Bachelor of Information

INF 301           Introduction to Information and Power

INF 302            Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society

INF 311            Information in the Cultural Imagination

INF 312            Worlds Become Data

INF 313            Computational Reasoning

INF 314            Information, Memory, and Culture

INF 315            Information Practice in Organizations

INF 411            Information in the Global Economy

INF 412            Data Analytics

INF 413            Information Policy in Canadian and Global Contexts

INF 351            Information Design Studio I: How to Make a Computer

INF 352            Information Design Studio II: How to Design

INF 353            Information Design Studio III: Designing Interactive Systems

INF 451            Information Design Studio IV: Information Visualization

INF 452           Information Design Studio V: Coding

INF 453            Capstone Project

INF 481

Special Topics in Information Studies I (Lecture/Elective)

INF 482

Special Topics in Information Studies II (Lecture/Elective)

INF 483

Special Topics in Information Studies III (Lecture/Elective)

INF 484

Special Topics in Information Studies IV (Lecture/Elective)

Special topics courses offer in-depth examinations of selected topics in Information. These will change from year to year, and may include, for example, Surveillance, Audiences, Information and Political Activism, Critical Histories of Information Technologies, Digital Material Culture, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning, Advanced Topics in Policy, Advanced Topics in UXD, Advanced Topics in ISD, Advanced Topics in Info and Culture.

INF 401      Practicum Prep

• Section A: Research Design in Information

          OR

• Section B: Practicum Prep for the Non-academic Workplace

INF 402      Work Integrated Learning Practicum.

Work Integrated Learning built into the program:

• Practicum
• Capstone Project
• Studio-based courses: The six studio-based courses use hands-on and experiential learning to engage and elaborate the intellectual content of the program’s lecture-based courses, while providing students with familiarity and expertise in common types of software and hardware suites

Sample Careers:

• Business Analyst
• Data Scientist
• Design Researcher
• Digital Archives Assistant
• Information Specialist
• Interactive Media Designer
• Knowledge Management Specialist
• Privacy Analyst
•  Policy Analyst
• Social Media Strategist
• User Experience Designer
• Archives Assistant
• Information Management Coordinator
• Web Publisher
• Research Analyst
• Records & Systems Manager

The BI’s integrative, critical, humanities, and social science based approach to information technologies and practices will prepare you for vital and enriching careers in three areas: Products & Systems, Policy & Research, Information Management & Cultural Stewardship

“As the role of information and data access, retrieval, and, most importantly, use in the workplace continues to evolve and change, it only makes sense for the iSchool to introduce a Bachelor of Information.  From data scientist to competitive intelligence analyst, knowledge management and digital taxonomist, the skills needed to support the modern knowledge enterprise are growing and changing at a rapid pace.  A Bachelor of Information will equip students, at a very early stage in their careers, to walk into environments with outmoded systems of information gathering, retrieval and use, and have an immediate impact.  It’s the continued evolution in an increasing changing information paradigm.”

Zena Applebaum, Director, Professional Firm Customer Segments, Thomson Reuters

“Too often technology solutions are developed without a full understanding of the information that users want and need, and how it will be used. At the Legislative Assembly of Ontario we seek employees who can integrate content and data with the right technology, who understand and can manage the information life cycle, and who are subject experts and researchers. The new Bachelor of Information program will develop the people we need now and in the future.”

Vicki Whitmell, Executive Director, Information and Technology Services Division Legislative Assembly of Ontario

“I see tremendous value in your proposed new Bachelor of Information undergraduate program. The information eco-system is more complex and fluid than ever before and for employers at traditional information-based institutions, such as the Archives of Ontario, we really need to reconsider what skills we need from our future employees. Simply drawing from the more specialized archival, library, and records management streams is likely not sufficient anymore. We need to start employing staff that also bring different skills to the mix including data and/or information integration, design based thinking, information technology, and innovative problem solving. I think the interdisciplinary approach this program is taking will serve the future information professionals well and will be a valuable pool for institutions like the Archives of Ontario to draw from especially as we evolve our business to meet the needs of today’s information sectors.”

Carrie Limkilde, Manager, Collections Development & Management, Archives of Ontario

LIMITED ENROLMENT – APPY EARLY!

The BI is a second-entry undergraduate program. Students must have completed at least 10 FCE of university credit.

