Winter 2020

BIME 498 B: Informatics in Healthcare

• Instructor: Andrea Hartzler
• 5 credits; standard grading

How can you improve  healthcare with informatics? There are growing career opportunities to transform healthcare using information science and technology! This course introduces information technology applied in healthcare across three modules that 1) overview the U.S. healthcare system, 2) establish an understanding of clinical information systems used in healthcare, including electronic health records, and  3) survey applications in clinical informatics, such as virtual health care and the learning health system. 

The course meets MW 8:30-10:20, with a lab on T 8:30-9:20. There are no prerequisites. 

NOTE: This course is listed under SLN 21735 BIME 498 “Special Topics in Biomedical and Health Informatics” Instructor: Andrea Hartzler.

IMT 589 C: Technologies of Cities

• Instructors: Ryan Biava and Jan Whittington
• 3 credits; standard grading

Offered in partnership with the Department of Urban Planning, this course examines how the technologies that cities depend on have been increasingly digitized, interconnected, and viewed as more than the sum of their parts, as well as the social and political issues and controversies this implies.

The emergence and economic endurance of cities depends on their ability to establish and maintain efficient, networked technologies for transport, communication, energy, water, public health, and waste. Since the advent of digital and networking technologies, these infrastructures have been more easily monitored, interconnected, and present in our everyday lives, forming what many call “smart cities.” This course examines the evolving uses of technology in cities, the policies that are meant to ensure the public benefits of their application, and the unintended social, political, and economic consequences of this movement.

INFO 498 C: Designing Voice-First Information Systems

• Instructor: Mike Doane
• 4 credits; standard grading
• Course counts toward the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) option

This UX course provides an overview of voice-first systems, a background in using voice to drive interface design, and practical experience in designing VUIs using a set of industry software tools. Students learn how to create user requirements, user personas, user flows, content strategies, and taxonomies for voice-first systems. 

INFO 498 D: Indigenous Ways of Knowing in the Digital World

• Instructor: Sandy Littletree
• 4 credits; standard grading

Indigenous people are using a variety of digital tools such as video games, virtual reality, language apps, and digital heritage sites to maintain their relationships to place, language, history, and culture. In this course, we will explore the respectful use and development of these tools with an emphasis on Native North American Indigenous approaches to knowledge. By the end of this course, students will understand how relationality can inform thoughtful, respectful and appropriate uses of information technology that is designed by and for Indigenous people.

INFO 498 F: Religion and Information Technology

• Instructor: Mx WE King
• 4 credits; standard grading

This course will explore the ways major religious organizations, communities and individuals use the internet and information technologies. From following Pope Francis (@Pontifex) on Twitter or the Dalai Lama (@dalailama) on Instagram, to engaging with an online community of Queer Muslims or experiencing a live-streamed mega-church service, students will learn a critical technocultural approach to studying the ways religious organizations, communities, and individuals use information technologies. Using participant-observation, students will choose a site to explore and offer a critical analysis of their experience.

INSC 578 C Seminar: Data Then and Now

• Instructor:Megan Finn
• 1-2 credits; credit/no credit grading

Join us for a 10-week winter seminar about histories, presents and futures of data. The seminar will revolve around a bi-weekly speaker series called “Data then and Now” that is co-sponsored by eScience, Information School, and HCDE. Speakers from a number of different disciplines will talk about histories of data technologies or practices and draw out the antecedents and continuities of our current data-centric moment. The seminar will read papers by our visiting scholars, situate the contributions of our speakers in academic literature, and prepare and publish public “digests” describing the speaker’s work and their talk. We will meet Wednesdays from 4-5, and the DRG can be taken by PhD students for 1 or 2 credits. If you wish to participate in the seminar, please send an email to megfinn@uw.edu, tanweer@uw.edu, and dribes@uw.edu with a few sentences explaining what you hope to get out of the seminar.

LIS 598 A: Grant-Writing Workshop

• Instructor:Stephanie Gerding
• 1 credit; credit/no credit grading
• Course meets two Saturdays in Winter quarter: January 11 and February 8 from 12:00pm-4:20pm

In this course you will discover the confidence, knowledge, and skills you need to win library grants with instructor Stephanie Gerding, grants expert and an author of Winning Grants. This course will cover all aspects of grant work, including understanding the process, planning, developing grant project ideas, finding the best funding sources and grant opportunities, and writing winning grant proposals. Learn an easy-to-follow grant process cycle and receive practical advice, including valuable time-saving strategies. Learn exactly what grant reviewers are looking for and how to bring clarity and professionalism to grant proposals. You will apply the concepts learned to discover grant opportunities, create a grant project, and get personalized feedback from an expert grant reviewer. When you complete the course, you'll be excited, motivated, and ready with the knowledge you need to win library grants!

