Community Information Systems

Spring, 2003 Syllabus

The Evergreen State College - Evening and Weekend Studies

CIS Spring 2003 Schedule | CIS 2002-2003 Resources | CIS 2002-2003 Slides

http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/fall

http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/winter

http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/spring

Program Information

A three-quarter (fall 2002, winter 2003, spring 2003) program; 8 credits per quarter (12 may also be possible)
Faculty:
Randy Groves (randy@scn.org; 425.868.6014)
Doug Schuler (dschuler@evergreen.edu; 206.634.0752)
Divisional Emphasis: Scientific Inquiry and Social Science
Level: Upper Division
Class Size Limit: 50
Program Meeting Times: Wednesday evenings, 6 -10 + four 8 hour Saturday daytime sessions.
Office Hours: 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM on every Wednesday when we have class.
Program e-mail list cis@scn.org

Program Description

Community Information Systems is a three-quarter half-time program that develops web-based software for a community. Some of these communities are U.S.-based and some are in other places in the world (in 2000-2001 we worked with communities in the U.S., Russia, England, Mexico, Nigeria, and Australia. See the web site at http://grace.evergreen.edu/cis/). The basic themes for the program are participatory design, software development, community informatics, social networks, localism and globalism. This program resembles Student Originated Software, a full-time program that is offered every other year, especially as they both involve developing computer applications for a "real" client. We will be constraining the guidelines in this program in several ways. One constraint is that the faculty will be selecting in advance the set of "communities" from which the student groups will select. Also, all the students will be working with the same suite of public domain tools (which will include PHP, Apache, HTML, Linux and MySQL). The use of technology is not open-ended -- we will be working with those tools only.

Learning Objectives

The learning objectives for this program are:

To understand the definition, motivation, theory, and uses of "Community Information Systems."
To be able to work effectively with people in communities and other cultures on projects.
To become adept in the systematic development of software.
To be able to work effectively in groups.
To learn organizational, research, cognitive skills that are necessary in pursuits like this.
To become proficient with PHP and other PD web programming tools and approaches.
To understand and be sensitive to the social issues involved with software technology (and the Internet specifically) and its role in a historical context.
To inform and strengthen the Center for Community Partnerships.

Meeting Times

Week	Meeting Time
Week 1	Wednesday April 2, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
	Saturday April 5, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Week 2	Wednesday April 9, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Week 3	Wednesday April 16, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Week 4	Wednesday April 23, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
	Saturday April 26, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Week 5	Wednesday April 30, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Week 6	Wednesday May 7, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
	Saturday May 10, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Week 7	Wednesday May 14, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Week 8	Wednesday May 21, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Week 9	Wednesday May 28, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
	Saturday May 31, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Week 10	Wednesday June 4, 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Evaluation Week	Wednesday June 11, 3:00 to 9:00 PM

Basic Quarter Plan

Fall

Technology: Systematic development of software, introduction to PHP, web programming, and databases
Other content: Community Information Systems: motivation, examples, directions
Partnership Project: Delivery of preliminary plan

Spring

Technology: Systematic development of software, PHP, web programming, and databases
Other content: Social capital, strong and weak ties, networking models of community
Partnership Project: Database designed and implemented; utility functions in PHP; user interface design completed.

Spring

Technology: Application development, documentation
Other content: movements, evaluation
Partnership Project: Completed web application; public software fair

Readings

The schedule for completing the readings can be found on the web -- http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/spring/schedule.html. We will be reading from "The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected Worls", by Lawrence Lessig". PHP and MySQL Web Development by Welling & Thomson. Other articles which will be available on the web or via handouts.

We will also maintain a resource page (http://www.scn.org/tesc-ds/2002-2003/resources.html) that contains other useful information.

Partnership Project

The partnership project is an important part of this program. In this project student teams will be working with communities all over the world. The list of proposed projects for this year can be found at: http://grace.evergreen.edu/~dschuler/list.php. Please also see the partnership project page (http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/fall/partnership_project.html) for more information. Also please see the partnership proposal form (http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/misc/partners-survey.html) to see the information we solicited from potential partners. The three quarter project will culminate with a "Community Information Systems Partnership Fair" in June, 2003.

Seminars

Seminars are an important part of the Evergreen educational philosophy. Everybody neeeds to be an active participant in seminars and people need also to take care to let everybody speak. It is critical for everybody to read all the readings that are expected by the time of the seminar. Beyond this, it is important to actively read the readings. This means having a dialogue with the material as you go along. Don't accept what you're reading blindly! Ask questions of the material. Mark it up. There will be a journal question (see the online schedule) that you will need to discuss in writing for each seminar. This short essay (1 - 2pages) will be turned in at the end of each of the four seminar sessions. It must be typed.

Program Covenants

Covenants are essentially social contracts. Each student must sign the student covenant and abide by it to receive credit for the program. The convenant can be found at http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2002-2003/covenant.html