Bachelor of Information

The Bachelor of Information (BI) is a professional, two year, second-entry undergraduate degree program offered by the Faculty of Information. It consists of 11.0 credits. Students may apply as early as the second year of their undergraduate degree.

The BI considers the interactions between social worlds and information technologies, providing students with the conceptual tools and practical techniques necessary to understand and effect change in a data-intensive society. The program integrates design thinking, critical scholarship, and experiential learning to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to design and critique complex technical, political, and cultural responses to new and enduring information practices.

The academic content of the BI is clustered around three interdependent content areas (9.0 credits): The first examines theories of information, power and culture; the second addresses how information practice is organized at many social and political scales; and the third concerns techniques of digital practice. The common curriculum also includes two integrative courses: Work Integrated Learning Practicum and Capstone Project which will allows students to fully consolidate their learning.

Admission Requirements:

The BI is a second-entry undergraduate program. Students will apply directly to the program after having completed at least the equivalent of two years of full-time study (10.0 credits) at the undergraduate level in any discipline with a GPA of at least a B- (2.70) prior to admission

Credits from these courses are assessed as part of the admissions process, high school transcripts are not considered. Credits are not transferred into the University of Toronto, they will only be assessed to ensure applicants meet the admission requirements.

To be eligible for admission to the BI, applicants must submit:

Undergraduate Transcript (required)

Applicants must demonstrate completion of at least 10.0 FCE university-level courses, 4.0 FCE of which must be at the 200-level or higher. Candidates must demonstrate good academic standing and aptitude for transition to the BI program. For applicants in their second year of university study, at the time of application, in the spring of second year, only the first 1.5 years of academic standing will be available for initial assessment. Acceptance into the program will be conditional upon the candidate completing second year and achieving the required academic minimums.

A minimum average of 70%, or 2.70 GPA in the most recent 5.0 FCE completed.
At least 0.5 FCE with a grade of 70% or above in each of the following areas:
- formal systems (example courses include Calculus, Statistics, Formal Logic, Coding, or other math or science focused courses),
- socio-cultural systems (example courses include Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, or other humanities or social science courses), and
- creative practice (example courses include Design, Creative Writing, Performance or other art or design focused courses).

Personal Statement (required)

A statement that will specifically address the applicant’s intent in entering the BI program, their expectations of the program, and the ways in which their academic and other experience has prepared them for it. The statement can be presented using the applicant's preferred choice of media (essay, short video, powerpoint presentation, website, etc.)The statement will help the admissions committee identify applicants with excellent communication skills, and to determine fit between the applicant’s expectations and the BI program itself.

Transcript Explanation Essay (optional)

Transcripts don’t always speak for themselves or tell the whole story. We invite you to submit a brief (250 words max) statement that helps us read your transcript. You might wish to explain any circumstances that may have led to sub-optimal academic performance or tell the story of a change in your academic direction.

Proof of English Facility (if applicable)

All applicants educated outside Canada whose primary language is not English must demonstrate proficiency in the English language. Please see the requirements here: English Language Requirements - Future Students. University of Toronto | University of Toronto (utoronto.ca)

Second Degree Requirements

Students who have graduated with a degree from the University of Toronto or any other accredited university may apply for this program to begin a second degree. Before applying, students are encouraged to determine whether a second degree is actually required for their purposes; for example, a “make-up” year as a non-degree student may satisfy admission requirements if students are intending to pursue graduate school. Students are governed by the rules of the Faculty in place at the time they commence their second degree.

Completion Requirements:

The BI program consists of 11.0 full course equivalents (FCEs) over 5 consecutive terms (fall/winter/summer/fall/winter). These include:

• 5.0 credits in required lecture-based courses

INF301H1 Introduction to Information and Power
INF302H1 Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society
INF311H1 Information in the Cultural Imagination
INF312H1 Worlds Become Data
INF313H1 Computational Reasoning
INF314H1 Information, Memory, and Culture
INF315H1 Information Practice in Organizations
INF411H1 Information in the Global Economy
INF412H1 Data Analytics
INF413H1 Information Policy in Canadian and Global Contexts

• 3.0 credits in required studio-based courses

INF351H1 Information Design Studio I: How to Make a Computer. And Why.
INF352H1 Information Design Studio II: How to Design
INF353H1 Information Design Studio III: Designing Interactive Systems
INF451H1 Information Design Studio IV: Information Visualization
INF452H1 Information Design Studio V: Coding
INF453H1 Capstone Project

• 2.0 credits in lecture-based electives

• 1.0 credit Work Integrated Learning

INF401H1 From Classroom to Workplace
INF402H1 Work Integrated Learning Practicum

Bachelor of Information Courses

INF301H1 - Introduction to Information and Power

Hours: 24L/12T

This course addresses the ways in which information and information practices are shaping and being shaped by social conflicts, tensions, and alignments. It introduces and integrates issues of representation and knowledge production, privacy and community, autonomy and control, culture and property that are revealed, alleviated, or exacerbated as information practice changes.

