School of Interactive Arts and Technology

Upper Division Proposal

Revision F

March 16, 2005

Preamble

The School of Interactive Arts and Technology proposes an undergraduate degree program that consists of four streams: Performance and Media Arts, Interaction Design, New Media Environments, and Technology in Art and Design. The first year of this program, TechOne, will be operated as a foundation year program administered by the Faculty of Applied Sciences in conjunction with the School.

Degree Requirements for the Major Program

Students entering a Major in Interactive Arts and Technology will normally apply to either the BA or BSc program after completion of TechOne or its equivalent. Students must complete the requirements of one of the four streams in SIAT.

BSc Degree Requirements

The BSc lower division requirements, plus a combination of 30 upper division science credits.

Approved upper division science credits include the following: any approved upper division elective for the Technology in Art & Design Stream; any approved upper division elective for the Interaction Design Stream; any upper division course from Computing Science, Engineering Science, Kinesiology, Management and Systems Science, Mathematics

BA Degree Requirements

The BA lower division requirements, plus a combination of 30 upper division arts credits. Approved upper division arts credits include the following: any approved upper division elective for the Performance and Media Arts Stream; any approved upper division elective for the New Media Environments Stream; any upper division course from Communication, Cognitive Science, Contemporary Arts, Geography, Philosophy, Business.

Honors in Interactive Arts and Technology

An honors degree in Interactive Arts and Technology is available in all four streams: Performance and Media Arts, Interaction Design, New Media Environments and Technology in Art and Design.

Lower Division Requirements for Honors

Identical to the Major for all streams.

Upper Division Requirements for Honors.

For all streams, students must complete the requirements for a Major plus additional IAT electives for a total of at least 48 upper division IAT credit hours. Honors students must complete the Honors Research Project sequence, 490-6 and 491-6. This is an individual supervised study and research project open only to honors students.

In addition to the above, students must take sufficient unspecified upper division courses to complete a minimum of 60 upper division credit hours, and unspecified courses at any level to total 132 credit hours overall. For graduation with Honors, a 3.0 or better GPA is required on two measures: CGPA and UDGPA.

Minor in Interactive Arts and Technology

A minor in Interactive Arts and Technology is available; this is not specific to any stream.

Lower Division Requirements for a Minor

Students must complete a total of 27 credits comprised of the course requirements for TechOne plus both of: IAT 200-3, Cognition for Design Science; IAT 201-3 Usability in Interactive Environments.

Upper Division Requirements for a Minor

Students must complete 15 upper division IAT credits. It should be recognized that some upper division courses have lower division prerequisites.

Co-operative Education Program

Arrangements for the work experiences are made through the school's co-op coordinators and the University's Office of Co-operative Education.

The Four Streams

Until now, SIAT has offered Information Technology and Interactive Arts programs, the latter divided into Performance & Media Art and Interaction Design streams. Now the Information Technology program is being phased out and will be replaced, in part, by a new Technology in Art and Design stream. The other two streams, meanwhile, have been extensively revised, and out of that work has evolved a new, related stream: New Media Environments.

The School of Interactive Arts and Technology offers a general program leading to BSc and BA degrees with major or honors in Interactive Arts and Technology. Students seeking the major or honors elect one of four streams: Performance and Media Arts, Interaction Design, New Media Environments and Technology in Art and Design.

All streams in the program share a fundamental concern with people using technology in context. Each draws from distinct patterns of scholarship and thinking—each has its own academic emphasis, which leads directly to its particular pattern of study and set of graduate outcomes.

Performance and Media Arts is based on the artistic interpretation and expression of human experience through interactive technological environments. This stream combines critical theory with artistic practice to produce artworks in the form of installation, performance and exhibition. Its graduates will create new forms of cultural and artistic expression in our technologically mediated society.

New Media Environments is concerned with the creation, analysis and understanding of new media. New media environments are both computational artifacts and cultural experiences. They are therefore highly emergent phenomena that are deeply rooted in historical, social, aesthetic, and economic processes. Graduates of this stream will be skilled in the critical analysis and in the making of new media forms such as electronic games, digital video, computer animation, and interactive multimedia.

Technology in Art and Design studies technological systems used by people in work, learning and play situations. Its emphasis is on system-building with particular emphasis on how people use systems, how to design and program user-centered systems and how to represent and reason about the objects and environments that people use. Its graduates will be able to make systems that people find useful and engaging.

Interaction Design examines the relationship between people and technology with the intent to enhance or improve our environment through a reflective design process that incorporates interactive technologies. The fundamental graduate outcomes are a combination of creative action and critical thought that shape the way people make and use highly interactive products, systems and environments.

