This course introduces students to the ethics, principles, frameworks, and methodologies implicated in the design and creation of data collection and governance systems centered on the rights to sovereignty and self-determinism of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, as well as Indigenous peoples in a global context. The course surveys the legal and political dynamics of Indigenous-settler relations, with an emphasis on the problematic history of data collection by state and non-state actors within Indigenous populations, and on the data sovereignty countermeasures developed and deployed by Indigenous communities.

This course develops students' understanding of key distinctions between Indigenous and western epistemic traditions, worldviews, and ways of being by incorporating Indigenous methodologies and understandings of data collection and research into its critical and analytical frame. Special attention is paid to the data governance and sovereignty principles embodied in core frameworks such as the OCAP (Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession) and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) models, and the emerging legal and jurisdictional implications of policy mechanisms such as UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). The course engages with emerging trends and case studies in Indigenous data governance, inclusive of operationalized examples of core frameworks across various jurisdictions such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and through data governance policy development within settler governments, institutions, and industries.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Critical Perspectives" Professional Requirement.

This course will provide students with knowledge needed to understand the advocacy process and exercise professional leadership in the advocacy of library issues. Such advocacy may relate to policy, funds, support, or partnership, and may be directed to internal or external decision-makers. The course includes the nature of advocacy and its relationship to promotion and marketing, decision-makers’ environments and their perceptions of libraries, research on influence, and the identification and strategic engagement of influencers and decision-makers. Major emphasis is on the development of advocacy programs (objectives, target groups, obstacles, communication tools, and evaluation). Although the course focuses on publicly funded libraries, most principles, examples, and case studies are relevant to all types of libraries and to related institutions.

The primary objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of current global and national issues surrounding intellectual freedom, library neutrality, and the right to information. Through theoretical readings, historical analysis, case studies, and interactive scenarios, students will explore the complexities of information access, censorship, and the role of various entities in shaping knowledge circulation and limitation. While the course will offer a basic theoretical, legal, and historical introduction to the subject, the main emphasis will be on present-day issues facing intellectual freedom globally, given the rise of authoritarianism, government and corporate surveillance, government thought control through the manipulation of media, regional wars, global psychological warfare, and campaigns of misinformation.

Develop an appreciation of the modern public library’s history paying particular attention to the wider social forces (economic, political, cultural, social, technological, and professional), which have shaped its evolution and that of public librarianship from the mid-19th century.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Professional Values" Requirement.

This course examines books and other textual artifacts as material objects, focusing on methods of production and manufacture, and how they affect the transmission of texts. Students are introduced to theories and methods of bibliographical description and analysis, and to their application across a range of media, including digitized and born-digital texts. Classes cover the history of textual production, from hand-press to digital books, and its relevance to disciplines such as librarianship, digital curation, media studies, and digital humanities.

This course investigates print and digital publishing ecosystems both holistically and through their individual functions, including authorship, publishing, printing, bookselling, librarianship, and reading. Drawing on disciplinary perspectives such as publishing studies, media studies, and book history, the course considers topics such as literary production, distribution, and circulation, with emphasis on connections between past and present. The interplay between social, cultural, economic, technological, and political forces will be examined through case studies on small and large scales, from the local to the transnational.

This course serves as an introduction to rare book and manuscript librarianship. Students will explore concepts ranging from book history and bibliographical description to the stewardship of rare books and manuscripts, and strategies for advocacy and outreach on behalf of special collections. While especially relevant for students interested in special collections librarianship, the course is accessible for all students with interests in rare books and manuscripts.

An understanding of disability studies and accessibility is crucial for designers and information professionals, as they play an important role in building systems that cater to a diverse range of individuals and communities. This course will introduce students to disability studies, accessibility, and inclusive design as relevant to design; the course does not require any previous knowledge or experience in the areas of disability or accessibility. The course (INF2165H – Accessibility and Inclusive Design) will focus on disability as a social, cultural, and historical phenomenon and accessibility in relation to the design of systems and environments. Students will get an overview of issues related to disabilities and technology use, disability-related policy, accessibility-related guidelines, and assistive technologies. They will also be exposed to prior research on disability, accessibility, and inclusive design, as well as current practices in the industry around their implementation in practical scenarios. The course will further focus on training students to engage in rigorous reflective research and inclusive design practices that will prepare them as designers and information professionals looking to work with a diverse range of people.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Critical Perspectives" Professional Requirement.

Business processes are pervasive in our lives: in banks, telecommunication centers, webservices, and healthcare. Processes in organizations are there to make sure that the business goals are achieved in an efficient way with the highest quality of products and/or services. The field of Business Process Management (BPM) focuses on improving an organization’s performance by managing, analyzing and improving its processes.

The first part of the course comprises basic concepts of Business Process Management. We shall learn the BPM lifecycle: (Re)Design, Modeling, Executing, Monitoring and Optimizing business processes. Moreover, we shall cover the methodological aspects of BPM such as modeling languages, model discovery, qualitative and quantitative analysis of processes models.

