
Learn the information architecture framework for information systems, covering environment, information technology, and control, plus the information lifecycle—from data creation to maintenance—risk, compliance, and cloud services for secure collaboration.
Explore the information lifecycle, including acquisition, metadata, conversion, storage, and use, showing how data becomes information and insights through analytics and reporting.
Explore core hardware foundations behind information systems, from cpu, motherboard, ram, storage, gpu, to power supply and case; compare 32-bit and 64-bit architectures and the role of cooling.
Explore open source software and open content, including Creative Commons licenses, open standards, and open formats, and understand their impact on interoperability and innovation.
Explore how operating systems power devices through kernels, user land, and bootloaders, with Linux and BSD at the core. See how POSIX standards and package managers enable interoperability.
Explore how storage unites hardware and software, detailing physical partitions, logical volumes, and file systems, then compare relational databases with non relational databases, and discuss keys, structured query language, indexing, and online analytical processing.
Explore the services block uniting hardware, software, and storage, tracing the shift from thin clients to cloud computing. Explore infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and SaaS.
Explore how security protects data through permissions, authentication, and hardening within the Arch framework, including Unix-like permissions, root user, role-based access, and social engineering defenses.
Explore how confidentiality and privacy protect information across the lifecycle using rights management, intermediation, and encryption, including proxy servers, VPNs, and public key cryptography.
Learn how availability keeps systems and data accessible, even against threats like denial of service and ransomware. Explore redundancy, backups, change management, and emulation to ensure reliable information systems.
This course is a primer on information and technology in business. It's intended for those who wish to increase their IT skills either for personal or business use, to enhance their ability to collaborate with IT professionals, or who wish to pursue IT certifications. At the end of this course, you'll be able to "talk tech" and you'll have a solid grasp of the fundamentals of information technology.
This course begins by introducing the information and Big Data life cycles, information technology (hardware, software, storage, and services), and information control (security, confidentiality and privacy, availability, and processing integrity) using a single unifying framework. This framework is used in information systems courses for business majors at the undergraduate level. It includes all of the topics covered in an introductory university course.
The first module in this course introduces the framework and explains how economic forces, such as compliance, the business model, and risk, govern the role of information and technology in a business environment. Each of the remaining ten modules focuses on one of the building blocks of the framework:
Information and Big Data life cycles
Computer hardware
Open source software
Operating systems
File and database storage
Kernel and web services
Data security
Confidentiality & privacy
Data and systems availability
Data entry and processing integrity
Course image by Jeroen Bennink, some rights reserved under license CC BY 2.0