| CODE | DGA1011 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Introduction to Visual Literacy | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Digital Arts | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Across disciplines, students engage with images and visual materials throughout the course of their education. Although students are expected to understand, use, and create images in academic work, they are not always prepared to do so. Scholarly work with images requires research, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation skills specific to visual materials. These abilities cannot be taken for granted and need to be taught, supported, and integrated into the curriculum. This study-unit shall provide students with the skills necessary to effectively operate within an ever increasing visually-oriented society and empower them to use images effectively as a visual language. Study-Unit Aims: The aims of this study-unit is to equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials. It shall also help help students learn the basics or enhance verbal and written literacy skills and vocabulary to be able to talk and write about images. Learners shall also be introduced to the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Learn to read images as a visual language and understand the historic and social context of visuals over time; - Understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials; - Enhance verbal and written literacy skills and vocabulary to be able to talk and write about images; - Understand many of the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and access and use visual materials ethically. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Find and access needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently; - Interpret and analyze the meanings of images and visual media; - Design and create meaningful images and visual media; - Determine the nature and extent of the visual materials needed for specific projects. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Gillian, Rose (2001), Visual methodologies : an introduction to the interpretation of visual materials, Sage. - Elkins, James (2010), Visual Literacy, New York: Routledge. - Select readings from the Journal of Visual Literacy, will also be provided as reading supplement. See: http://ivla.org/drupal2/content/journal-visual-literacy. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Seminar | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Sandro Debono |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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