In the second part of the course, the focus shifts to a Data Science methodology for BPM, namely Process Mining. The students will learn the three basic steps of Process Mining: discovery of models from data, conformance analysis of the resulting models with data, and performance analytics. The emphasis of the Process Mining part will be on performance analytics.

The course will cover state-of-the-art literature, and as part of the final grade will require the students to present real business case studies on applications of BPMM in industry.

Note: Formerly a special topics course. Effective fall 2020, the course is a regular course.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Managerial" Professional Requirement

Data science is a fast-growing field and new tools and techniques are designed everyday to perform data analysis in quick and robust ways. This course covers the fundamentals of data science using the R language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is currently widely used by information students and data scientists from various disciplines. The course will teach students how to do data science in an easy way. It is designed for students from the social sciences and from non-programming backgrounds. The course focus is not on learning a new programming language but rather on providing students with skills to approach various research questions that involve analysis of social sciences data. We will learn skills of data collection, storage, cleaning, transformation, visualization, and various techniques of data analysis. Most important, we will learn how those skills are applied in research involving the social world. We will apply those techniques to analyze structured tabular data, networked data, and unstructured text data through experimenting on real datasets, including online data. This course will provide students with a new skill highly in demand in the information and data
sciences job markets.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Technical" Professional Requirement.

Initial stages of discovery in experience design require an understanding of prospective users, and conducting research to understand their contextual needs, expectations, current practices, and mental models.

Students learn to conduct and analyze exploratory research, to effectively identify appropriate design opportunities, and to empower end-users to guide design.

Course topics may include framing and researching design-specific problem spaces, designing protocols for user studies, identifying appropriate methods of exploratory data collection and analysis, operationalizing user research findings, communicating research outcomes through diverse formats, and formulating guidelines for impactful design.

Information architecture (IA) refers to how online content is structured to support effective information use. This course explores the core concepts and practices of IA, with a focus on content organization, navigation, and accessibility in digital environments.

Students will engage with three main areas: Information Design Fundamentals (design principles), the Information Architecture Development Process (development methods), and Professional Practice (real-world applications). A user-centred, 'bottom-up' approach will guide the course, helping students identify and evaluate IA systems across websites, compare strategies, and assess designer assumptions and trade-offs.

Students will also learn foundational principles to understand and influence technical decision-making to improve accessibility and usability in IA. Students will audit and evaluate website content and navigation structures using quantitative and qualitative methods, and propose changes based on their findings. Students will conduct content inventories and audits, propose alternative content structures, and refine IA schemas.

This course introduces students to the selected theories underlying reading studies and readers’ advisory (RA); the major genres and sub-genres of fiction and non-fiction materials that comprise the core of RA work; a wide array of RA print and electronic tools; and current practices of delivering RA services in both public and academic libraries, with the focus on the former. The concept of integrated RA will be reviewed, and alternative formats for providing advisory services will be discussed (films, music, games, Living Libraries, etc.).

Practica in selected aspects of professional work designed for advanced-level students to strengthen and build on theoretical knowledge and to develop specialized skill in aspects of professional information work and environments through supervised experiential learning and seminar presentations.

An exploration of the evolution of records and record-keeping practices, primarily in the western world, from antiquity to the present day and the role played by archives in that evolution. Consideration will be given to the socio-cultural contexts in which records have been created, used, and preserved over the centuries, the role of records in the lives of organizations and individuals, the places of their creation and preservation, and record genres and media.

An introduction to principles, conceptual issues, and practical problems of managing organizational records, both paper-based and electronic. Reviews the legal, administrative, and technical environments that affect the creation, management and use of records. Discusses standards and policies that relate to organizational records and examines functional requirements for record-keeping. Identifies organizational and human factors that affect the creation and use of records. Finally, the course acquaints students with the strategies, techniques and tactics for ensuring that electronic records are captured, preserved and usable over time.

The course covers both theoretical and practical aspects of managing information processes in organizations. In terms of theory, it introduces conceptual frameworks for the management of organizational information processes, including an analysis of their implications for the design and implementation of information systems and services.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Managerial" Professional Requirement.

This course examines various notions of information architecture, systems architecture, and organizational architecture, and their inter-relationships and interactions. Examples will be drawn from a wide variety of systems types, including traditional information systems, document management systems, workflow systems, groupware, Internet and intranet systems, enterprise systems, data warehousing, metadata repositories, and intelligent agents. Issues will include dealing with legacy and change, enterprise-wide interoperability and beyond (e.g., e-commerce), convergence of information content and processing, and support for knowledge management. Frameworks and techniques for architectural modeling, analysis, and design will be considered.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Technical" Professional Requirement.

At the heart of every Data Science project exists the planning, design and execution of experiments. Such experiments aim at understanding the data, potentially cleaning it and performing the necessary data analysis for knowledge discovery and decision-making. Without knowing the experimental design processes that are used in practice, researchers may not be able to discover what is really hidden in their data. The first aim of this course is to look at existing experimental designs that take into account the questions that need to be answered as well as the nature of the data and the different parameters used by algorithms.

