Introduction to IT
This is a blog about information technology, both its basic structures and its organizational context. It presupposes that students have met the MLIS program's programming requirement, that they have completed IS 260 (Information Structures), and that they are actively involved in learning about the information technology issues that face people in their profession in daily practice. The class will not involve technical work in the lab. Rather, it teaches students to apply fundamental concepts of computing to the analysis of applications of computing in real professional life. On the technical side, the central concepts include networked information services, layering, modularity, data modeling, and direct-manipulation interfaces. On the organizational side, major concepts include knowledge management, standardization, and the ways that systems evolve through interaction between developers and users.