Programs

Social Informatics

Social Informatics track of the Ph.D. in Informatics
Ph.D. Requirements

The social informatics track of the Ph.D. in Informatics is an interdisciplinary program that may involve course work in other fields within the School of Informatics and Computing—such as complex systems, bioinformatics, human-computer interaction, data visualization, music informatics, and security informatics—as well as courses offered through the School of Library and Information Science and the Department of Telecommunications. Course work includes a social informatics core, specialized seminars and reading courses, research methods, and theory.

Download the current Ph.D. in Informatics handbook (PDF). We also recommend consulting the informatics section (PDF) of the University Graduate School Academic Bulletin for more detailed information about these requirements.

CURRICULUM

A total of 90 credit hours is required for this degree. No more than 30 of those hours can be counted from a master’s degree taken at Indiana University or a graduate program at another university. An additional 6 hours of master’s thesis or capstone project may be counted toward the Ph.D. at the discretion of the student’s program committee, assuming the thesis or capstone project is of sufficient research quality.

Required Informatics Courses (21 cr.)

  • INFO I501 Introduction to Informatics (3 cr.)
  • INFO I600 Professionalism/Pedagogy (3 cr.)
  • Two semester-long research rotations with social informatics faculty (6 cr. total)
  • Three core informatics courses outside the social informatics track, which may include classes in bioinformatics, cheminformatics, complex systems, human-computer interaction design, logical and mathematical foundations of informatics, music informatics, and security informatics (9 cr. total)

Theory, Methodology, and Elective Courses (33–42 cr.)

The student’s program committee will determine specific course work. For social informatics, some appropriate classes are:

  • INFO I537 Legal and Social Informatics of Security (3 cr.)
  • INFO I590 Globalizing Informatics (3 cr.)
  • INFO I605 Social Foundations of Informatics (3 cr.)
  • INFO I609 Advanced Seminar I in Informatics Topic: Social Informatics (3 cr.)
  • INFO I651 Ethnography of Information (3 cr.)
  • INFO I709 Advanced Seminar II in Informatics Topic: Social Informatics (3 cr.)

Dissertation Work (27–32 cr.)

MINOR

All students are required to have an appropriate minor inside or outside the school. Minors will be selected with the advisor’s recommendation. Some of the courses included in the minor may also count towards the student’s methodology or other requirements.

Academic Bulletins

PDF Version

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