HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW SECTION RVC-C SPRING 2018 Professor Information Instructor: Alfred Soto Phone: 305-919-4722 or 305-348-2709 Office: GC 210 Office Hours: By message through email below E-mail: sotoa@fiu.edu Website: http://hwknow.com/ The instructor maintains a WordPress site to post readings, assignments, and notes. You should visit the site frequently. OVERVIEW World, national and local events of the past two decades have triggered the most extreme and traumatic transformation of information technology and communication since Johann Gutenberg successfully linked moveable type with early-automated press technology. The viral spread of digitized information demands education and awareness to enable you to locate, evaluate, and effectively use information. How We Know What We Know is a course that merges the skills of global information literacy with the critical perspective required to ascertain and measure the authenticity and credibility of what you consume in your academic and casual research and writing. The course will provide you an understanding of the diverse and complex nature of information, bringing order to and maximizing the value of the information glut and chaos, while limiting its potential harm. Course Description and Purpose The course is designed for students in all disciplines to experience the effects of information on their lives and the local, national and global communities. It explains how information gets made and why it gets made the way it does. Course content will cast events against the backdrop of social and cultural scenarios and examine how written, spoken and other expressive forms of information influence history and humankind. Further, the course will provide tools to translate, negotiate, and understand these various texts so students obtain the ability to assess the need for information, the skills to access and critically evaluate information, and the knowledge to integrate that information in personal, professional, and scholarly activities. The course will examine

the ethical, socio-economic, and legal implications of the use and misuse of information in the digital age.

In broad terms, the course will increase your knowledge of issues, processes, trends, and systems in the collection, analysis and use of information on local, national, and global scales. Toward those ends, you will be challenged by these general, broadbased questions:

1. What roles do information and information literacy play in geopolitical change? 2. How does angle of vision affect cultural perspectives regarding information? 3. What knowledge and skills are necessary to help today’s global citizens become

more effective information consumers and scholars? Learning Outcomes You also will be expected to demonstrate mastery of knowledge and skills (outcomes) that will help you develop into much better researchers and information consumers. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

1. Identify types, sources, and formats of information. 2. Critically evaluate types, sources, and formats of information to develop

searches that produce new views or attitudes toward issues, trends, and systems.

3. Dramatize how researchers and media practitioners gather, compile, and analyze information for local, national and international audiences.

Core Curriculum Outcomes

1. Explain the purpose, rationale, legal principles, ethics and sanctity of intellectual property.

2. Apply rhetorical methods as they are used to affect a variety of information sources for global audiences.

3. Explain, interpret, evaluate, elaborate, and describe in an organized critical and analytical fashion how the trajectory of a recent world event was shaped by various information systems.

Global Learning Outcomes

1. Students will be able to compare and contrast their point of view on a recent news article and the perspectives of others on the same article.

Course Objectives Essential Questions

2. Students will be able to compare and contrast factors in the balance between the right to privacy and free and open access to information in global societies.

3. Students will be able to interpret the interrelationship between global information systems and politics.

4. Students will demonstrate a willingness to accept shared responsibility for solving problems associated with legal and ethical ramifications of intellectual property.

5. Students will identify ways they intend to act as information literacy ambassadors to help others better understand the creation and uses of information.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION Policies Please review the FIU's Policies webpage. The policies webpage contains essential information regarding guidelines relevant to all courses at FIU, as well as additional information about acceptable netiquette for online courses. Personal Electronics: Use of cell phones, PDAs or MP3 players during class is prohibited. Computers may be used only with instructor permission. Lectures may be recorded, but only with prior approval of the professors. If you are caught using any banned device during a quiz or exam, you will be considered in violation of the university’s policy on academic dishonesty. Civility: The classroom is a place of learning. We will make that process as enjoyable as possible, but the classroom is not a meeting place for casual conversation or a lounge for taking naps. It is also not a place for rudeness. Displays of disrespect for fellow students or the professors will not be tolerated. If you sleep in class, you will be asked to leave for the rest of the class period. If you have a cellular phone, turn it off before you enter the classroom. If you forget and it goes off in class, turn it off immediately and stow it away. If you answer your phone, you must leave the room for the rest of the class period. As a member of the FIU community you are expected to be knowledgeable about the behavioral expectations set forth in the FIU Student Code of Conduct. Technical Requirements & Skills One of the greatest barriers to taking an online course is a lack of basic computer literacy. By computer literacy we mean being able to manage and organize computer files efficiently, and learning to use your computer's operating system and software quickly and easily. Keep in mind that this is not a computer literacy course; but students enrolled in online courses are expected to have moderate proficiency using a computer. Please go to the "What's Required" webpage to find out more information on this subject. Please visit our Technical Requirements webpage for additional information.

