Information Technology in a Global Society

This subject will be assessed for the final time in 2023. Digital Society will replace it.

Nature of the Subject

The IB Diploma Programme information technology in a global society (ITGS) course is the study and evaluation of the impacts of information technology (IT) on individuals and society. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of the access and use of digitized information at the local and global level. ITGS provides a framework for the student to make informed judgments and decisions about the use of IT within social contexts.

Although ITGS shares methods of critical investigation and analysis with other social sciences, it also considers social and ethical considerations that are common to other subjects in group 3. Students come into contact with IT on a daily basis because it is so pervasive in the world in which we live. This increasingly widespread use of IT inevitably raises important questions with regard to the social and ethical considerations that shape our society today. ITGS offers an opportunity for a systematic study of these considerations, whose range is such that they fall outside the scope of any other single discipline.

The nature of the subject is defined by the use of fundamental ITGS terms. For the purpose of the ITGS syllabus the following definitions apply.

• Information technology (IT) is the study, design, development, implementation, support or maintenance of computer-based information systems.

• Social and ethical significance refers to the effects that the development, implementation and use of information technology has on individuals and societies. Social impacts and ethical considerations are not mutually exclusive and are therefore categorized as a single entity. However, in general:

  • social impacts tend to refer to the effects of IT on human life

  • ethical considerations tend to refer to the responsibility and accountability involved in the design and implementation of IT.

• An information system is a collection of people, information technologies, data, processes and policies organized to accomplish specific functions and solve specific problems.