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Welcome to Issues in Professional and Public Discourse (English 4874). This web site serves Jim Collier's section of the course, Managing Knowledge and Information (CRN: 12879), for spring 2010.

Course Description

Once viewed as a public good, we now treat knowledge and information as commodities in the digital marketplace. The sites where knowledge and information are produced have migrated from universities, to research parks, to individual designers. In this course we will explore the historical and theoretical landscape, and practical implications, of managing knowledge and information in the digital age. We will analyze how terms common to us — 'knowledge,' 'information,' 'content' — are appropriated and redefined by "knowledge professionals." We will investigate the countercultural roots of the Internet. We will analyze how digital technologies transform our notions of collective wisdom, individual expression, privacy, anarchy and control. We will examine our intuitions regarding the social influence of Web 2.0. And, most importantly, we will address critically your place in the digital revolution as a creator, possessor and manager, perhaps, of knowledge and information.