Accessibility and Accommodation The Disability Resource Center collaborates with students, faculty, staff, and community members to create diverse learning environments that are usable, equitable, inclusive and sustainable. The DRC provides FIU students with disabilities the necessary support to successfully complete their education and participate in activities available to all students. If you have a diagnosed disability and plan to utilize academic accommodations, please contact the Center at 305-348-3532 or visit them at the Graham Center GC 190. Please visit our ADA Compliance webpage for information about accessibility involving the tools used in this course. Please visit Blackboard's Commitment Accessibility webpage for more information. For additional assistance please contact FIU's Disability Resource Center.

Florida International University is a community dedicated to generating and imparting knowledge through excellent teaching and research, the rigorous and respectful exchange of ideas and community service. All students should respect the right of others to have an equitable opportunity to learn and honestly to demonstrate the quality of their learning. Therefore, all students are expected to adhere to a standard of academic conduct, which demonstrates respect for themselves, their fellow students, and the educational mission of the University. All students are deemed by the University to understand that if they are found responsible for academic misconduct, they will be subject to the Academic Misconduct procedures and sanctions, as outlined in the Student Handbook: Academic Misconduct includes: Cheating – The unauthorized use of books, notes, aids, electronic sources; or assistance from another person with respect to examinations, course assignments, field service reports, class recitations; or the unauthorized possession of examination papers or course materials, whether originally authorized or not. Plagiarism – The use and appropriation of another’s work without any indication of the source and the representation of such work as the student’s own. Any student who fails to give credit for ideas, expressions or materials taken from another source, including internet sources, is responsible for plagiarism. Learn more about the academic integrity policies and procedures as well as student resources that can help you prepare for a successful semester. Textbook: There is no textbook for this course. All readings are assigned by faculty. Expectations of This Course: This is an online course, which means all of the course work will be conducted online. Expectations for performance in an online course are the

Academic Misconduct Statement

same for a traditional course. In fact, online courses require a degree of self-motivation, self-discipline, and technology skills which can make these courses more demanding for some students. The instructor maintains a WordPress site to post readings, assignments, notes and grade reports at howweknowwhatweknow.wordpress.com. You should visit the site frequently. You also are responsible for checking grade reports each time they are posted. With so many students in the course, we cannot manage grade appeals more than a week after the posting, so please keep a close watch on your grade. Make it a point to check it each time you have a grade assignment Contract: When you first login to the class Blackboard site, you must agree to an online contract. Once you have done so, you will be able to access the Blackboard site normally. COURSE DETAIL Course Communication: Communication in this course will take place via Email. The Email feature is an external communication tool that allows users to send emails to users enrolled within the course. Emails are sent to the students’ FIU email on record. The Email tool is located on the Course Menu, on the left side of the course webpage. Assignments: You will be required to read The New York Times. You will be administered individual and team Readiness Assurance Tests most weeks. You must read all assigned readings before the week designated in the course schedule section. You will have outside Web exploration assignments and Web readings. You will be evaluated with a letter grade based on percentage. The gradebook will reflect your percent average throughout the semester. There will be:

• 7 individual (50 points each) Readiness Assurance Tests on ALL READINGS IN ADVANCE (total 350 points)

• 6 individual and 3 team assignments (450 points total) • 3 team-based peer evaluations (25 points each for 75 points total) • 9 exercises (450) total • 1,000-word capstone writing assignment (400 points) • Two pre- and post-test assessment activities, each worth 10 extra credit points. There may be other extra credit opportunities during the semester.

RATs: You are responsible for reading or viewing the materials listed for the week of the meeting and all issues of the New York Times BEFORE the RATs are administered in class.

