Special Topics in Public Scholarship (MALS 74900, 3 credits)
Intricacies and Ethics of Scholarly Information
Instructor: Jill Cirasella (she/her)
Email: jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu
Office phone (not recommended): (212) 817-7046
Office hours: By appointment, with standing availability 4-5pm Mondays and Wednesdays
Mode of Instruction: Hybrid Synchronous
Days: Mondays and Wednesdays (starting May 31, ending July 19)
Time: 6:00-8:10 p.m. (with a break around 7 p.m.)
In-person dates: 5/31, 6/7, 6/14, 6/21, 6/28, 7/12, 7/19 (all Wednesdays except 7/5)
In-person location: Room 5212
All other dates on Zoom (link to be shared by email and in group forum)
Course description: This course is an opportunity to step back and consider the scholarly information landscape that you inhabit as a graduate student and researcher. We will explore traditional and emerging forms of scholarship, how works enter the scholarly record, and how they’re discovered, accessed, and evaluated. Throughout, we will also ask whose perspectives are excluded, whose contributions are undervalued, and how the systems at play reproduce biases and compound inequities. We will also turn the lens on ourselves, examining both the ethical implications of our participation in this ecosystem and the ways in which we can contribute to a more equitable future.
Required course materials: This is a zero-textbook-cost (ZTC) course. All assigned readings will either be publicly accessible or available via the Graduate Center’s Mina Rees Library.
Online discussion forum: Course group on CUNY Academic Commons (private, must have Commons account to join).
