Introduction to Information Technology

Information technology (IT) can be viewed as a system, a combination of independent parts all working together to accomplish a certain goal. Systems are everywhere. For example, the respiratory, circulatory, nervous, and other subsystems of the body work together towards the common goal of keeping humans alive. IT is similar in that it consists of various subsystems all working towards a common goal. Information Technology Foundations will examine how the system called IT helps an organization advance its business goals and vision, resulting in improved growth, profits, and productivity.

The course will explore the different components of IT and how they work together as a system to support the different aspects of an organization. Specifically, the course will explore different categories of software such as operating systems, programming, and databases. The hardware components that will be examined are the structure of computers and their peripherals. The role of people will be an important focus of the course, describing which roles are necessary for the IT system to function efficiently and effectively. This focus includes the various administrative roles, the methodologies used by people tasked with developing new systems, and the ethical issues that must be considered by individuals involved with IT. In IT, as with many other systems, the independent parts must be integrated together to reach the common goal. This integration is accomplished by networking, which encompasses the core components of hardware, software, and users. IT supports and improves many aspects of an organization, including communication (both internal and external), resource sharing, cross-department integration, information management, security of organization and employee information, and organization adherence to ethical practices.

As computer systems become smaller, cheaper, and more readily accessible, it seems everyone is connected at the touch of a button. Organizations struggle to remain efficient as they manage growing numbers of single-user computer systems. These systems require interconnectivity to exchange data, share resources, and access more powerful computers for tasks too complicated for local computers to process.

All of these activities require computing devices to access multiple networks. This course introduces networks such as the local area network (LAN), the enterprise network, the campus area network (CAN), the metropolitan area network (MAN), metro Ethernet, the personal area network (PAN), the virtual private network (VPN), and the wide area network (WAN).
The course discusses the essentials for implementing modern computer networks. Each lesson goes through the various networking technologies. The course introduces the concepts and practices associated with network security vulnerabilities, threats, risk mitigation, and the policies and procedures associated with security management.