Here are some classes that I have been teaching recently:

I222 - The Information Society

We are often told that we are living in an “Information Society,” and indeed, this is a truth that seems self-evident: communications and information technologies increasingly pervade our homes, our workplaces, our schools, even our own bodies. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about the “Information Society”? If we are living in an Information Society, when did it come into being? What developments — social, economic, political, or technological — made it possible? How does it differ from earlier eras? And finally, and most significantly: what does it all mean?

This course will explore the ways in which Western industrialized societies, over the course of the previous two centuries, came to see information as a crucial commercial, scientific, organizational, political, and commercial asset. Although at the center of our story will be the development of new information technologies — from printing press to telephone to computer to Internet — our focus will not be on machines, but on people, and on the ways in which average individuals contributed to, made sense of, and come to terms with, the many social, technological, and political developments that have shaped the contours of our modern Information Society. Our goal is to use these historical perspectives to inform our discussions about issues of contemporary concern about information technology

I400 - Computing & Environment

One of the more persistent and popular explanations of why the modern ”Information Age” is so radically different from other eras in the history of technology has to do with the perceived immateriality of information technology. Whereas other technological revolutions were so clearly associated with the production of physical artifacts and the consumption of material resources, the increasing computerization of society seems to be moving us towards a less resource-intensive and environmentally impactful form of living.

More recently, humankind has started to realize the environmental impacts of information technology, including not only the toxic byproducts associated with their production, but also the polluting effects of the massive amounts of energy and water required by data centers at Google and Facebook (whose physicality is conveniently and deliberately camouflaged behind the disembodied, ethereal ”Cloud”).

In this course we will explore the intersection between the digital and the material worlds, and will attempt to answer the following questions:

• how has the human desire to understand and manipulate the environment shaped the development of computer and information technologies?
• how do the computer and information technologies that we have developed shape the way we perceive, study, and understand the natural world?
• what are the effects of the digital economy on the global environment, and how can we measure these effects and compare them to earlier or alternative modes of human social and economic activity?
• how can we build sustainable technological infrastructures that better reflect our environmental values, goals, and economic and political agendas?

I502: Human-Centered Research Methods in Informatics

Informatics research relies on a broad range of methods, some of which come from the social sciences and humanities — psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and others. These disciplines seek to understand and improve the world of human experience, and can therefore commonly be defined as human-centered research. Human-centered research methods vary on a number of dimensions: some involve highly detailed observations in a small number of specific circumstances (e.g. ethnographic observation of workplace interactions around a database system), while others require coarse observations of low detail from a large number of circumstances (e.g. a survey of a large user group); some involve deep interpretation engaging the researcher’s knowledge of the situation being studied (e.g. discourse analysis of information policy documents), while others de-emphasize the researcher’s specific knowledge of the situation (e.g. quantitative studies of information traffic patterns). No one method suffices to answer all questions within Informatics, and some methods are more appropriate than others for answering certain types of questions, so Informatics researchers need to be conversant with the full range of possibilities available to them.

The primary goal of this course is to survey a broad range of research methods in the humanities and social sciences as they pertain to Informatics topics. We will discuss the theoretical motivations and justifications of different methods, as well as how various research methods may correspond to different research questions. The course will provide a foundation for interpreting and conducting many types of research as well as a starting point for further study of specific research methods. It will also give students an opportunity to relate and apply these methods to their own research interests.