LIS 598 B: Digital Preservation

• Instructor: Nicholas Weber
• 4 credits; standard grading

Libraries, archives, and museums are increasingly charged with the curation and long-term preservation of digital objects – including collections of cultural heritage objects, born-digital scientific data, new digital media (such as video games), and software. This course focuses on tools, techniques, and policies for delivering trustworthy preservation in these settings. Practical activities will include the design and implementation of a digital preservation plan, using established frameworks to audit preservation services, and learning digital preservation standards such as reference models, file formats, metadata schemas, and certifications for trustworthy digital repositories.

LIS 598 D: Future of Libraries

• Instructor: Chance Hunt
• 3 credits; standard grading

Students completing this course will realize a heightened sense of optimism and passion for the future of libraries. They will have developed a deeper understanding of themselves as leaders and change agents, equipped with the confidence that they can "make" a desired future for libraries.

Autumn 2019

IMT 598 A - Digital Transformations

• Instructor: Fawad Khan
• 3 credits; standard grading

This course is going to introduce the concept of Digital Transformation and Cloud's key emerging technologies and how they are forcing companies to review and formulate a digital strategy which affects the bottom line of any company. We will review the key digital transformation strategy pillars and use Cloud's key emerging technologies, including Cognitive Computing, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and IoT to build solutions and applications to help the organizations along this digital journey.

INFO 498 C - Games and Information

• Instructor: Travis Windleharth
• 4 credits, standard grading

This course explores games from the perspective of information. As media artefacts, both digital and non-digital games are increasingly utilized not just for entertainment and expression, but also for learning, training, persuasion, data collection, therapy, and community building. This course examines games and information from four perspectives including i) the form and elements of games as designed interactive media artefacts, ii) existing and emerging game functions across multiple domains of human activity, iii) learning and rhetoric in games, and iv) games as information objects. Students will build a solid understanding of the informational aspects of games, the breadth of their use, their potential and limitations, and their place in modern society as an increasingly important media format. In addition to course readings, interactive lectures, and guest speakers, students will engage in a range of in-class gameplay to actively experience concepts.

INFO 498 D - Designing for Human Flourishing

• Instructor: Ishita Chordia
• 2 credits, standard grading

What does it mean for us to live lives that are full of joy, compassion, and purpose? What skills and practices help us cope with stress, failure, and self-doubt? How can we use design to support us in this endeavor?

These are the central questions of “Designing for Human Flourishing.” Over the course of ten weeks, we will use contemplative practices and design concepts to better understand ourselves and how we can flourish. The ultimate goal is to introduce skills and practices that empower us to become more thoughtful designers and to live our life intentionally, guided by our own truths.

Please note: As a student in this class, your work will contribute to a research study looking at designing for mindfulness.

INSC 598 A - Critical and Ethical Perspectives on Data and Algorithms

• Instructor: Anna Lauren Hoffman
• 4 credits, standard grading

This graduate seminar will ground students in critical social and theoretical concepts for evaluating—and normatively assessing—the data scientific practices and algorithmic processes that pervade our lives. The seminar’s frame is three-fold: biopolitics, power, and forms of administrative violence; historical perspectives on the rise and role of data-based and statistical knowledge in shaping lives and life chances; current perspectives on the role of big data and algorithms in the normative construction of bodies and identities.

LIS 598 A - Cultural History of Children’s and Young Adult Literature

• Instructor: Michelle Martin
• 3 credits; standard grading

This historical overview of children's and young adult literature studies the evolution of the genre written in English. It examines the influence of movements such as Romanticism, Rationalism, and postmodernism, and considers texts about minoritized children from a wide variety of cultures.

LIS 598 B - Participatory Design in Libraries

• Instructor: Jason Yip
• 4 credits, standard grading

Design is a traditional part of librarianship, and yet only has been explored more recently. Given the importance of “design thinking” in libraries, this course explores the notion of participatory design, a method focusing on engaging users in the design process, and emphasizing a democratic and collaborative relationship between users and designers to create new technologies and learning activities. There is rich work around how to interact with stakeholders together in the co-design space, the role of design techniques in co-design, and the different stages and phases of co-design. 

In this particular course, we will work with children and librarians in public libraries as an example of participatory design in context. Specifically, participants of this course will have a chance to engage in KidsTeam SPL (Seattle Public Library), an intergenerational co-design team of children (ages 7 – 12) and design researchers in public library settings.

On Monday afternoons, we will hold discussion groups on readings and concepts in participatory design. On Wednesday afternoons, students will travel to The Seattle Public Library together with Dr. Yip to run participatory design sessions with children and stakeholders in the library. Activities of this class will include interacting as an adult design partner with children in co-design, working with researchers on a single project involving children and design, and running overall logistics to support the intergenerational design team. 

This course is well suited for librarians, educators, HCI researchers, and designers interested in understanding in design processes.

