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Kursusbeskrivelse
Kursusnavn (dansk):Society and Technology 
Kursusnavn (engelsk):Society and Technology 
Semester:Efterår 2013 
Udbydes under:Bachelor i global virksomhedsinformatik (bgbi) 
Omfang i ECTS:15,00 
Kursussprog:Engelsk 
Kursushjemmeside:https://learnit.itu.dk 
Min. antal deltagere:60 
Forventet antal deltagere:60 
Maks. antal deltagere:80 
Formelle forudsætninger:There are no formal prerequisites for this course. 
Læringsmål:After the course the student should be able to:
• Identify and compare various perspectives on technology.
• Identify reliable sources of data in social studies of technology.
• Analyze and interpret the development and use of information technology from different perspectives.
• Discuss society and technology in a global perspective.
• Sketch a research question within the area of social studies of technology.
• Make use of appropriate concepts and methods in a research design relating to social studies of technology.
• Create and present a well-document and analytically grounded written report based on research design and question. 
Fagligt indhold:The overall aim of the course is to enable students to understand and analyze relations between society and technology. Society and technology are often considered as separate entities. Some scholars have viewed technologies as neutral instruments enabling people to act more efficiently. Others have criticized technologies for dehumanizing or alienating humans from each other or from nature. Increasingly, however, it is understood that technologies are neither neutral, nor good or bad, but are inseparable from organizational, social, political and economical contexts.

Social research points to the mutual shaping of technology and society, and the transformative relationship between social organization and technology. People design, build, and support technological systems. Technologies transform human identity, culture, politics, and imagination, as well as shape everyday work practices in global organizations. This course introduces a range of critical approaches to technology. The course will provide an analytical toolkit to understand, study and analyze the multiple ways in which information technologies participate in our social, organizational and cultural lives.

Engaging with a diverse set of global technologies and critical themes, the course explores the relationships between society and technology. Examples include: Mobile Technologies (how do they change our social relationships, and ways of communicating?), Global Economic Systems (How do information technologies tie the world together through integrated global networks, and what are the consequences?), and Social and Technical Quantification (how do standards and classifications order our worlds and what are the implications of quantification for understanding how technologies are formed?).
Through an analysis of these questions, the course offers a basic introduction to new perspectives on the
relationship between technology, society and human practice. The course will include: A historical perspective to consider the past, present and future in our engagement with technology; critical perspectives from social studies of science and technology; and social and cultural approaches to the changing relations between humans and machines.

The course is organized around discussions of several themes:

Introduction to Society and Technology: Provides a general background, and basic social science analytical tools for understanding relations between society and technology in a global perspective.

Information Infrastructures: Introduces a sociotechnical framework for analysing the relations between social and technological change. Focus is on central historical transformations including the industrial and information revolutions and their global reach. Analytical keywords might include: sociotechnical systems, human and nonhuman actors, hybrids of society and technology.

Technological Controversies: Introduces and exemplifies the notion of technological controversies and discusses the method and purpose of studying technological controversies. Focuses particularly on actor network theory, social construction of technology and public understanding of science.
Technology and Classification: Focuses on the social and organizational implications of standards and quantification in making technologies and organizations work at a local as well as global scale. Offers tools for analyzing the social and organizational implications of standards and quantification, including boundary-objects, obligatory passage points, centers of calculation, politics of standards and classifications.

Technologies, People and Places: Focuses on analyses of the interrelationship and mutual shaping of technologies and the people that design and use them. Presents understandings of technical and social innovation and introduces the trope of the cyborg.

Society and Technology: Co-production. Explores social and political implications of genetic technologies and. Analytical keywords might include: sociotechnical production of identity, technology and difference, technology and the law, narratives of globalisation. 
Læringsaktiviteter:

Lectures that focus on reading and discussing issues central to topics of society and technology in a global perspective are combined with sessions run by teaching assistants, in which students are actively engaged in exercises relating to themes.

Preparations include finding, presenting and giving mutual feedback on empirical material. The first half of the course includes an individually prepared half-term synopsis and a group-based oral presentation of central concepts from the course. Students will also be assigned to give group based feedback on the presentations. These activities are mandatory requirements for taking the exam.

In the second half of the course, students plan and carry out a study of a relevant topic covered by the syllabus. This project work is conducted individually and involves making a research plan that includes sketching a research question, finding and analyzing relevant materials and writing a final report. 

Obligatoriske aktivititer:During this course students will be required to hand in mandatory assignments (e.g. attendance, papers, exercises, presentations, productions), that need to be completed/approved before being eligible to register for the examination and e.g. being allowed to submit written work for examination. Failure to hand in these mandatory assignments on time will mean that the registration for examination is annulled.

These mandatory assignments are (Deadlines are posted separately, e.g. on the course blog):
* individually prepared half-term synopsis
* group-based oral presentation
* group based feedback on the presentations
Submission/completion of mandatory activities before 11th October 2013 
Eksamensform og -beskrivelse:X. experimental examination form (7-scale; external exam), 7-trins-skala, Ekstern censur

Final Exam, individual essay of 5,000 words. Due before 14:00 December 16th 2013  

Litteratur udover forskningsartikler:Other materials from e.g. public press, internet etc., may be included. 
 
Afholdelse (tid og sted)
Kurset afholdes på følgende tid og sted:
UgedagTidspunktForelæsning/ØvelserStedLokale
Mandag 10.00-11.50 Forelæsning ITU Aud 4
Mandag 12.00-13.50 Øvelser ITU Aud 4, 4A16, 4A20
Mandag 14.00-15.50 Øvelser ITU Aud 4, 4A16, 4A20

Eksamen afholdes på følgende tid og sted:
EksamensdatoTidspunktEksamenstypeStedLokale
2013-12-16 No later than 2PM Skriftlige arbejder ITU Student Affairs and Program (wing 3D)