Information Science considers the relationships between people, places and technology, as well as the data that results from those interactions. Our interdisciplinary approach draws on social science, the humanities and computer science, allowing us not only to imagine what today’s technology makes possible, but to invent new things society can do with technology. Our graduates will have the conceptual machinery and practical skills to succeed in a future characterized by new ways of working, communicating, creating and effecting change in the world.
Undergraduate Opportunities
As an undergraduate student in the Department of Information Science, you will learn to collect, analyze and interpret many different information sources to understand our world. You’ll study how we interact with all things digital, including software, devices and algorithms. By the time you graduate, you’ll be able to create social and technological solutions that are truly engaging for those who use them, apply those solutions to real problems and evaluate their effectiveness.
You will also apply information science to the topics that matter to you. From journalism to music to healthcare, you will gain tools that can address many problems. By applying your new knowledge, you’ll address real problems and create an impact on our society.
Information Science Minor
The INFO minor consists of 19-20 credit hours.
Data Science Minor
The minor is divided into three areas: computing, quantitative methods, and electives. Computing courses cover basic programming and data structures with an emphasis on the Python programming language. Because of the variation in credit hours associated with quantitative methods courses, the total hours for the minor vary between 18-21.
Information Science Bachelor's-Accelerated Master's ("BAM")
The Bachelor’s–Accelerated Master’s program in Information Science seeks to provide an opportunity for current, high-performing undergraduate students to advance their education in the discipline of Information Science by earning an additional MS in the field. This allows students to further specialize in various areas of information science, including data science, computational social science, interpretivist social science, design, and other cognate areas using courses in other departments that supplement offerings within the Department of Information Science.
Graduate Program
The PhD in Information Science is for students who want to engage in empirical investigations of interdisciplinary problems. Students in the PhD program will learn a diversity of methods, theoretical frameworks, design practices and computational techniques. A PhD student's scholarly practice will include collaborative research on grant-driven projects.
The scholarly skills required of PhDs in Information Science are fundamentally analytical, creative, interdisciplinary and in constant interaction with information that is generated, manipulated and transformed within and across domains. The PhD aligns culturally with the grant-driven, collaborative “lab model” of research that characterizes the natural and engineering sciences, but is nevertheless deeply integrative of the social sciences and humanities in its scholarly pursuit and intellectual contributions.
The PhD program in Information Science requires a minimum of 30 course credit hours and 30 thesis credit hours. Students are encouraged to take courses outside of the department beyond any departmental foundation courses pending approval by their advisor and the graduate committee. After a written and oral preliminary exam, students go on to specialize in a dissertation area in consultation with their committees. Completion of the PhD will take approximately 5 years.
