Tools for Information Literacy
Welcome to INLS 161-001
This site houses the course files and syllabus for INLS 161-001, Tools for Information Literacy.
The course runs from 10 January to 07 May, 2018.
The class meets Monday-Wednesday (except holidays) at 3:35-4:50 in Manning Hall, room 117 (the computer lab inside the SILS library).
Directions: Come up the front steps of Manning, go through the entry area and turn right, then take the first left towards the library. After entering the library, turn left and keep left of main library checkout desk. Keep walking and stay left of the computers behind the checkout desk. Room 117 is through the door behind the library work stations.
The above syllabus link has information concerning course details, readings, lectures, labs, grading, the honor code and the SILS/UNC diversity statement. The class lectures are listed under the schedule page. This site is created so that it can be accessed by mobile phones and various screen sizes.
Below is a graphic that shows some of the various information tools we will study.
In the center are six images that represent the layers of information tools that will form the core of our course. The descriptions start with the black hexagons with the green symbols and continue around the circle clockwise.
1. Basics
is represented by a common command-line icon. Your actual user command-line prompt will most likely be a dollar sign: $
We will learn about clients, servers, and networks in the basics section. There will be a lot of hands-on command-line work. You will learn these commands: pwd, mdir, cd, touch, clear, ls, rm, mv. You will also learn about version control using git.
2. Web Development
is represented by a <br> html tag.
We will learn many more html tags and we will also learn CSS and scripting in this section.
3. Document Markup
Continuing clockwise, we have a paragraph tag to represent our DOCUMENT MARKUP section. We will work with with document generation tools in this section.
4. Spreadsheets
are represented by a fx symbol that represents a SPREADSHEET function. (We will primarily use Microsoft Excel in this section)
5. Databases
are represented by a stack of disks, which is a common icon used to designate DATABASES. (Microsoft Access)
6. Presentations
are represented a "work area" graphic for developing and organizing PRESENTATIONS. (Microsoft Powerpoint, or Prezi or reveal.js)
Many of these concepts apply to multiple areas. For example, reveal.js is a presentation framework and allows you to create slide presentations, but it overlaps with command line tools (basics) and web development.
There are so many information tools largely because there is no silver bullet. No one tool does everything well. Also, in this age of open source colaboration, information tools will continue to grow and change a great deal in a very short span of time. However, the foundational principles are fairly solid, so we will do our best to focus on elemental concepts.