The Information Science Program's core curriculum is structured around a series of courses that give students specific background knowledge and skills that address the learning outcomes of the program. Information Science students are primarily assessed through activities that are performed in the program's capstone course, ISC 496.
The curricular structure of the Information Science Program articulates the view that outcome measures at the course level are only reflective of performance at a particular time concerning discrete bodies of knowledge. An overarching "capstone experience" allows us to assess how well the students have mastered the knowledge and skills found in the individual courses. In addition, the capstone course gives the students an integrative opportunity to reflect upon the relationships between the disparate elements of Information Science as a discipline.
| LEARNING OUTCOME | COURSES THAT SATISFY OUTCOME | MEANS AND CRITERIA OF ASSESSMENT IN CAPSTONE COURSE |
|---|---|---|
| Information: | ||
| Students must understand the nature of information and in particular must know how to collect and organize information, evaluate information and its sources, and use information in problem solving and decision making, as well as understand the need to validate information. | ISC 110, ISC 496 | Means: E-Portfolio, Examination, Discussions
Criteria: Student needed to be able to build a website on his/her own; be able to articulate issues involving this outcome. |
| Students should know and embrace the ethical standards of the profession as articulated by such organizations as ASIS&T and the ACM; they should understand the ramifications of their work, including the social impact and consequent responsibilities they imply. | ISC 300, ISC 496 | Means: E-Portfolio, Discussion
Criteria: Student needed to be able to adequately discuss these concerns in a classroom situation |
| Technology and Formal Systems | ||
| Students must attain a foundation in the following areas: telecommunications, database management systems, knowledge-based systems, computer graphics, and hypermedia. Students will, furthermore, be expected to attain the skills necessary to remain current in and conversant with these fields. | ISC 150, ISC 325, ISC 329, ISC 320 (old program), ISC 330, ISC 355 (new program), CSC 350 (old program), ISC 496 | Means: E-Portfolio, Project, Assignments
Criteria: Student needed to complete e-portfolio and assignments/projects that were related to these outcomes |
| Students must attain a foundation in the following areas of formal foundations: computer programming in both object-oriented and scripted languages, data structures, systems design, statistics, theoretical/mathematical foundations of information science, and theories of document representation in traditional media and hypermedia. | CSC 120 (old program), ISC 150, CSC 212, CSC 241,CSC 221 (old program), MAT 158, MAT 258, ISC 496 | Means: E-Portfolio, Project, Assignments
Criteria: Student needed to complete e-portfolio and assignments/projects that were related to these outcomes; also they needed to show ability to acquire the rudiments of a programming language that was new to them. |
| Human Considerations: | ||
| Students must attain a foundation in the following human aspects related to information systems: human information processing, information-seeking behavior and human factors in system design. | ISC 220, ISC 496 | Means: E-Portfolio, Assignments, discussions
Criteria: Student needed to be able to build a website on his/her own and be able to articulate issues involving this outcome in discussion. |
| Policy: | ||
| Students must recognize the social impacts of information and information technology; they must be able to identify and understand relevant policy issues, targets, processes, and instruments within and across jurisdictional boundaries. | ISC 110, ISC 300, ISC 496 | Means: E-Portolio, Assignments, Discussions
Criteria: Student needed to be able to build a website on his/her own; be able to articulate issues involving this outcome. |
| Students must be able to identify stakeholder groups (i.e., those people affected by particular uses of information and information technology) and to articulate their respective stakes (what the stakeholders have to lose or gain). | ISC 110, ISC 300, ISC 496 | Means: E-Portfolio, Assignments, Discussions
Criteria: Student needed to be able to adequately discuss these concerns in a classroom situation |
During the course of the capstone, students are exposed to a systematic review of material relating to the learning outcomes. The capstone course provides several different measures for evaluating student outcomes:
1) E-portfolios
All students enrolled in the course are required to produce a e-portfolio, which allow for them to provide self-reflections and criticism. In addition, the e-portfolios, being public, can be viewed by the instructor and by others.
2) Course project
All students are required to produce a course project that uses skills gained in information science courses.
3) Acquisition of a new programming language during the course of the term.
Students are introduced to a programming language to which they have not been previously exposed. Observing how the students acquire and work with a language unfamiliar to them gives the examiner an opportunity to assess the their background in computation, as well as their ability to learn new technical skills.
4) Assignments and tests
Students are administered a very brief final examination in essay format that touches on the learning objectives.
1) Although students were able to easily construct websites, not all of them were able to fully integrate concerns from information architecture and human-computer interaction. ISC 325 (Hypermedia and Multimedia) will have a greater emphasis on these factors. (This is related to the following objective: "Students must attain a foundation in the following human aspects related to information systems: human information processing, information-seeking behavior and human factors in system design.")
2) An emerging area of study is "social networking and media." The following courses in the major : ISC 110, ("Introduction to Information Science"), ISC 300 ("Issues in Information Science") and ISC 325, ("Hypermedia and Multimedia") will have discussions of social networking principles and their larger implications.