University of South Africa, UNISAUniversity of South Africa, UNISA

The Bachelor of Information Science degree has been conflated from a four year to a three-year degree from 2007. Students registered prior to 2007 should follow the old curriculum (four-year degree). The curriculum for the BInf degree comprises 30 modules. The major subjects are Information Science and Applied Information Science.

Type: undergraduate degree

Duration: 3 years part time

Compulsory Subjects

First year subjects:
  • Introducing Applied Information Science
  • Introducing information records and sources
  • Using the Internet as a reference tool
  • Introduction to Information Science
  • Developing information skills for lifelong learning
  • Business management
  • English for academic purposes
  • Basic text skills
  • Fundamentals of communication
  • End-user Computing
Second year subjects:
  • Bibliographic control, basic descriptive cataloguing and classification
  • Learning how to provide reference services
  • Describing library user groups and meeting their needs
  • Utilising electronic library systems and services
  • Developing and managing information collections
  • Exploring information user studies
  • Investigating information ethics in the information era
  • Introducing information management
  • Information and communication technologies for information science
  • Research in the social sciences
Third year subjects:
  • Descriptive cataloguing
  • Subject organisation
  • Serving the user in library and information practice
  • Applying research methodology in information science
  • Practical portfolio
  • Information science entrepreneurship
  • Information retrieval and personal information organisation
  • Political economy of information
  • Information and knowledge management
  • Exploring information skills

Careers: archivist, bibliographer, classifier, database designer, freelance information writer, indexer, information consultant, librarian, online researcher, records officer.

Source: www.unisa.ac.za​