3 credits
Spring 2026 Distance Learning Lower Division
This course will provide a foundation for navigating and engaging with the information-rich world. Students will define and assess information in order to address real-world situations; map their information landscape and effectively engage with information systems as well as human sources of information; develop a practice of critical and ethical information use; and conceptualize, apply, and examine the strategies for information and knowledge management, production, and dissemination. Students will examine the societal impact and implications of information and information privilege to explore the applications and consequences of information, in addition to examining data practices and methods. This will provide students with an opportunity to strengthen their research and information literacy skills, reflect in an informed and critical manner, and give them the tools to successfully make ethical, evidence-based decisions in the academic and professional context.
Learning Outcomes1Identify different types of primary and secondary information formats and how they are created.
2Analyze the societal, historical, and political significance of information.
3Identify and explain different types of information-seeking behaviors.
4Demonstrate ethical attribution of sources in their own information production.
5Critically evaluate information.
6Synthesize information in order to make ethical and evidence-based decisions.
7Identify interested parties, such as scholars, experts, archives, organizations, governments, and industries, who might produce or house information about a topic and then determine how to access that information.
8Match information needs and search strategies to appropriate search tools.
9Design and refine needs and search strategies.
10Understand how information systems (i.e., collections of recorded information) are organized in order to access relevant information.
11Understand how and why information is selected for long-term preservation and access.
12Organize information in situationally relevant ways.
13Explain different forms of information dissemination.
14Explore different professional pathways and career options in relation to information.
15Analyze and criticize forms of preservation.
made by Purdue students.