Subsequently, the course will introduce different qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the quality of the results.

All concepts will be accompanied by examples and the students will have practical exercises and a project in which they will demonstrate their knowledge.

Machine learning has recently become the dominant field in AI research and constitutes the main part of the tools applied in industry-based AI positions. Business analysts, data scientists and AI engineers are required to know machine learning at different levels. The course will give a broad high-level overview of state-of-the-art machine learning methodologies. We shall focus on the application of these techniques to real-world data using the most advanced tools available for Python. The techniques will include: linear regression, basic techniques for classification, advanced regression and classification
methods, and unsupervised learning.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Technical" Professional Requirement.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the needs of archival users, and methods for facilitating access to archival material. The course focuses on information seeking behaviour in an archival context, and the principles, design, and implementation of access and outreach services in an archives. Topics covered are: the information needs of the major user groups including historians, genealogists, administrators, media specialists and school children; remote and on-site access services that meet the needs of various user groups; user education, public programming, outreach, and archival advocacy.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Professional Values" Requirement

This course introduces students to the mechanisms, actors, ethics, and philosophies of public policy making across the three primary jurisdictions in Canada. The course surveys the legal, regulatory, and statutory frameworks that mediate and give force to public policy development and administration spanning the public and private sectors, with particular emphasis on how the management and control of information is instrumentalized to achieve policy objectives, and how gaps in informational processes can problematize intended outcomes. This course also prepares students for ongoing and advanced studies in the CIPS concentration inclusive of the Indigenous Data Governance, Speculative Policy Design, and Policy Studio courses.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Professional Values" Requirement.

This course addresses problems, practices, and techniques that arise from the growing use of visualization media to analyze and interpret data, manage information complexity, and communicate data-driven messages. Based on principles from visual studies, graphic design, visual art, perceptual psychology, and cognitive science, students will acquire the ability to use and understand several important visualization methods and how to critically interrogate the application of visualization technologies in novel contexts.

Knowledge management from an information systems perspective. Analyzing information and knowledge processes in organizations. Explicit and implicit/tacit knowledge in software systems and in human social systems. Languages and models for codifying knowledge. Application of information technologies to knowledge management. Ontologies and the semantic web. Knowledge management in information systems development. Applications in selected areas such as enterprise management, e-commerce, healthcare, media, and education.

Theories and methods of appraisal for records retention and archives acquisition to include managing records, constructing historical identities and pluralizing social memory. Emphasis on appraisal for archives acquisitions, including organizational and personal records in multiple formats, media and systems. The multiple uses of appraisal will be emphasized, especially in information management, record-keeping system designs, legacy conversions, and in managing change and innovation in archives. Emphasis on professionally responsible accountability to contemporaries and the future.

With reference to different types of metadata (structural, descriptive, rights management, administrative, preservation, etc.) this course provides an examination of semantic and syntactic metadata schemas and applications across diverse domains, such as education, medicine, government information, cultural sector institutions, publishing, etc. Analyses of international metadata standards development, and a case study approach to metadata projects within a content management framework are important components of the course.

The influx of data that is created, gathered, stored, and accessed has given birth to some new areas of data analysis. The terms "predictive analytics," "big data," and "data science" are prevalent in scientific as well as broad audience publications and often make part of new business opportunities. Understanding the significance of techniques that perform analytics and knowing how to interpret their results offers a unique advantage in the performance of information professionals within an organization.

This course provides an introduction to the field of analytics, and therefore the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, exploratory and predictive models to mine and discover unexpected but useful glimpses of previously unknown information. We discuss standard data mining algorithms that can be applied on both structured and unstructured data and experience their impact on decision making situations. The students will actively participate in the delivery of this course through case and project presentations.

This course is broadly concerned with the design of user interfaces for machines and software. On computer displays, this refers to the shaping and the presentation of navigation controls and information displays, as well as functional controls for desktop computers, smartphones, wearables, and other everyday objects.

Students will learn basic principles and technologies of user interface design, interaction models and laws, and different user interface paradigms. In addition to software prototyping tools, practical topics may also include physical ergonomics, cognitive ergonomics, design guidelines for different platforms, design widgets, and accessibility.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Technical" Professional Requirement.

A capstone course synthesizes knowledge and skills in research and design to apply them to a meaningful project in a practical real-world context. In the domain of UXD, this involves conducting research to understand user needs and organizational priorities, discovering issues, gaps, and opportunities, and creating potential solutions by designing or redesigning interactions, services, interfaces, or experiences.

Situating discovery and design work in the context of a complex ecology of stakeholder values, needs, and priorities requires alignment, facilitation, presentation, and negotiation skills, while delivering impact and value through design involves strategic planning of research and design outputs, scoping activities and milestones, and selecting appropriate tools and approaches from the breadth of UX practice. Students receive coaching and guidance in supervised working sessions to complete a major capstone design project with an outside client organization.

This course can be used to fulfil the "Professional Values" Requirement.