Academics:  Bachelor of Science in Informatics

Social, cognitive, behavioral, and contextual aspects of information systems, including human information behavior, interpersonal interaction, and social responses to information technology. Emphasis on well-being and information exchanges as a communicative event. Exposure to experimental and naturalistic methodologies through laboratory assignments and field work.

Social, ethical, economic, political, and cross-cultural implications of current and future information systems. Information transfer and use within groups, organizations, and cultures. Focus on organizations as information processors, the new knowledge economy, and national and international information policy, intellectual property, privacy, censorship, and freedom of information.

Introduction to information needs, database and information organization and structure, Web and database searching and browsing, and information presentation. Examination of underlying principles in knowledge representation, indexing, record structures, online search process, search strategies and tactics, assessment of user needs, reference interviewing, post-processing, organization and presentation of information.

Examines the evolution of how information is defined and managed in order to add value to organizations. Views information management and the CIO as key facilitators in creating or improving relationships, processes, competitiveness, products, and services.

Continuation of 142. Concepts of data abstraction and encapsulation including stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees, recursion, instruction to complexity and use of predefined collection classes. Prerequisite: CSE 142.

Fundamental algorithms and data structures for implementation. Techniques for solving problems by programming. Linked lists, stacks, queues, directed graphs. Trees: representations, traversals. Searching (hashing, binary search trees, multiway trees). Garbage collection, memory management. Internal and external sorting. No credit to students who have completed 326, 374, or E E 374. Prerequisite: CSE 143.

Theories and models in system-centered approaches to information retrieval and database management. Information retrieval and database management systems include text and multimedia databases, web search engines and digital libraries. Issues in system design, development and evaluation, and tools for searching, retrieval, user interfaces, and usability. Prerequisite: CSE 373.

Basic concepts of local and wide area computer networking including an overview of services provided by networks, network topologies and hardware, packet switching, client/server architectures, network protocols, and network servers and applications. Also addresses management, security, authentication, and policy issues associated with distributed systems. Prerequisite: CSE 143.

Information as an object of study, including theories, concepts, and principles of information, information seeking, cognitive processing, knowledge representation and restructuring, and their relationships to physical and intellectual access to information. Development of information systems for storage, organization, and retrieval. Experience in the application of theories, concepts, and principles.

Theoretical and practical examination of the information systems design process. Techniques for assessing the need for technology, specifying the system design, and involving users in the design process are explored. Design methods include social impact statements, future scenarios, mock-ups, rapid prototyping, field-testing, heuristic evaluation. Prerequisite: CSE 373.

Introduction to the research process investigating information needs, creation, organization, flow, retrieval, and use. Stages include: research definition, questions, objectives, data collection and management, data analysis, and data interpretation. Techniques include: observation, interviews, questionnaires, and transaction-log analysis. Prerequisite: STAT 311.