policies relevant to them in order to enhance human
communication and lead to more acceptable technological developments at organizational and social
levels.

Required core courses - 8 Credits

CMPSC 120 Programming for the WWW
CMPSC 123 Social and Technical Aspects of Computer Systems

Elective courses - at least 12 Credits

At least three courses from the following list, with no less than 12 credits.

CJN 297 New Media & New Markets
CJN 421 Media Seminar in Digital Games
CJN 491 Special Topics / eCommunities

ENVE 325 Geographical Information Systems

GVT 403 Introduction to EGovernance

PHIL 212 Formal Logic

PSYCH 347 Cyberpsychology

SOC 264 Technology and Society

Social Informatics Steering Committee:

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