Full-Time Degree Applicants who are NOT current Ontario High School Students (OUAC 105 Application)

You should complete the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC)’s 105 Application if you:

• are NOT currently attending an Ontario high school day program (in Ontario or abroad), AND
• are NOT a current or former U of T student.

In addition to the OUAC application service fee, you will be required to pay a non-refundable University of Toronto supplementary fee of $90.

Apply Online at OUAC (105 Application)

OR

Full-Time Degree Applicants Previously or Currently Registered as Students at the University of Toronto (University of Toronto Internal Application)

Use the University of Toronto Internal Application if you:

• have previously registered at the University of Toronto in a Degree, Pre-University program, or as either a Non-degree or Visiting Student (this does not include Continuing Education studies)

Note that you will need to pay a non-refundable fee of $90.

University of Toronto has contracted with the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) to provide application processing services. When you begin the application process, you will be transferred to the OUAC website where you will complete and submit your application. You will be required to create an OUAC Account (if you do not already have one). You may have only one OUAC Account. Direct any application process questions to the OUAC.

Complete a University of Toronto Internal Application for Full-Time Degree Studies

*The application will be available in October and the deadline to apply is January 15

The BI is a second-entry undergraduate program. Students must have completed at least 20 half university level courses.

Other supporting documents:

Written Essay

This is your opportunity to introduce yourself to the selection committee, pointing out how your academics, experience (work and personal) and career goals make you an excellent fit for the Bachelor of Information program.  Submit online as a Word document or a PDF, 400-500 words. The written essay should address:

• Your intent in entering the BI program. What main topics, concerns and issues you would like to explore during your studies.
• Your expectations of the program and what motivates you to pursue the BI program.
• Aspects of your academic background, professional experience (e.g., work, volunteer positions, internships, etc.), and extracurricular activities that have prepared you to be successful in the BI program.

*The admissions committee reserves the right to request letters of recommendation if necessary.

Language proficiency requirements (if applicable):

English is the language of instruction and examination at U of T, and success in our degree programs requires a high level of English language proficiency.

If English is not your first language (i.e. is not the first language you learned at home as a child), you will need to provide evidence of adequate English facility for admission consideration, unless you qualify for an exemption.

More information can be found here:

English Language Requirements | University of Toronto

*All offers of admission made will be pending final approval by the Quality Council and the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development.

INF 301 Introduction to Information and Power (Lecture/Required)
This course addresses the ways in which information and information practices are shaping and being shaped by social conflicts, tensions, and alignments. It introduces and integrates issues of representation and knowledge production, privacy and community, autonomy and control, culture and property that are revealed, alleviated, or exacerbated as information practice changes.

INF 302 Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society (Lecture/Required)
This course explores how society, culture, and understanding of the human condition influence, and are influenced by, technological development. It focuses on the study of interdependent and institutionalized systems of law, economics, culture and technology, exploring the conditions of stability and instability in these systems. We will survey the available theories and methods for understanding large scale socio-technological systems.

INF 311 Information in the Cultural Imagination (Lecture/Required)
How is the idea of information constructed through cultural representation? How do imaginative works provoke us to think about information technologies? This course surveys the cultural history of the idea of information, from its historical roots to present-day representations in popular culture, drawing on film, television, video games, literature, art, advertising, performance, and other media.

INF 312 Worlds Become Data (Lecture/Required)
This course covers issues in the practices of translating phenomena to data and algorithmic description. What happens, what is gained, what is lost, when things that happen in the world are recorded and made into information or recorded as a document? The course explores representation, modeling, correctness, reliability, and bias in data and algorithms.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 313 Computational Reasoning (Lecture/Required)
This course introduces principles and concepts of computational thinking and reasoning by providing an overview of data structures and algorithms, logic in computing, and programming paradigms such as object orientation and functions. It is accompanied by tutorials and assignments that make these concepts tangible and enable students to engage productively in the design of computational systems.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 314 Information, Memory, and Culture (Lecture/Required)
This course offers an opportunity to explore the theories and practices employed by cultural heritage institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums, to acquire, manage and preserve information objects. Students will learn about traditional and contemporary approaches to the making and unmaking of collective memory, and will develop an appreciation for the challenges concerning remembering and forgetting in the digital age.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 315 Information Practice in Organizations (Lecture/Required)
This course provides students with an understanding of organizations as social contexts where individuals enact information practices to carry out their work. Social contexts range from corporations and governmental agencies to fan clubs and activist organizations. Topics include ethnography, requirements modeling, records management, and knowledge translation and mobilization.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 351 Information Design Studio I: How to Make a Computer. And Why. (Studio/Required)
By developing a working system using lightweight computing platforms such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi and networked services, students will explore the implications of choices in architecture across the range from mainframes and personal computing to mobile devices and sensors, understand the nature of different network and service architectures including cloud computing, explore the relationship of hardware, data, and programs, and appreciate the various sensing mechanisms through which the world becomes data for the computer in operation.

