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Bits
CSCI E-2
Bits (22883)
(Website)
Harry R. Lewis, PhD, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University.
Course tuition: noncredit, undergraduate, and graduate credit $1,725.
Spring term
Online only, beginning Jan. 29. See Distance Education. Required sections to be arranged.
Lecture 1 video.
This course focuses on information as quantity, resource, and property. We study the application of quantitative methods to understanding how information technologies inform issues of public policy, regulation, and law. How are music, images, and telephone conversations represented digitally, and how are they moved reliably from place to place through wires, glass fibers, and the air? Who owns information, who owns software, what forms of regulation and law restrict the communication and use of information, and does it matter? How can personal privacy be protected at the same time that society benefits from communicated or shared information? Mathematical methods are developed in the context of course material. The recorded lectures are from the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences course Quantitative Reasoning 48. Prerequisite: high school algebra. Students must view sample online lectures before they register. (4 credits)