Bryn Mawr College and Purdue University are creating a set of upper level undergraduate course materials in the emerging multidisciplinary area of science of information. Materials and course modules developed during this project lead students to an understanding of the concept of "information" that transcends boundaries between disciplines, especially between physical and life sciences, communication, and knowledge extraction from massive datasets. The course materials ground the study of information in concrete computational models.
The past six decades have brought information theory to the crossroads of several traditional disciplines: mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, biology, and electrical engineering. A repository of tangible, hands-on course modules is helping students, faculty, and researchers draw upon the latest discoveries from multiple disciplines, replicate recent research, and learn to apply the techniques and tools of information-based inquiry in their lives.
The resources and infrastructure of the NSF STC Center for Science of Information (CSoI) are being used to maximize the educational impact of this project, including a focus on increasing diversity, gender and ethnic balance, and broadening of participation. Workshops are being conducted to train faculty in the use of the course materials.
The past six decades have brought information theory to the crossroads of several traditional disciplines: mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, biology, and electrical engineering. In this project, Bryn Mawr College and Purdue University have created a set of upper level undergraduate courses and modular teaching materials in the emerging multidisciplinary area of science of information. The primary focus in these materials is to develop an understanding of the concept of "information" that transcends boundaries between disciplines, especially between physical and life sciences, communication, and knowledge extraction from massive datasets. We have created an online repository of tangible, hands-on course modules that is helping students, faculty, and researchers draw upon the latest discoveries from multiple disciplines, replicate recent research, and learn to apply the techniques and tools of information-based inquiry in their lives. The resources and infrastructure of the NSF STC Center for Science of Information (CSoI) were used to maximize the educational impact of this project, including a focus on increasing diversity, gender and ethnic balance, and broadening of participation. All materials are freely available through the LearningHub of the Center at soihub.org. Several workshops were conducted to train faculty in the use of the course materials. Through these workshops, an active community of practice has been formed. In the duration of this project, over a dozen new courses were developed and taught. Additionally several existing courses at many institutions have incorporated the new materials and modules developed by the PIs. We have recorded over 600 undergraduate students who have enrolled in these courses. Responses from students in our evaluations affirm the appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of information and how a science of information can lead to a fundamental new way of understanding the world. There was also a strong indication from students that they would likely pursue further study of science of information. An active faculty community of practice that has resulted as a direct outcome of the workshops is now committed to regular meetings, exchanges, visits, and future workshops. Through support and guidance from the PIs over a dozen faculty, representing several colleges and universities have developed and contributed additional modules and resources in the LearningHub reporsitory. The teaching of science of information to upper-level undergraduates as well as the teaching and adaptation of modules at other institutions has the potential to educate and provide students the opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary study and research. More importantly, our effort of developing educational materials in this area is going to be sustained for the foreseable future, both through the strong community of practice and through support from the Center for Science of Information which is a long term ongoing research program of which the PIs are integral members.