Readings: The readings in the course will come from The New York Times and articles the instructor has selected in advance. There are links to most articles and web sites under the READINGS tab of the WordPress site. Any others you will need to find using the bibliography at the end of this syllabus and looking up the articles in library databases. During the semester, the instructor may be posting additional readings that are published as the semester moves along. In some instances, the instructor will post articles in pdf format on the WordPress site. Individual Assignments and Team Assignments: All assignments are done on WordPress. Final Essay: You will choose a recent world event and write a 1,000-word Wiki that explains, from a critical and global perspective, how the trajectory of this event was shaped by various information systems. Your goal is to evaluate the authenticity and credibility of information reported about this world event, so the essay should demonstrate your understanding of the diverse and complex nature of information, bringing order to and maximizing the value of the information for the audience it reaches. True to the title of this course, your essay will help you come full circle, in that you must explain how we know what we know about this world event. Thus, your essay should state a thesis that not only analyzes how the event was covered, but what this coverage means on a global level.

Schedule for spring semester 2018 (Subject to change by instructor) Week of Jan. 8

Topic: Welcome and introduction to the course Details: • The syllabus. Why this matters. • How to read the New York Times. • Readiness Assurance Tests (RATs) on NY Times articles and readings Test: Pre-test and Survey on Global Service on Blackboard. First, read instructions in PowerPoint on Blackboard on how to take a test on Blackboard. . Read: Mediactive (Introduction and Chapters 1-3). Access the readings under the READINGS tab of the WordPress site https://hwknow.com/

Week of Jan. 15:

Topic: How rhetorical methods affect information sources for global audiences Details: • The Rhetorical Triangle. • The critical perspective. • How to use WordPress; sign in to WordPress Read:

1) Why our memory fails us 2) Comment is king 3) Writing a rhetorical analysis 4) 4) The rhetorical triangle 5) Don’t read the comments.

Lecture: The rhetorical triangle Exam: RAT 1 over syllabus on Blackboard. Test opens on Blackboard on Jan. 14 and closes Jan. 21 at 11:59 p.m. u INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 1: Rhetorical analysis. WordPress blog (Due Jan. 22 by 11:59 p.m.)

Week of Jan. 22

Topic: Critical Perspective and Marshall McLuhan Details: • The critical perspective. • The medium is the message Lectures: The critical perspective & The medium is the message Read: Marshall McLuhan: a candid conversation (1-14); Understanding media (232-242). u INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 2: McLuhan and the critical perspective. WordPress site (250 words; worth 25 points. Due Jan. 28 at 11:59 p.m.).

Week of Jan. 29

Topic: Analyzing sources Details: The information environment in Ghost in the Shell movie RAT 2 over Jan. 8, 15, and 22 readings and NY Times. Test opens on Blackboard on Jan. 28 and closes Feb. 4 at 11: 59 p.m. Viewings: Watch Ghost in the Shell movie Reading: The End of Solitude (Deresiewicz) u TEAM ASSIGNMENT 1: Ghost in the Shell and Team Evaluations. WordPress. (Due Feb. 4 by 11:59 p.m.)

Week of Feb. 5

Topic: The interrelationship between global information systems, politics and government control of information as it relates to global events Details: The control of information in China and Cuba. Read:

• Pushing China’s limits • Media censorship in China • The Internet was supposed to foster democracy • Havana’ s hotspots • Apple removes Apps from China Store that help Internet users

evade Censorship. Lecture:

• China’s Golden Shield Project, or the Great Firewall of China • Cuba and the Internet

Study:

• China's government fabricates about 488 million social media posts every year.

• Social media helps drive historic Cuban exodus to U.S. • U.S. secretly created 'Cuban Twitter' to stir unrest and undermine

government. u INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 3: 48-hour news blackout. WordPress (Due Feb. 11 by 11:59 p.m.)

Week of Feb. 11

Topic: Secrecy and Revelation Readings:

• No secrets, Julian Assange’s mission • The WikiLeaks equation • Sony cyberattack, first a nuisance, swiftly grew into a firestorm • Ghosts in the machine: The real hackers hiding behind the clichés of

“TalkTalk” and “Mr. Robot” Lecture: The case of Wikileaks RAT 3: Jan. 29 and Feb. 5 and Feb. 11 readings and NY Times. The Case of Assange and Wikileaks Test opens on Blackboard on Feb. 10 and closes Feb. 17 at 11:59 p.m. u INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 4: Secrets/Revelations (Due Feb. 18 by 11:59 p.m.)

