LIBR 281-12
Seminar in Contemporary Issues (Focus: Visual Literacy)
Summer 2006 Greensheet
Mikel Breitenstein
E-mail
Office Hours: Via Blackboard, phone or e-mail. See Blackboard Course site.
| Greensheet Links Required Text and Readings Course Requirements |
Resources Blackboard Blackboard Tutorials |
Students must self-enroll on Blackboard. You will be required to use a password access code, which I will provide on the MySJSU Messaging system.
Course Description
People are not born knowing how to interpret what they see. But they begin to learn the language of visuals almost immediately, before they begin to read or speak. Contrary to a common myth, visual communication on an effective level is not an intuitive and culture-free natural gift. Visual Literacy is described as a field or a movement or a perspective - with the central premise that visual communication in industrialized society, like our written and spoken communications, is a culturally determined kind of literacy that can be taught for the purposes of sending and receiving messages in visual form. Visual Literacy was born in the mid-20th century, at the same time that electronic and global communications in visual form were becoming ubiquitous. Educators in a number of disciplines - but strongly centered around educational technology - recognized that training professional communicators (outside of the already-savvy fields of advertising and sales and politics) - could result in more effective visual messages that can be more clearly understood by those who view them. The need for the education of vision has become increasingly critical in the last two decades, in which many computer users have been creating and distributing visual materials without any training at all in the fundamentals of how people see and interpret visual signals. A course in Visual Literacy explains the fundamentals of visual interpretation; exposes the students to numerous past and current examples of visual "manipulation"; discusses the cultural centering of visual messaging; and shows students how to create effective visual messages for their intended audiences. Library and information science professionals benefit from deeper understanding of the message-interpreting perspectives of their patrons, and from being better communicators with their patrons.
Course Objectives
The goals of the course in Visual Literacy is to introduce the student to heightened cultural sensitivity to visual messages, to increase interpreted understanding of visual content; and to improve the visual messaging skills of the participants using both computer-software and non-computer-based techniques.
At the end of the course the student should be able to clearly express the needs of the audience for whom a message is made, to state the goals of the particular message, and to demonstrate effective visual message construction according to principles studied in class.
This course supports the following SLIS objectives:
- recognize the social, cultural and economic dimensions of information use
- demonstrate proficiency in the use of current information and communication technologies, and other related technologies, as they affect the resources and uses of libraries and other types of information providing entities
- describe the fundamental concepts of information-seeking behaviors - with visuals
- design training programs based on appropriate learning principles and theories - using visuals
- demonstrate oral and written communication skills
- evaluate programs and services on visual criteria
Required Text and Readings
Required Texts
- Dondis, Donis. (1973). A primer of visual literacy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN: 0262540290
- Sturkin, M. & Cartwright, L. (2001). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0198742711
- Tufte, Edward. (1997). Visual explanations. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press. ISBN: 0961392126 If you get a bargain by buying more than one Tufte book, I recommend that. All of his books are a great addition to one's library.
Additional Readings
Additional required articles and links will be supplied in class.
Course Requirements
Class Location & Meeting Schedule
This class has online weekly instruction. The first day of class is June 7.
Course Format
This course will be operated mostly through Blackboard software, supplemented by e-mail and telephone communications as needed. Students will need Blackboard access from Monday, June 5 - Friday, August 18. This is a structured weekly course, not self-paced. Students must have continual computer access for the duration of the course. Microsoft Word 2000 or later must be used for all submitted assignments.
Students will be required to send and receive files that may be as large as 8MB. If your current e-mail provider places smaller restrictions on your file sending and receiving capacity, you should obtain a free and unrestricted e-mail account from SLIS.
Students will do assigned readings, lead weekly discussions, respond to posted exercises and comments, and will complete major projects individually and perhaps in teams.
Student will need to have access to and be able to use Word (graphics), Powerpoint and Excel (all Microsoft products for basic activities). Student should be able to take digital photos or to have digital photos made from regular photos. Students may need to scan images from other documents. Basic skill in inserting images into text documents is assumed.
Tentative Course Calendar
The following course calendar is subject to reasonable modification - see Blackboard course site for more information.
The course "week" will run generally from Wednesday to Wednesday.
| Week - Topic | Assignment |
| Week 1 (June 7) - Elements of Visual Communication | |
| Week 2 (June 14) | Assignment 1 - Compare Visual Elements |
| Week 3 (June 21) - Media Literacy | Assignment 1 DUE |
| Week 4 (June 28) - Semiotics | Assignment 2 - Semiotics |
| Week 5 (July 5) - The Scope of Visual Information services | Research Week - Pick a Topic for your Final Paper Assignment 2 DUE (posted in class) |
| Week 6 (July 12) - Numbers and Pictures | Assignment 3 - Making an Accurate Graph |
| Week 7 (July 19) | Assignment 3 DUE |
| Week 8 (July 26) - Preparing User Information | Assignment 4 - Make a Powerpoint Presentation and a Handout |
| Week 9 (August 2) | Assignment 4 DUE (posted in class) |
| Week 10 (August 9) - Build Your Visual Resource Connections | Final Paper Due August 9 |
Grading
Grading is based on adherence to the assignment instructions, content accuracy, and quality of presentation (including grammar, punctuation, and layout). Grades on assignments may range from A+ to C-, and F. A grade of A is given for work that exceeds the basic expectations in terms of quality and content. A B grade is given for completion of basic requirements and meets the standards for acceptable work in the course. A C grade indicates that some parts of the work were not acceptable. An F indicates missing or very deficient work.
Late work is not accepted. However, all students have the option of turning in one assignment (except the last assignment) up to 48 hours late, without penalty or explanation. See explanation in Blackboard in Course Rules and Assignments.
Grading Scale
Assignments will be graded on the class curve for performance. In general, grading will be correlated to the following approximate scale established for graduate students by San José State University, after adjustment for the curve.
| 97-100 | A |
| 94-96 | A- |
| 91-93 | B+ |
| 88-90 | B |
| 85-87 | B- |
| 82-84 | C+ |
| 79-81 | C |
| 76-78 | C- |
| 73-75 | D+ |
Academic Integrity
Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment at San José State University, and the University's Academic Integrity Policy, requires you to be honest and thorough in documenting in all your academic course work. Faculty are required to report all infractions to the Office of Judicial Affairs. The policy on academic integrity can be found at http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/S04-12.pdf
Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, please e-mail me as soon as possible. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to establish record of their disability.
No matter where students reside, they should contact the SJSU DRC to register. The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/
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Phone: 408-924-2490
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