Informatics is about using computers to work with digital information - gathering, using, storing, retrieving, and visualising information and data. It's the study of tools and technologies to solve problems in all types of settings, like finance and economics, journalism, biology, health, engineering, communication.
In 2008, Melbourne University is introducing the Informatics first year package, a set of two new first year subjects as the common starting point for IT majors and breadth sequences across the University (as well as the new concurrent Diploma of Informatics). The first year package is a cross-faculty collaborative effort designed to enable students from any undergraduate degree* to learn how to use computers to collect, transform, visualise and interact with data and information from all over the world.
*Students from all degrees except Biomedicine can enrol in Informatics subjects.