Week of Feb. 19

Topic: Hillary Clinton, Edward Snowden, national security and press freedom. Details: Hackers, hacktivism, and the free flow of information. The role of whistleblowers. Cyberwarfare and Cyber conflict. The 2016 election. Edward Snowden, national security and press freedom. Readings:

• Edward Snowden, whistle-blower • Edward Snowden: Leaks that exposed US spy program • GCHQ tried to track web visits of "Every Visible User on the

Internet" Lecture: Hillary Clinton, Edward Snowden, national security and press freedom and Hackers, hacktivism, and the free flow of information Viewings: How to Write a Thesis Statement u INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 5: Draft thesis assignment, WordPress (250 words, worth 25 points. Due March 26 by 11:59 p.m.)

Week of Feb. 26

Topic: News Literacy and Fake News. Details: The Post-Truth Era: Media Literacy, News Literacy, Fake News, and Partisan News. Is fake news new? Practicing safe news by being your own critic. Readings:

• How to teach news literacy when the government is watching • How to establish a media diet • News literacy Is not optional if you need to be well-informed • This is what it’s like to read fake news for two weeks • How teens in The Balkans are duping Trump supporters with fake

news • How fake news spreads • How to spot fake news • For the new yellow journalists • How fake news goes viral.

Lecture: News Literacy and Fake News RAT 4 over Feb. 19 and Feb. 26 readings and NY Times. Test opens on Blackboard on Feb. 25 and closes March 4 at 11:59 p.m. u Team Assignment 2: Fake News: Find it, Make it. WordPress. Due March 5 at 11:59 p.m.

Week of March 5

Topic: Researching the Varieties of Information Readings: FIU Library Tutorials (complete all 5 modules) Viewings: Information and how to get it for the final essay. Lectures: Information and how to get it for the final essay. u INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 6: Annotated bibliography, WordPress (Due March 11 at 11:59 p.m.)

Week of March 19

Topic: Identity Correction Readings:

• Yes Men Bhopal legacy • Yes Men hoax of the Times • New York Mag’s boy genius investor made it all up

Lectures: The Yes Men Fix the World (YouTube). Watch Yes Men interview on YouTube. RAT 5 over March 12 and March 19 readings and New York Times. Test opens on Blackboard on March at midnight and closes on March 25 at 11:59 p.m. u TEAM ASSIGNMENT 3: TEAM ASSIGNMENT 3: Identity Correction and team evaluation. Wikispaces. (Due March 26 by class time).Team evaluation. WordPress. (Due March 18 by 11:59 p.m.) [Announce before spring break]

Week of March 26

Topic: Social Media, Political Movements, and Activism Details: Black Lives Matter, deaths at police officers’ hands, Venezuela and social media, memes in politics. Readings:

• Small change • Perhaps a revolution is not what we need • Social media, political change and human rights • #Riot • How social media helps Black Lives Matter fight the power

Lectures: #Revolution, Memes in Politics, and Venezuelan protests and Social Media u FIRST DRAFT OF FINAL ESSAY (optional): Submit text-only version in Word format to Blackboard using Wordpress. Deadline is March 26. No essays submitted after that will be edited. u Edited essays will be returned by April 2.

Week of April 2

Topic: The dawn of “investigative comedy.” Writing Lab: Team B paper copy of draft final essay for review by teammates. Wikispaces version of draft final essay for review by grader. Listen: to On Point radio show “The Jon Stewart Effect” (about 50 minutes) Lectures: The dawn of investigative comedy Readings:

• Waiting for the conservative Jon Stewart • Is Jon Stewart the most trusted man in America? • How comedians became public intellectuals

RAT 6 over March 26 and April 2 readings and NY Times opens on Blackboard on April 1 and closes April 8 at 11:59 p.m.

Week of April 9

u SECOND DRAFT OF FINAL ESSAY (optional): Submit text-and images version in Word format to Blackboard using Turtitin. Deadline is April 9. No essays submitted after that will be edited. u Edited essays will be returned by April 15.

Week of April 16

Topic: The purpose, rationale, legal principles, ethics and sanctity of intellectual property Details: History of, justification for, and problems with copyright. Readings:

• Copyright Basics • Free Culture

Lectures: Intellectual Property Viewings: Good Copy, Bad Copy RAT 7: April 9 and 16 readings and New York Times opens April 15 and closes April 2 at 11:59 p.m. Online: Post-test Survey and Survey on Global Service Writing Lab B: Team B final draft of final essay. WordPress version of draft final essay for review by grader.

Week of April 23

u FINAL ESSAY: Essay with text and visuals must be posted on our How We Know website by April 21 at 11:59 p.m.