LIS 598 C - Grant-Writing Workshop

• Instructor: Stephanie Gerding
• 1 credit, credit/no credit grading

Would you like to know how to plan and write grant proposals?
Are you new to library grant work or do you want to update your skills?
Would you like personalized advice and best practices for grant writing from an expert?

In this course, you will discover the confidence, knowledge, and skills you need to win library grants with instructor Stephanie Gerding, grants expert and an author of Winning Grants. This course will cover all aspects of grant work, including understanding the process, planning, developing grant project ideas, finding the best funding sources and grant opportunities, and writing winning grant proposals. Learn an easy-to-follow grant process cycle and receive practical advice, including valuable time-saving strategies. Learn exactly what grant reviewers are looking for and how to bring clarity and professionalism to grant proposals. You will apply the concepts learned to discover grant opportunities, create a grant project, and get personalized feedback from an expert grant reviewer. When you complete the course, you'll be excited, motivated, and ready with the knowledge you need to win library grants!

LIS 598 D - Capstone Prep

• Instructor: Hans Joachim Scholl
• 1 credit; credit/no credit grading

Summer 2019

INFO 498 A: Digital Humanities

• Instructor: Sarah Ketchley
• 3 credits, standard grading

This course will explore current Digital Humanities methods, tools, topics and debates. Students will have a unique and exciting opportunity to investigate the hands-on application of digital tools to primary source material, using computational methodologies to answer a range of humanities research questions.

INFO 498 C - Administration of Relational Database Systems

• Instructor: Randal J. Root
• 5 credits, standard grading

Deeper investigation into construction and administration of high-volume, robust database systems from conception through deployment. Topics include Enhanced ERDs, explicit transaction-management (control-of-flow, error-handling and concurrency control), definition and coding business rules, troubleshooting/optimization of database processes. Investigation of disaster recovery, security, high-availability and scalability solutions as well as data warehousing topics.

Spring 2019

BIME 498 B: Transformational Technologies for Biology, Medicine and Health

• Instructor: John Gennari
• 5 credits; standard grading

In this course we introduce biomedical & health informatics through three modules that focus on current technologies: (1) Electronic health records, (2) Personal health informatics applications and (3) Translational bioinformatics & personalized medicine. Each module will include hands-on exercises, and course evaluation will be based primarily on team projects that explore the technologies involved.

IMT 589 C: Technologies of Cities

• Instructors: Ryan Biava and Jan Whittington
• 3 credits; standard grading

Offered in partnership with the Department of Urban Planning, this course examines how the technologies that cities depend on have been increasingly digitized, interconnected, and viewed as more than the sum of their parts, as well as the social and political issues and controversies this implies.

The emergence and economic endurance of cities depends on their ability to establish and maintain efficient, networked technologies for transport, communication, energy, water, public health, and waste. Since the advent of digital and networking technologies, these infrastructures have been more easily monitored, interconnected, and present in our everyday lives, forming what many call “smart cities.” This course examines the evolving uses of technology in cities, the policies that are meant to ensure the public benefits of their application, and the unintended social, political, and economic consequences of this movement.

IMT 598 A: Blockchain Technologies and Strategies

• Instructor: Frank Coker
• 3 credits; standard grading

Blockchain technology is a game changer and is becoming integral to information management strategies and architecture options. It is going to impact the global economy and change the way companies and individuals share important data. Blockchain began as the underlying technology that enabled cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and is having an even bigger impact in broader forms of data tracking in areas such as contracts, deeds, intellectual property, music, aircraft assemblies, drugs, agriculture and much more. This course provides an understanding how blockchain works and how it is evolving and how it can be an important part of a personal career development. This course is for information professionals whether pursuing a technical systems development track or a career in design and architecture; the goal is to bring technology and users together with systems and technologies that manage and deliver reliable data with certainty and trust.

INFO 415 A: Emerging Topics In Information Assurance and Cybersecurity

• Instructor: Jeffrey Cox
• 5 credits; standard grading

This course will examine how concerns for personal privacy are addressed differently by laws in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, and how information technologists should respond to this dynamic legal landscape during the design and implementation of applications, systems, and information governance programs.

INFO 498 A: Designing for Evil

• Instructor: Alexis Hiniker
• 4 credits; standard grading

What does it mean for a technology to be evil? What, if any, responsibility do designers and developers have to create systems that serve the greater good? In "Designing for Evil," we explore frameworks for considering these questions, tease apart moral panics from credible threats, study manipulative, addictive, and exploitative interfaces, critique existing designs, and create the evil--and not so evil--technologies of the future.

INFO 498 E: Software Architecture: Analysis and Applications

• Instructor: Joel Ross
• 5 credits; standard grading

Creating and managing information technology systems requires careful consideration of the architectural structure of these systems, particularly as the systems grow in size. These technologies may merge together disparate services and libraries (and their associate APIs), yet often utilize similar software design patterns. Understanding these patterns and how they shape existing libraries is highly important in successfully managing current systems or developing new ones.