INF 352 Information Design Studio II: How to Design  (Studio/Required)
Students will develop a general sense of design and the role it plays in the construction of our built environment. Human-centered design practices will be taught. Students will learn to identify important characteristics of the built environment using observational methods drawn from art and design practices, to analyze these characteristics using theories and perspectives drawn from relevant scholarship, and to represent their analyses using techniques of design sketching.

INF 353 Information Design Studio III: Designing Interactive Systems (Studio/Required)
Using current computational tools students will use human-centered design methods to produce interactive systems that engage with socio-cultural issues and society. The course will mobilize analytic and technical skills drawn from other lecture and studio courses. Students will also engage in self and peer critique in order to reflect on their own digital objects and those they will encounter in society at large. [24L, 12T]
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society), INF 3YY (Information Design Studio II: How to Design)
Coreq: INF 3EE (Computational Reasoning)

INF 401 Practicum Prep (Lecture/Required)

A: Research Design in Information

As a preparation for an academic practicum, this course provides an introduction to the philosophy, language, lifecycles, and methods of qualitative and quantitative inquiry. The emphasis is on conceptualizing and designing research, based on an appreciation of the epistemological underpinnings of the approaches covered. We will consider the fundamental principles, processes, values, and roles of research into complex questions of the role of information in society. We will explore and learn the basic skills of evaluating, planning, designing, executing, and applying research. Students will be afforded the opportunity to develop research on a question of their choice.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

OR

B: Practicum Prep for the Non-academic Workplace

Where a university (or any formal educational setting) is student-centered and focused on facilitating student learning, a workplace is focused on its own strategic goals, stakeholders, and clients. Student learning is peripheral to the purpose of the organization. While it is assumed that any organization that engages a practicum student has a commitment to the educational value of the experience for all parties, employers are not responsible for the student’s academic development. In order for learning to occur in the workplace, the processes associated with learning (cognitive, emotional, affective, etc.) must be made conscious and accessible to the learner. This is the overriding purpose of this course: to create independent, autonomous and self-directed learning professionals.

Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 402 Work Integrated Learning Practicum(Practicum/Required)
The practicum provides hands-on experience to supplement theoretical knowledge and to develop professional competencies. Students will complete a minimum of 100 hours of project work through one of the following: an unpaid internship, a faculty research project, a not-for-profit or an industry-based project. Students will be required to keep a reflective learning journal based on their personal, professional and intellectual growth, as well as produce a final report on the completion of their placement or project.
Prereq: INF 4AA (Practicum Prep)

INF 411 Information in the Global Economy (Lecture/Required)
This course surveys how information technologies, information services, and information itself are produced, circulated, and consumed. How is information made into a commodity? How are markets for information and information services created and sustained? Students will develop a basic understanding of the political, economic, cultural, and regulatory environment in which information, culture, and technologies are produced, as well as the implications of processes such as globalization, digitization, and commodification for social life.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 412 Data Analytics (Lecture/Required)
This examines core topics in probability and statistics through the study and practice of data analysis. Topics include hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, counts and tables, analysis of variance, regression, principal components, data summarization, and cluster analysis. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to critically think about data and use/implement standard statistical procedures to perform a wide range of analyses.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society), INF 3EE(Computational Reasoning)

INF 413 Information Policy in Canadian and Global Contexts (Lecture/Required)
This course provides students with an introduction to the history and development of information policy. Topics include Canadian and international regulations concerning data protection and privacy, intellectual and cultural property, and industrial organization. The course will also cover emerging models of governance and the politics of standards setting bodies and global treaty organizations.
Prereq: 3AA (Introduction to Information and Power), INF 3BB (Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society)

