Social Informatics (1the year ICT, Bachelor)

Information and computer technology has traditionally been conceived as a course closely connected with the natural and logical-mathematical sciences. Social informatics deviates from this point of view, and can be explained as a modern study of information technology from the point of view of the social and cultural sciences. A more formal definition is that: "Social Informatics is the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts".

Social Informatics at Nesna University College consists of the following main themes:

1. Computers and Law
2. Computers and Organizations
3. Technological change

Students will work with different cases ranging from Computer Forensic to problems concerning the introduction of ICT in an organization, and the different tasks belonging to the Administrative Computer Unit in an organization.

The students will work not only with "technical" questions but also with broader ethical subjects. From August 2003 the students have been working with a project called "Getting Involved"  (The name of the project is derived from the anti-war poem "To the youth", written in 1936 by Nordahl Grieg). The project focuses on sexual abuse of children in Digital Media, with the spreading of abusive images and films as the main issue. In March 2003 Nesna University College, as the only educational institution in Norway, signed an agreement with the Norwegian Save the Children to work closely with them on this issue. Nesna University College has the only computer science program in the world that has sexual abuse of children as the main topic on its curriculum. This project i also implemented in the course ICT in society and working life, ICT and learning part I (Distance Education/ Online Course - Teacher Education ), and with the cooperation of Beata Dziedzic, PhD, University of Zielona Gora, Poland.

[Home]