Timetable: Year 1 - Fall
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF302H1 - Integrative Approaches to Technology and Society

Hours: 24L/12T

This course explores how society, culture, and understanding of the human condition influence, and are influenced by, technological development. It focuses on the study of interdependent and institutionalized systems of law, economics, culture and technology, exploring the conditions of stability and instability in these systems. We will survey the available theories and methods for understanding large scale socio-technological systems.

Timetable: Year 1 - Fall
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF311H1 - Information in the Cultural Imagination

Hours: 24L/12T

How is the idea of information constructed through cultural representation? How do imaginative works provoke us to think about information technologies? This course surveys the cultural history of the idea of information, from its historical roots to present-day representations in popular culture, drawing on film, television, video games, literature, art, advertising, performance, and other media.

Timetable: Year 1 - Fall
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF312H1 - Worlds Become Data

Hours: 24L/12T

This course covers issues in the practices of translating phenomena to data and algorithmic description. What happens, what is gained, what is lost, when things that happen in the world are recorded and made into information or recorded as a document? The course explores representation, modeling, correctness, reliability, and bias in data and algorithms.

Prerequisite: To be advised.
Timetable: Year 1 - Winter
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF313H1 - Computational Reasoning

Hours: 24L/12T

This course introduces principles and concepts of computational thinking and reasoning by providing an overview of data structures and algorithms, logic in computing, and programming paradigms such as object orientation and functions. It is accompanied by tutorials and assignments that make these concepts tangible and enable students to engage productively in the design of computational systems.

Timetable: Year 1 - Winter
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF314H1 - Information, Memory and Culture

Hours: 24L/12T

This course offers an opportunity to explore the theories and practices employed by cultural heritage institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums, to acquire, manage and preserve information objects. Students will learn about traditional and contemporary approaches to the making and unmaking of collective memory, and will develop an appreciation for the challenges concerning remembering and forgetting in the digital age.

Prerequisite: To be advised.
Timetable: Year 1 - Winter
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF315H1 - Information Practice in Organizations

Hours: 24L/12T

This course provides students with an understanding of organizations as social contexts where individuals enact information practices to carry out their work. Social contexts range from corporations and governmental agencies to fan clubs and activist organizations. Topics include ethnography, requirements modeling, records management, and knowledge translation and mobilization.

Timetable: Year 1 - Winter
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF351H1 - Information Design Studio I: How to Make a Computer. And Why.

Hours: 24L/24P

By developing a working system using lightweight computing platforms such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi and networked services, students will explore the implications of choices in architecture across the range from mainframes and personal computing to mobile devices and sensors, understand the nature of different network and service architectures including cloud computing, explore the relationship of hardware, data, and programs, and appreciate the various sensing mechanisms through which the world becomes data for the computer in operation.

Timetable: Year 1 - Fall
Course Category: Required Studio-Based Courses

INF352H1 - Information Design Studio II: How to Design

Hours: 24L/24P

Students will develop a general sense of design and the role it plays in the construction of our built environment. Human-centered design practices will be taught. Students will learn to identify important characteristics of the built environment using observational methods drawn from art and design practices, to analyze these characteristics using theories and perspectives drawn from relevant scholarship, and to represent their analyses using techniques of design sketching.

Timetable: Year 1 - Fall
Course Category: Required Studio-Based Courses

INF353H1 - Information Design Studio III: Designing Interactive Systems

Hours: 24L/24P

Using current computational tools students will use human-centered design methods to produce interactive systems that engage with socio-cultural issues and society. The course will mobilize analytic and technical skills drawn from other lecture and studio courses. Students will also engage in self and peer critique in order to reflect on their own digital objects and those they will encounter in society at large.