INF 451 Information Design Studio IV: Information Visualization (Studio/Required)
Problems, practices, and techniques of conveying complex information analysis. Issues of clarity, persuasion, visual literacy, and cultural context will be explored. Students will develop a data visualization project that will speak to or engage surveillance, data analytics, activism, or other issues covered in advanced IDM courses.
Prereq/Coreq: INF 4CC (Data Analytics), INF 3YY (Information Design Studio II: How to Design)

INF 452 Information Design Studio V: Coding  (Studio/Required)
Students will develop skills in coding principles and practice by working with media artifacts. Students will write and modify code to address and engage issues covered in lecture based courses.
Prereq: 3ZZ (Designing Interactive Systems)

INF 453 Capstone Project (Studio/Required)
A self-guided and collaborative student project. Students will identify a design problem, design a creative solution to the problem using a combination of skills from previous courses, and share their project with the class. Students will present the outcomes of their project in both visual and written formats.
Prereq: INF 4YY  (Information Design Studio V: Coding)

INF 481 Special Topics in Information Studies I (Lecture/Elective)

INF 482 Special Topics in Information Studies II (Lecture/Elective)

INF 483 Special Topics in Information Studies III (Lecture/Elective)

INF 484 Special Topics in Information Studies IV (Lecture/Elective)

Special topics courses offer In-depth examinations of selected topics in Information, including, for example:

Audiences

Audiences are social constructions which must be imagined to be actualized. In emerging social media space capacity to characterize imagined audiences provides a foundational framework for determining the information representations and presentations necessary to create those virtual audiences. This approach is foundation to personal, commercial and public sector exploration of virtual worlds. Beginning with an exploration of the nature and role of audiences across multiple virtual and electronic media, the students explore the conception, perception and reality of imagined and actual audiences. Broadcast models, interactive models, live audience, audience reading, gender, culture, and audience feedback are investigated. [36L]

Information and Political Activism

This course offers students an opportunity to investigate the evolving relationship between cultural production, social order, and the development and use of information technologies. Students will critically assess how a wide variety of technological-mediated practices have brought about significant social changes by affecting community structures and notions of individual identity, facilitating cultural exchanges and misunderstandings, impacting public opinion, and enabling new modes of political organization and unrest. As part of that endeavour we will examine various theories of collective action, including collective behaviour theory, resource mobilization, new social movements, gift economies, and class struggle. These theoretical perspectives will be evaluated based on their potential to inform our understandings of historical and contemporary examples of communities of practice. [36L

Critical Histories of Information Technologies

This course approaches current information and communication technologies from critical and historical perspectives. It investigates the interests, motives, and tactics of news media, pop culture producers, amateurs, universities, corporations, and governments in promoting, sustaining, and interpreting information and communication systems. It also asks how information systems mediate, alter, or entrench power relations and cultural practices. While the focus will be on media and information technologies, more theoretical or methodological readings will necessarily cover other systems. Case studies may include investigations of orality, writing, the printing press, industrialized printing, and electronic media from the telegraph and the telephone to broadcasting and the internet. [36L]

Digital Material Culture

This course explores the materiality of digital objects, from image and music files to digital documents to video games and other software, and considers their past, present, and future status as material culture. The course involves the primary study of digital objects themselves, but also considers the technological infrastructures and cultural contexts in which they are produced, circulated, and interpreted. [36L]

Surveillance

Surveillance has become an everyday facet of modern life. It is a foundational structure of current social, political, and technological interrelationships. Studying surveillance can help us more effectively understand how power, identity, and control operate in modern life. This course will integrate theory (economic, political, and social) and case studies to investigate how data, economics, militarism, policy, identity, visibility, fear, desire, and risk all interoperate in a global context to create and mediate the world we live in. [36L]

Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning

Recent developments in deep learning, parallel hardware, and the accessibility of big data are leading to rapid advances in delivering on artificial intelligence’s dream of building intelligent computers. This course will develop: (i) a conceptual understanding of these new brain-inspired computational architectures, (ii) an analysis of what tasks they are appropriate for, what sorts of performance they offer and promise in the future, and what types of human work they will be able to automate; and (iii) an exploration of both their immediate and their potential long-term impact on the nature of human labour, creativity, social configuration, and self-conception.

Other examples:

• Advanced Topics in Policy
• Advanced Topics in User Interface Design
• Advanced Topics in Information Systems Design
• Advanced Topics in Information and Culture