In 1999, the course was made elective, rather than required, due to pressures in the curriculum. Both authors most recently taught the course during the 10-week session in the summer of 2000. The course has been offered with a variety of activities each time it was taught, but some guiding principles have been instrumental in its design. Active Learning Informatics is a science reflecting practical applications of technology, not the absorption and regurgitation of facts from a lecture. It is useless to teach an informatics course without a hands-on component.
Students complete activities that demonstrate and build skills, as opposed to listening to lectures.
They take an active role in delivering some of the content in the course. The instructors design exercises and projects to encourage students to explore a variety of information systems, recognize their limitations, and work with real data sets. Student performance and evaluations support this method of learning. The course is not intended to champion the use of Microsoft Office products, or merely show students how to do complex word processing. Instead, relevant and universally available public health software applications are covered.