Free Culture and Free and Open Source Computing Immersion

Overview for Free Culture and Free and Open Source Computing Immersion

Business, the arts, the sciences, and the humanities now rely on work that is “open," work that is released in a manner that allows it to be shared, copied, and improved upon by its users. Open Source Software powers the internet and the World Wide Web, Open Data, and Open GIS mapping. All of these are at the core of most digital humanities projects. Creative Commons licenses allow artists, musicians, and writers to collaborate more freely by altering the “all on or all off” conditions of copyright. The Open Hardware of the Raspberry Pi and Arduino board drive the maker movement and interactive arts.

In the free culture and free and open source computing immersion, you'll will take one course in the culture, history, and ethics behind the Open IP movements listed above. You'll follow that by completing a course in Humanitarian Free and Open Source software to get hands-on experience contributing to open communities of practice and by learning first-hand how those communities thrive best when experts from many fields work together. Your third course will be chosen by you from a range of electives in communications, computing, technology, policy, or history, all of which can build your understanding and practice of open work.

Notes about this immersion:

Students are required to complete at least one course at the 300-level or above as part of the immersion.

The plan code for Free Culture and Free and Open Source Computing Immersion is FREEOPN-IM.

Curriculum for 2023-2024 for Free Culture and Free and Open Source Computing Immersion

Current Students: See Curriculum Requirements

View Printable Curriculum

Course
Required Courses
ENGL-450	Free & Open Source Culture This course charts the development of the free culture movement by examining the changing relationship between authorship and cultural production based on a variety of factors: law, culture, commerce and technology. In particular, we will examine the rise of the concept of the individual author during the last three centuries. Using a variety of historical and theoretical readings, we will note how law and commerce have come to shape the prevailing cultural norms surrounding authorship, while also examining lesser known models of collaborative and distributed authoring practices. This background will inform our study of the rapid social transformations wrought by media technologies in last two centuries, culminating with the challenges and opportunities brought forth by digital media, mobile communications and networked computing. Students will learn about the role of software in highlighting changing authorship practices, facilitating new business and economic models and providing a foundation for conceiving of open source, open access, participatory, peer-to-peer and Free (as in speech, not beer) cultures. (Prerequisites: Completion of First Year Writing (FYW) requirement is required prior to enrolling in this class.) Lecture 3 (Spring).
IGME-582	Humanitarian Free & Open Source Software Development This course provides students with exposure to the design, creation and production of Open Source Software projects. Students will be introduced to the historic intersections of technology and intellectual property rights and will become familiar with Open Source development processes, tools and practices. They will become contributing members of humanitarian software, game and interactive media development communities. Students will actively document their efforts on Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software community hubs. (Prerequisites: This class is restricted to students with at least 2nd year standing.) Lec/Lab 3 (Spring).
Electives
Choose one of the following:
COMM-303	Small Group Communication This course provides students with opportunities to engage in small group decision making and problem solving. Students will analyze and evaluate their own experiences and relate them to theories and research from the field of small group communication. Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring).
COMM-304	Intercultural Communication Intercultural communication provides an examination of the role of culture in face-to-face interaction. Students may find a basic background in communication, anthropology, or psychology useful. Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring).
ENGL-215	Text & Code We encounter digital texts and codes every time we use a smart phone, turn on an app, read an e-book, or interact online. This course examines the innovative combinations of text and code that underpin emerging textual practices such as electronic literatures, digital games, mobile communication, geospatial mapping, interactive and locative media, augmented reality, and interactive museum design. Drawing on key concepts of text and code in related fields, students will analyze shifting expressive textual practices and develop the literacies necessary to read and understand them. Practicing and reflecting on such new media literacies, the course explores their social, cultural, creative, technological, and legal significance. To encourage multiple perspectives on these pivotal concepts of text and code and their import, the course includes guest lectures by scholars and practitioners in these fields. Lecture 3 (Fall).
ENGL-581	Intro to Natural Language Process This course provides theoretical foundation as well as hands-on (lab-style) practice in computational approaches for processing natural language text. The course will have relevance to various disciplines in the humanities, sciences, computational, and technical fields. We will discuss problems that involve different components of the language system (such as meaning in context and linguistic structures). Students will additionally collaborate in teams on modeling and implementing natural language processing and digital text solutions. Students will program in Python and use a variety of relevant tools. Expected: Programming skills, demonstrated via course work or instruction approval. Lecture 3 (Spring).
ISCH-201	Computing, Culture, and Society This course is designed to introduce students to the social impacts of computing technology. The course will provide a brief introduction to ethics and to the history of computing and the Internet. It will focus on a number of areas in which computers and information technology are having an impact on society including privacy, freedom of speech, intellectual property, work, distribution of wealth, algorithmic bias and the environment. Current issues that will be discussed include electronic voting, spyware, spam, and intellectual property issues associated with digital content distribution. Students will be required to demonstrate oral and written communication skills through assignments such as short papers, homework, group discussions, and debates. Computing majors may take this course only with department approval. Lecture 3 (Fall).
STSO-201	Science and Technology Policy Examines how local, state, federal and international policies are developed to influence innovation, the transfer of technology and industrial productivity in the United States and other selected nations. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).
STSO-230	Foundations of Engagement and Community Transformation Are you passionate about addressing the socially-complex, wicked problems of our time? This interdisciplinary, active-learning course will lay the groundwork for students who want to participate in future place-based community-engaged research, development or design projects that build on community strengths and address community determined challenges. Through literature reviews, discussions, cases study analysis, role plays, debates, reflective writing, and visits with experienced community practitioners, we will explore the larger context of the systems within which we live and how others have engaged in efforts to improve community wellbeing both locally and globally. We will strive for a more nuanced understanding of our world and its power dynamics from various perspectives. We will investigate the context in which community and economic development has traditionally occurred, how technology has been involved, and the effects of projects and activities on the “beneficiaries”. We will investigate best practices including mindsets, worldviews, skills, processes, and tools for community-driven positive change. Finally we will use all our learnings to develop our own evaluation framework and apply it to a current community project. This course incorporates humanities and social science approaches and counts for general education requirements. Lecture 3 (Spring).
STSO-240	Social Consequences of Technology Modern society is increasingly based on technology. With each advance due to technology, unanticipated problems are also introduced. Society must define and solve these problems or the advances may be diluted or lost. In this course we study several interactions between technology and the world in which we live. We investigate how various technologies developed and compare the expected effects of the new technologies with the actual results. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).
STSO-246	History of Women in Science and Engineering Using biographical and social-historical approaches, this course examines the history of women's involvement in science and engineering since the birth of modern science in the seventeenth century; the historical roots of gender bias in the Western scientific enterprise; and the influx of women into science and engineering since the mid-to-late 20th century. Cross-listed with women's and gender studies. Lecture 3 (Spring).