This is an introductory course in the degree programme which provides the students with an understanding of the perspectives, issues, purposes and potentials of Information Studies. It enables the students to understand the relevance of the field to society at large, with a view to developing academic competences that contribute to innovative and sustainable IT solutions and practices of use. Moreover, the students learn to respond to and discuss the role of information technologies in society.
The course includes no exam, but students pass the course by satisfactory participation, including the submission of four compulsory assignments:
The motivation is to give a broad introduction to Information Studies as an academic field and to offer the students practical experience in investigating complex concrete issues in society associated with IT. This is achieved through a project running across four to five weeks, in which the students investigate concrete issues in society. The idea is that from day one in the degree programme, the students’ activities are investigative and research-oriented.
The course is structured around project work with short lectures and a focus on group activities, knowledge sharing and collaboration between students and between teacher and students.
The first few sessions introduce the students to Information Studies. During the first few weeks they must deliver a poster presentation showing the research and organisation at Information Studies.
Then the main project is initiated, in which the entire year group examines the issue: “Problems related to the introduction of self-driving cars in society.” During this period, the students work with knowledge sharing and knowledge retrieval, and they receive a library course in literature searching. They work with techniques for brainstorming and brain dumps. They keep logs of the process. The students complete the project by submitting fact sheets in groups on self-driving cars.
Now follows a theory module running across four weeks. These sessions are more lecture-based than the rest of the course but include group work on the theory texts. The theory module introduces key elements in the field of information science.
In the last teaching sessions, the students must link the theory to their insights achieved in the group work. This course is completed by a final group assignment; the students submit a group assignment in which they analyse the issue of self-driving cars based on the four key theories introduced in the theory module.
Through practical experience with the study and development of IT, the students gain an understanding of Information Studies as an academic field. Moreover, they learn to engage in and with academic work processes, practices of knowledge and quality standards ― even though these aspects are not explicitly in focus in the teaching. The course and its activities are an attempt to establish a type of Trojan horse in which skills are achieved through a practice rather than being the main focus.
This example of practice is developed in connection to "Projekt 1. studieår", where initiatives for retention at the faculty of arts at Aarhus University was mapped.