The streams achieve their ends by a common curricular structure. Each has a set of core courses in both lower and upper division taken by all students in the stream aimed at producing specific graduate outcomes. There is significant sharing of course content among the streams, especially within the electives. Even within the sets of required courses, there is overlap reflecting the fact they are all part of a common program. The common academic threads shared by all four streams include the TechOne foundation year, four SIAT courses for the BA degree and an additional five common courses for the BSc degree.

The sections that follow contain more detailed information about the individual streams as well as the course requirements of that stream. Each stream has 30 upper division credits specified that count towards the major.

Within each stream are required core courses, stream-related electives, program-wide electives and free electives to be taken from courses outside of the program. It should be noted at the outset that wherever a list of elective courses is presented, the actual offerings in any given year may be less than those shown. This is in recognition of the obvious constraints that will be imposed by limited human and financial resources. It is nonetheless expected that the courses listed will be rotated over time to give students maximum opportunity to pursue their own interests within the overall program design.

Admission Requirements

Admission to the School is possible through four routes:

  1. Direct admission from BC12 or equivalent high school preparation in accord with the requirements listed under the Admission section of the calendar.

  2. Admission to the School upon completion of TechOne, the foundation year program that comprises the standard first year program.

  3. Internal transfer from another SFU program upon completing requirements equivalent to those of TechOne.

  4. Direct transfer from another post-secondary institution substantially meeting the requirements of TechOne.


In the case of routes 2, 3 and 4, students apply to either the BA or BSc program upon completion of at least 24 credit hours of the core lower division BA or BSc requirements listed below for admission to the respective degree program. Admission is competitive based on the student's cumulative grade point average. Students who are unsuccessful in their first admission application may improve their average by taking additional courses.

Lower Division Requirements

The lower division requirements for all planned IAT major and honors programs consist of the 21 credits of TechOne core courses (including an approved mathematics course), 12 credits of SIAT core courses, the BA or BSc requirements below plus 15 credits of lower division requirements in one of the four streams.

SIAT Lower Division Core Courses (12 credits)

The current composition of the SIAT lower division core is:

BA Lower Division Core (45 credits minimum)

In addition to the 21 credits of TechOne and 12 credits of SIAT lower division core, students must complete 12 credits from:

List 1: Media Electives:

List 2: Cultural Theory electives:

BSc Lower Division Core (45 credits minimum)

In addition to the 21 credits of TechOne and 12 credits of SIAT lower division core, students must complete 12 credits from the IAT list of BSc courses currently comprising:

Performance and Media Arts

Performance and Media Arts is based on the artistic interpretation and expression of human experience through interactive technological environments. This stream combines critical theory with artistic practice to produce artworks in the form of installation, performance and exhibition. Its graduates will create new forms of cultural and artistic expression in our technologically mediated society.

Lower Division Requirements (48 credit hours minimum)

For the major, students must complete a total of 15 stream-specific credits currently comprising the following courses:

Upper Division Requirements (30 credit hours)

Students must complete all of:

New Media Environments Stream

The New Media Environments stream is concerned with the creation, analysis and understanding of new media. New media environments are both computational artifacts and cultural experiences. They are therefore highly emergent phenomena that are deeply rooted in historical, social, aesthetic, and economic processes. Graduates of this stream will be skilled in the critical analysis and in the making of new media forms such as electronic games, digital video, computer animation, and interactive multimedia.

Lower Division Requirements (48 credit hours minimum)

For the major, students must complete 15 credits of stream-specific courses, currently comprising the following:

Upper Division Requirements (30 credit hours)

Students must complete all of:

Technology in Art and Design Stream

Technology in Art and Design studies technological systems used by people in work, learning and play situations. Its emphasis is on system-building with particular emphasis on how people use systems, how to program user-centered systems and how to represent and reason about the objects and environments that people use. Its graduates will be able to make systems that people find useful and engaging. Students should note that there is a four course, lower level math requirement and a four course, lower level computing requirement that must be satisfied for graduation. Some of these courses are prerequisites to second year courses; others may be taken at any point in the program.

Lower Division Requirements (48 credit hours minimum)

For the major, students must complete 15 credits of stream-specific courses currently comprising the following:

Upper Division Requirements (30 credit hours)

Students must complete all of:

Interaction Design Stream

Interaction Design examines the relationship between people and technology with the intent to enhance or improve our environment through a reflective design process that incorporates interactive technologies. The fundamental graduate outcomes are a combination of creative action and critical thought that shape the way people make and use highly interactive products, systems and environments.

Lower Division Requirements

For the major, students must complete 15 stream-specific credits currently comprising the following:

Upper Division Requirements (30 credit hours)

Students must complete all of: