According to a staff memo signed by SI dean Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, the degree program “will teach students a variety of social and technical levers for changing information flows: how to elicit information that would not otherwise be gathered; how to make it accessible when it would not otherwise be (and vice-versa); how to aggregate and present it in ways that make it meaningful and actionable. It will also teach students how to analyze information flows (who knows what and when) and their implications for power, money, health, and happiness. And they will have the skills to discover, analyze and apply knowledge through global networks of sensors and humans (expert and not).”

The school currently offers graduate degrees, including a new masters of health informatics, offered jointly with the School of Public Health starting in the fall of 2012. Students can also earn an undergraduate degree in informatics, but that degree is administered by the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.

The new degree program will also require approval of the Presidents Council of State Universities of Michigan.

This brief was filed from the Fairlane Center at UM’s Dearborn campus, where regents are holding their May meeting.