The second course I taught was IS20030 – Social Informatics: Information in Organisations. Social Informatics is the study of information systems- including social context. This fun and under-appreciated component of information studies distinguishes itself by including and expressing value in the social constructs around where and how information is stored, transferred, and the (sometimes unexpected) ways it can flow through organizations. This includes office floor plans and who lunches and golfs together. Literally anywhere information moves. Articles from this field of study have been cited by proponents of extreme programming (XP), the waterfall project management methodology, agile development, TDD, and I’m sure many others.

We read and discussed several pieces from the field including, importantly, Contextual Design by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. This kind of seminal article can help provide sound reasoning for how powerful a deeply considered system design can be.

Later in the semester students then applied these concepts to specific organizations in group projects culminating in a presentation of their findings toward semester’s end.

Another great subject to have been teaching – even if there were times when I was building the academic knowledge base right before teaching it. UCD gave me an amazing opportunity and they were some special semesters.