If you love your major but want to know more about how to apply data, information and technology to solve problems in your chosen field, then the Informatics minor might be for you. The Informatics minor includes required components in data, design, policy and ethics, and code.

New requirements, effective Spring 2019: A minimum of 25 credits. A minimum grade of 2.0 must be earned in each class being used to fulfill the minor requirements.

• Required courses (25 credits)
  • INFO 200 Intellectual Foundations of Informatics (5 credits)
  • INFO 201 Technical Foundations (5 credits)
  • 300- or 400-level INFO courses (15 credits)
    • A minimum of 3 credits must cover ethics, policy, and / or equity dimensions of information technology. Students may choose from classes including:
      • INFO 350 Information Ethics and Policy
      • INFO 402 Gender, Race, and Information Technology
      • INFO 464 Value-Sensitive Design
      • PHIL 118 Persuasion or Manipulation? The Ethics and Psychology of Influence
      • SOC 225 Data And Society

A note about course substitutions: Effective Autumn 2019, we will no longer allow courses from outside Informatics to substitute for minor requirements, with the exception of the requirement in ethics, policy, and/or equity.

The Informatics minor is open (not competitive or capacity-constrained). In order to declare the Informatics minor, students need to have declared a major and should contact the advising staff of their major for the appropriate procedures. Additional information about declaring a minor at the UW is provided here.

The process for declaring the minor is outlined above. Because the minor is open, but our classes have capacity limits, it can be quite difficult to find seats. We encourage students to enroll in courses that have open space rather than waiting for preferred courses, which are in high demand.

We often get questions from students and advisors about the likelihood of a student being able to get into the necessary classes. Our advising staff is not able to provide academic planning for minors or those planning to declare the minor. Students should work with their major advisor to create an academic plan for completing their major and the INFO minor. As noted above, the major advisor will also fill out the paperwork to declare the minor. INFO minors who are not able to enroll in the required classes may need to drop the minor in order to graduate.

Questions can be directed to informatics@uw.edu.