Prerequisite: To be advised.
Timetable: Year 1 - Summer
Course Category: Required Studio-Based Courses

INF401H1 - Practicum Prep

Where a university (or any formal educational setting) is student-centered and focused on facilitating student learning, a workplace is focused on its own strategic goals, stakeholders, and clients. Student learning is peripheral to the purpose of the organization. While it is assumed that any organization that engages a practicum student has a commitment to the educational value of the experience for all parties, employers are not responsible for the student’s academic development. In order for learning to occur in the workplace, the processes associated with learning (cognitive, emotional, affective, etc.) must be made conscious and accessible to the learner. This is the overriding purpose of this course: to create independent, autonomous and self-directed learning professionals.

Prerequisite: INF301, INF302
Timetable: Year 1 - Winter
Course Category: Practicum

INF402H1 - Work Integrated Learning Practicum

The practicum provides hands-on experience to supplement theoretical knowledge and to develop professional competencies. Students will complete a minimum of 100 hours of project work through one of the following: an unpaid internship, a faculty research project, a not-for-profit or an industry-based project. Students will be required to keep a reflective learning journal based on their personal, professional and intellectual growth, as well as produce a final report on the completion of their placement or project.

Prerequisite: INF 401 Practicum Prep
Timetable: Year 1 - Summer
Course Category: Practicum

INF411H1 - Information in the Global Economy

Hours: 24L/12T

This course surveys how information technologies, information services, and information itself are produced, circulated, and consumed. How is information made into a commodity? How are markets for information and information services created and sustained? Students will develop a basic understanding of the political, economic, cultural, and regulatory environment in which information, culture, and technologies are produced, as well as the implications of processes such as globalization, digitization, and commodification for social life.

Prerequisite: To be advised.
Timetable: Year 2 - Fall
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF412H1 - Data Analytics

Hours: 24L/12T

This examines core topics in probability and statistics through the study and practice of data analysis. Topics include hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, counts and tables, analysis of variance, regression, principal components, data summarization, and cluster analysis. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to critically think about data and use/implement standard statistical procedures to perform a wide range of analyses.

Timetable: Year 2 - Fall
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF413H1 - Information Policy in Canadian and Global Contexts

Hours: 24L/12T

This course provides students with an introduction to the history and development of information policy. Topics include Canadian and international regulations concerning data protection and privacy, intellectual and cultural property, and industrial organization. The course will also cover emerging models of governance and the politics of standards setting bodies and global treaty organizations.

Timetable: Year 2 - Fall
Course Category: Required Lecture-Based Courses

INF451H1 - Information Design Studio IV: Information Visualization

Hours: 24L/24P

Problems, practices, and techniques of conveying complex information analysis. Issues of clarity, persuasion, visual literacy, and cultural context will be explored. Students will develop a data visualization project that will speak to or engage surveillance, data analytics, activism, or other issues covered in advanced IDM courses.

Timetable: Year 2 - Fall
Course Category: Required Studio-Based Courses

INF452H1 - Information Design Studio V: Coding

Hours: 24L/24P

Students will develop skills in coding principles and practice by working with media artifacts. Students will write and modify code to address and engage issues covered in lecture based courses.

Timetable: Year 2 - Fall
Course Category: Required Studio-Based Courses

INF453H1 - Capstone Project

Hours: 24L/12P

A self-guided and collaborative student project. Students will identify a design problem, design a creative solution to the problem using a combination of skills from previous courses, and share their project with the class. Students will present the outcomes of their project in both visual and written formats.

Timetable: Year 2 - Winter
Course Category: Required Studio-Based Courses

INF481H1 - Special Topics in Information Studies I (Lecture/Elective)

Hours: 24L/12T

Special Topics in Information Studies I (Lecture/Elective)

Timetable: Year 2 - Winter
Course Category: Lecture-Based Electives

INF482H1 - Special Topics in Information Studies II (Lecture/Elective)

Hours: 24L/12T

Special Topics in Information Studies II (Lecture/Elective)

Timetable: Year 2 - Winter
Course Category: Lecture-Based Electives

INF483H1 - Special Topics in Information Studies III (Lecture/Elective)

Hours: 24L/12T

Special Topics in Information Studies III (Lecture/Elective)

Timetable: Year 2 - Winter
Course Category: Lecture-Based Electives

INF484H1 - Special Topics in Information Studies IV (Lecture/Elective)

Hours: 24L/12T

Special Topics in Information Studies IV (Lecture/Elective)

Timetable: Year 2 - Winter
Course Category: Lecture-Based Electives