Spring 2027

Introduction to Digital Communication

Introduction to digital communication covering its impact on daily life, development of digital skills, exploration of media tools/trends, and analysis of online power dynamics.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Ailea Merriam-Pigg

One reviewer said lectures were mandatory with attendance questions, but paying attention was not required.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Consider the relationship between digital media and communication

  • Explain basic concepts in digital communication theory

  • Imagine a specific audience for digital communication

  • Fashion digital messages that can effectively engage that audience

  • Deploy basic design principles in text, photo, and video digital communications in communication to a chosen institutional audience

  • Deploy basic video production techniques in video digital communications to a chosen non-institutional audience

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
COMARTS 200

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

AILEA MERRIAM-PIGG is recorded teaching in Fall 2021, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MEGAN ROONEY is recorded teaching in Spring 2017. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1000
LAB 301Classroom Instruction0 / 200
LAB 302Classroom Instruction0 / 200
LAB 303Classroom Instruction0 / 200
LAB 304Classroom Instruction0 / 200
LAB 305Classroom Instruction0 / 200

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Ailea Merriam-Pigg

One reviewer found the class fun and the easiest A, calling the lab and social media projects the most fun part.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.77 GPA, 87.9% A/AB (n=116 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.82 GPA, 91.8% A/AB (n=97 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.81 GPA, 92.3% A/AB (n=196 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Ailea Merriam-Pigg

One reviewer said lectures were mandatory with attendance questions, but paying attention was not required.

Past student reviews · Megan Rooney

One reviewer said Megan Rooney taught too fast and was not good at giving lectures.

Topics

  • Everyday impact of digital communication
  • Digital media tools and trends
  • Expressions of power online
  • Relationship between digital media and communication

Skills

  • Digital communication skills
  • Basic digital communication theory
  • Design principles for digital communications
  • Basic video production techniques

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.12 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
COMARTS 200 · Spring 2027

Introduction to Digital Communication

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:250:023647",
    "course_id": "COMARTS 200",
    "course_uid": "course_80c3d9630ee09fc3b4bcb804",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "023647",
    "source_subject_id": "250",
    "title": "Introduction to Digital Communication",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "144dd99230147b5aa223d585a1dcea7845ffdc831454592c83e10bd1fa14b221",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}