This course will introduce students to these software architecture and design patterns. This will allow them to make informed decisions about when to use particular structures, as well as how to integrate these structures, the libraries that contain them, and the APIs that encapsulate them into software projects.

INFO 498 F: Population Health Informatics

• Instructor: Michael Freeman
• 5 credits; standard grading

Introduces applications of Informatics skills to evaluating public health. Students will learn how to leverage their programming and data competencies towards measuring and describing the health of a population. Students will learn about and compute metrics of population health, and leverage visualization to communicate statistical insights to broad audiences.

LIS 598 D: Language and Script Issues in Information Access

• Instructor: Allyson Carlyle
• 1 credit; credit/no credit grading

The focus of this course is information searching, retrieval, and access in languages and scripts. The course will introduce goals and principles for providing access to non-English language and non-Latin script materials in libraries.

The course is online and takes place over the first 4 weeks of Spring Quarter only. The last day of the class is April 28.

Seminar style in which students select a particular topic in this area to explore and share with the class. Possible topics include:

• Script encoding standards (Unicode, ASCII, Morse code, etc.)
• Access to multilingual materials in libraries
• Information retrieval of materials in a specific language or script
• Access issues in a particular language (Spanish, Arabic, etc.) or across multiple languages
• Translation issues between two specific languages
• Transliteration (the conversion of one script to another) issues in a specific language/script or across multiple languages/scripts

Coursework includes a participation assignment and a presentation/discussion assignment.

LIS 598 F: Cultural History of Children’s and Young Adult Literature

• Instructor: Michelle Martin
• 3 credits; standard grading

This historical overview of children's and young adult literature studies the evolution of the genre written in English. It examines the influence of movements such as Romanticism, Rationalism, and postmodernism, and considers texts about minoritized children from a wide variety of cultures.

LIS 598 G: Digital Preservation

• Instructor: Nicholas Weber
• 4 credits; standard grading

Libraries, archives, and museums are increasingly charged with the curation and long-term preservation of digital objects – including collections of cultural heritage objects, born-digital scientific data, new digital media (such as video games), and software. This course focuses on tools, techniques, and policies for delivering trustworthy preservation in these settings. Practical activities will include the design and implementation of a digital preservation plan, using established frameworks to audit preservation services, and learning digital preservation standards such as reference models, file formats, metadata schemas, and certifications for trustworthy digital repositories.

LIS 598 H: Information Beyond Borders

• Instructor: Karen Fisher
• 3 credits; credit/no credit grading

To date over 65 million people are forcibly displaced by war and persecution worldwide, over half of whom are children, marking the worst global humanitarian crisis since World War II. The UNHCR reports that the vast majority of refugees (86%) remain in low to middle income countries close to situations of conflict. The aim of this course is to learn methods for understanding and supporting the vast and complex information worlds of refugees. Sophisticated methods supported by extended engagement with refugees and stakeholders and triangulated data are required to understand subtleties across populations, and the implicit, hidden roles played by different people such as youth, elders, and mentors in refugees’ social networks and their effects across wider society. Such understandings can be linked to broader economic, education and environmental outcomes. Indeed, based on extensive fieldwork, Fisher (Forthcoming, 2017) identifies the following topline field and design insights for engaging in with displaced people by conflict zones—need for humanitarian research; the disruption of social fabric; closed, low resource environments; building capacity for all; the differing ubiquity of time, place and gender; iterative long-term, social engagement; universal design archetypes; youth as ICT wayfarers; connected learning; and innovating futures.

LIS 598 I: Native American Knowledge Systems: Sovereign Rights, Protections and Protocols

• Instructor: Clarita Lefthand-Begay
• 3 credits; standard grading

Who owns, protects and disseminates the knowledge systems and data among tribal communities? For several years, tribal nations in the United States have established internal mechanisms and protocols to protect their traditional knowledge from appropriation, exploitation and misuse. In this course, students will engage multidisciplinary literature to examine the complexities tribes face when protecting their communities, become familiar with efforts of tribal citizens to revitalize their knowledge and demonstrate understanding by synthesizing topics discussed in class. To illustrate these concepts, the course will include case studies, interactive lectures, guest speakers, and in-class discussions.

LIS 598 J: Advanced Data Curation

• Instructor: Nicholas Weber
• 4 credits; standard grading

This course examines a broad range of practical and conceptual issues in the emerging field of data curation. It focuses on recent advances and challenging problems in the curation of research data across disciplines and new trends in open data resources and services for the general public. The course will draw on research, case studies, and current initiatives to examine key challenges in the field and and practical solutions applied by data professionals. In-depth study of topics will be driven by student interests and their contributions to the course through presentations, discussion facilitation, and a final project.