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ITEC 112

ITEC 112: A Global Perspective of Information Technology.

Credit Hours: (3)

A study of information and communication technologies (ICT) with respect to how ICT supports, shapes, and enables economic and social changes.  Covers the challenges of managing ICT and studies the impact of ICT on business and society in an increasingly globalized world.  This course has been approved for Core Curriculum credit in Global Perspectives. 

 

Detailed Description of Content of Course

  1. The Driving Forces of Change
    1. Innovations in the computing industry
    2. Open source, open standards
    3. The Internet
    4. Social networking (phenomena, impact, tools)
  2. The Global Networked Economy
    1. Business models
    2. Cultural difference and influence
    3. IT infrastructure and service model
    4. Global sourcing
    5. Distributed teams
    6. Collaboration Tools
    7. Enterprise Information Security
    8. Protecting data across borders
  3. Ethics and Social Issues
    1. Privacy
    2. Intellectual property
    3. Green IT and ecological sustainability

 

Detailed Description of Conduct of Course

The course materials will be delivered using a mix of readings, lectures, case studies, guest speakers, and projects. Students are required to read selected materials assigned to each topic. The sources of these readings may include textbooks, research papers, practitioners’ magazines and forums, news, etc. Lectures and class discussions will be used to facilitate understanding of the readings. Teaching cases will be used to give the students an opportunity to apply the theories and concepts to the analysis of real world situations, and subsequently gain a deeper understanding.  This course will incorporate relevant current events as much as possible to keep the content up-to-date. Given the broad range of topics, guest speakers will be a valuable resource for the class.  RU faculty from relevant fields will be tapped. As part of the conduct of this course, the students will be required to study a prominent ICT application to gain in-depth understanding of how ICT may bring economic and social changes.

 

Goals and Objectives of the Course

This course will fulfill the objectives under Goal 11 of the College Core area.

Goal 11: Radford University students will understand how social and cultural (for example, political, historical, economic, environmental, religious, or geographic) forces shape experiences in the global setting. Radford University students will be able to:

        a. Compare and contrast different perspectives used to explain the world or international issues

        b. Use material studied to explain cross-cultural issues in the world

        c. Evaluate differences and similarities among world cultures that affect perceptions, beliefs, or behaviors, and thus relationships between those cultures

Having successfully completed the course, ITEC 112 students will gain a sound understanding of ICT as a force underlying the changes in business strategy, business model, and global sourcing and collaboration. They will be able to analyze issues relevant to long-term development such as global sourcing and ecological sustainability. This course also increases the students’ awareness of cultural and economic differences, which help to understand and interpret issues and challenges caused by these differences.

 

There are two sets of objectives in this course, IT objectives and general education objectives, with the former set supporting the latter set of objectives. Detailed course objectives and their relationships with the items in Goal 11 are described below.

 

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate in-depth understanding of the technical features of one prominent ICT application.

2. Evaluate the importance of ICT and data analysis in business operation.

3. Identify security risks and describe privacy and ethical issues.

4. Analyze how traditional business models may be challenged by ICT.

 

 

 Goal 11 (a)

Goal 11 (b)

Goal 11 (c)

5. Describe how technology has shaped the current global economy, global workforce, and global views. 

 

x

 

6. Describe a current technology with a global impact on business and society.  Explain how the technology works, how it has evolved, the problems it has solved and problems it has created. 

x

x

x

7. Predict how emerging technologies are likely to change global perspectives.

x

x

 

8. Compare different perspectives on information technologies and emerging business relationships.

x

 

 

9. Analyze how cultural and social factors may affect the adoption of information technologies.

 

x

x

10. Evaluate how IT diffusion may increase or reduce the gap between developing and developed economies.

 

x

x

11. Assess how IT diffusion may change the cultural and social environment of the adopting society.

 

x

 

 

 

Assessment Measures

Students will produce formal and informal texts, spoken and written, which will be graded according to a set of rubrics designed with the outcomes in mind. Evaluation will be based on class discussions, quizzes, exams, and homework assignments.

 

Other Course Information

None.

 

Review and Approval

Jan. 2, 2009                      New course proposal             Art Carter, Chair

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