Communication, technologies and digital culture

The main objective of this course is to provide the student with the theoretical foundations, supported by appropriate basic technical skills, in relation to the thematic area known as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In particular, during the course, the student will have the opportunity to learn essential knowledge concerning: the development of new technologies (including, hardware architectures, operating systems, media manipulation, good practices in design, multimodal interfaces and information systems); the storage and management of data and information (including, the creation and manipulation of databases, descriptive models, data integrity and query languages); the semantic analysis of data (including, programming principles and artificial intelligence techniques); computer networks (including, topologies, models, architectures, cloud services, routing algorithms and security); and, finally, the creation of WEB sites and portals by popular Content Management Systems (CMSs). Specifically, the main purposes of the proposed course can be detailed as follows: 1. At the end of the course, the student will have acquired the theoretical foundations related to the thematic area known as ICT. In particular, the student will have acquired full knowledge of the technological tools that are nowadays used in any corporate (e.g., company, factory, industry). Moreover, the student will have acquired full knowledge about the opportunities offered by the latest technologies to support specific application fields (e.g., manufacturing, management, commercial). In addition, the student will have acquired full knowledge about the ability to manage digital data and information in any working cycle. Finally, the student will have acquired adequate technical skills for the basic manipulation of both technological tools and related digital resources. 2. At the end of the course, the student will know how to relate with the most recent human-computer interfaces existing today; the student will also know how to relate with the most common tools that drive the current corporates (i.e., management information systems); the student, in addition, will know how to use the basic functionalities of some of the most widespread tools in the ICT field (i.e., database querying language, content management systems). Finally, the student will be also able to use the basic concepts and constructs for the deep data analysis (i.e., machine / deep learning, programming scripts in MATLAB). 3. At the end of the course, through group activities aimed to develop both a database and a mini-site for the management of a small enterprise, as well as, through additional teaching materials (e.g., sites, free digital documents), the student will have acquired adequate skills to autonomously select the most appropriate technological tools, the most appropriate information content, and the most effective type of data analysis for the solution of a specific case study. 4. At the end of the course, the student will be able to communicate, with appropriate language and updated with respect to the current state-of-the-art, the acquired skills and experiences in the ICT field. 5. At the end of the course, the student will have acquired both a basic technical skill and an excellent cultural baggage, to be able to continue the study of the acquired topics in an autonomous way.