Faculty Teaching Opportunities

Description:

Pratt Institute School of Information seeks visiting assistant professors to teach the following courses:

INFO 606 Digital Accessibility (In-person only)

This course teaches students to apply accessibility standards and inclusive design principles to the design of digital technologies. Students will learn the language of accessibility and inclusion, how to create accessible interfaces and content, and relevant techniques for designing technologies that consider the full range of human diversity.

INFO 631 Academic Libraries & Scholarly Communication (In-person only)

This course will provide a survey of scholarly communication past and present with a particular emphasis on the changes in scholarly communication in the past ten years. Students will examine the interaction between society, technology and scholarly communication, the theory and practice of the communication of knowledge in academic and research environments and how these trend developments of publishing and communication are affecting changes in scholarly communications.

INFO 636 Conversational UX (In-person only)

Advances in artificial intelligence and voice technologies have enabled the creation of platforms and tools that support conversational interactions between people and devices. This course teaches students how to design effective and usable conversational interfaces from a human-centered perspective. From chatbots to intelligent personal assistants and other voice user interfaces (VUIs), students will learn the state of the art and science of conversation design, explore the conversational design process, and reflect on the ethical implications of designing conversational agents.

INFO 641 Visual Communication & Info Design (In-person only)

This course explores the principles and practices of visual communication as it pertains to displaying information of different types and in different formats. The course will cover basic theories of graphic design, including concepts related to typography, color, layout, and composition, how to analyze and conceptualize visual messages, and how to recognize and create a strong visual hierarchy. Students will gain skills necessary for practical application, learn how to establish and follow brand/identity guidelines, and prepare work for print or web production. Throughout the course, students will improve their basic aesthetic sensibilities, learn how to create a cohesive visual language, and develop strong visual thinking skills.

INFO 644 Usability Theory & Practice (In-person only)

This course provides the theoretical and practical foundations for evaluating digital interfaces from a user-centered perspective. Through lectures, in-class activities, readings and individual and group assignments, students will learn and apply usability principles and gain hands-on experience with several common usability evaluation methods, including traditional user testing plus inspection- and field-based methods. Because the goal of evaluation is always to improve the underlying usability of an interface, the course will focus on effectively communicating evaluation results. At the conclusion of this course, students will possess the knowledge and skills necessary for successfully planning, conducting, and leading usability evaluations in a variety of settings and organizations.

INFO 646 Digital Product Design (In-person only)

This course focuses on the process, practices, and tools for designing engaging, understandable, and technically feasible digital products. Students will learn about and apply advanced techniques and tools relevant to the entire product design lifecycle, including identifying, investigating, and validating design problems, as well as crafting, designing, and testing digital solutions. Students will also learn how to visualize and effectively communicate design insights to various stakeholders.

INFO 648 Mobile Interaction Design (In-person only)

This advanced course covers the fundamental concepts, techniques, practices, and guidelines associated with the design of mobile applications. Students will learn and apply user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) guidelines for popular mobile operation systems, as well as best practices for conduction formative evaluations of interactive mobile prototypes. Interface and interaction patterns for each platform are also examined. Through hands-on exercises and assignments, students will apply an iterative, user-centered process to create unique, engaging mobile interfaces that take into account relevant content requirements, device/platform limitations, and use cases.

INFO 649 Practical Ethnography for UX (In-person only)

This advanced course focuses on applied qualitative research methods used to inspire and shape the design of digital products and services. Students will gain hands-on experience with several ethnographic research methods commonly used in the User Experience profession and also learn how to form appropriate design research questions, analyze qualitative data to identify human-centered insights, and effectively communicate research finding to various stakeholders.

INFO 662 Advanced Cataloging (In-person only)

Students study advanced theory and practice in cataloging and classification with an emphasis on the Library of Congress classification schedules and cataloging of non-book media, and metadata for Web-based sources.

INFO 682 Projects in IXD (In-person only)

With a theoretical foundation that combines aspects of information science and user experience (UX) design, this course covers practical, hands-on approaches for working with information organizations to conceptualize and implement user centered tools, services, and/or information spaces. Throughout the course, students will explore and apply theories and principles of the emerging field of Information Experience Design (IXD) through applied, collaborative projects with partner institutions (e.g., libraries, archives, museums, or similar organizations). Topics will include design thinking, research and discovery, and project planning and implementation, with an emphasis on designing an information experience that meets the needs of both internal and external stakeholders.

INFO 693 Audience Research/Evaluation (In-person only)

Through hands-on experience, this course introduces students to the theory and practice of audience evaluation in a museum setting. Students will gain first-hand knowledge by executing an evaluation for a New York City institution. After two introductory sessions spent learning basic theory and practice, students will meet with museum staff to determine the research question and will then plan and execute the evaluation. Students learn how to build a research question, what to run the evaluation, how to mine the data for insights, how to write a compelling and useful report, and how to present findings to stakeholders. The final project is the evaluation report and presentation given to museum stakeholders. Through this course, students are able to immediately put theory to practice and will execute a portfolio-worthy final project. Although we are experiencing an era of "big data" it remains challenging for museums to understand their visitors. Despite the mountains of data available about people, museums often rely on seemingly dated audience evaluation techniques; and for good reason: "big data" doesn't. provide a complete picture of visitor behavior. This course examines the limitation of different research methodologies, data points, and evaluation approaches, and provides a critical understanding of the usefulness of audience evaluation as it relates to the museum field.