DESCRIPTION:
This is an interdisciplinary course which involves a broad set of fields, including engineering, social sciences, and management fields. The course is designed around the fundamental question of how information technologies can be designed, developed, and sustained to address the needs of development in societies, and needs of users of developing regions. The course will focus on Human Computer Interaction perspective of Information Technologies and how people and computers interact. The course aims at increasing students' understanding of technological and social aspects of the Information Technology for Development field as they relate to interaction of people, information, and technology. In particular, the course will consist of the following three sections:
- Social and theoretical concepts
- Design and technologies
- Impact and evaluation
The course will cover the Information Technology and Development issues across topics of education, healthcare, gender equity, and E-Governance
REQUIRED TEXT:
There are no required text for this course. There will be readings assigned for each class, most of which will be available online. I will provide the ones not available online through CourseWeb
GRADING:
- Class participation [22 points]: an important part of the course is the discussions happening in the class involving the instructor and the students. Not attending the class is going to significantly impact your learning. Therefore 22% of your grade is assigned to class participation which includes: (1) Attendance, (2) Controbution to class discussions (think quality, not quantity), and (3) Asking interesting questions in class
- Readings[33 points]: collaborative story telling on Courseweb Wiki
- Final project [45 points]
OFFICE HOUR: By Appointment
TOPICS TO BE COVERED:
- Section 1 - Social and theoretical concepts
- Historical review of technology and development
- Development theories
- Development in the network society
- Social inclusion
- Digital divide
- Section 2 - Design and technology
- Design for all
- Design processes
- Incentive mechanism
- Technologies for production, storage, and sharing
- Section 3 - Impact and evaluation
- Metrics for success
- Sustainability
- Accessibility
SYLLABUS:
| # | Date | Topic | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 25, 2014 | Introduction and overview | Introduction to course Course logistics Students' introduction Technology and development: historical review |
| 2 | Sep 1, 2014 | No class - labor day | |
| 3 | Sep 8, 2014 | Development theories | Theories of human development Economic growth and modernization Development communication |
| 4 | Sep 15, 2014 | Development in the network society | Role of electronic communication networks Technological transformation in interaction Informationalism, Globalization, and Networking |
| 5 | Sep 22, 2014 | Digital divide | Understanding people's non-use of ICT Civic engagement Information poverty Social inclusion |
| 6 | Sep 29, 2014 | Ethics of ICT4D | Ethical practics Constructing consent form Critiques of ICT4D |
| 7 | Oct 6, 2014 | Design for all | Principles of design for all Understanding cultural and technical differences Inclusion of all stakeholders |
| 8 | Oct 13, 2014 | Midterm | |
| 9 | Oct 20, 2014 | Design processes | Incentive mechanisms Design of technical interventions |
| 10 | Oct 27, 2014 | Monitoring and evaluation I | Metrics for success |
| 11 | Nov 3, 2014 | Monitoring and evaluation II | Sustainability |
| 12 | Nov 10, 2014 | Open development | Peer production ICT-enables open access Open participation in development |
| 13 | Nov 17, 2014 | Technologies I | Capture of information Storage of information |
| 14 | Nov 24, 2014 | Technologies II | Access and sharing of information |
| 15 | Dec 8, 2014 | Final presentations |
COURSE POLICIES
Academic Integrity: You are expected to be fully aware of your responsibility to maintain a high quality of integrity in all of your work. All work must be your own, unless collaboration is specifically and explicitly permitted as in the course group project. Any unauthorized collaboration or copying will at minimum result in no credit for the affected assignment and may be subject to further action under the University Guidelines for Academic Integrity. You are expected to have read and understood these Guidelines. A document discussing these guidelines was included in your orientation materials.
Attendance: Class attendance, while not mandatory, is required if you want to succeed in this course, especially since the course does not have any course book and it involves a lot of in-class discussions. If you have missed the lecture, make sure that you have a copy of the slides. All the lecture materials will be uploaded online. The class participation credit is engineered to encourage your attendance.
Late Submissions: Homework or projects submitted after due date will be accepted, but your objective grade will be scaled so that you lose 10% of the grade for every late day. I.e., if you will submit your work one week late, you will lose 70% of the grade.
Concerning Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability Resources and Services, 216 William Pitt Union, (412) 648-7890/(412) 383-7355 (TTY), as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.
An important note on plagiarism: Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Students caught cheating or plagiarizing will receive no credit for the assignment on which the cheating occurred. Additional actions -- including assigning the student a failing grade in the class or referring the case for disciplinary action -- may be taken at the discretion of the instructors. You may incorporate excerpts from publications by other authors, but they must be clearly marked as quotations and properly attributed. You may obtain copy editing assistance, and you may discuss your ideas with others, but all substantive writing and ideas must be your own or else be explicitly attributed to another, using a citation sufficiently detailed for someone else to easily locate your source.