SEng 609.06
Special Topics in HCI
Saul Greenberg, Instructor
Contents

Evaluation

Participation
and class
presentations
(20%)
Students must be actively involved in all class discussions. This includes leading discussions about topics and papers, contributing to discussions, active questioning, presenting material, and so on. Assessment is based on your ability to lead and present material (assigned ahead of time from the reading list), and your ability to make concise, relevant, and insightful contributions to all discussions.

This is a course demanding student involvement. If you are a 'lurker' (someone who just watches but does not participate), you will be asked to withdraw from the course.

Presentations have the following components.

  • Two people (usually) will be assigned a set of class readings. Those two are responsible for summarizing the main points of the readings and for leading a class discussion on them.
  • All people must read the papers before the class. Each person must identify an issue or sub-topic that they would like to see discussed in class. Each person must send that issue/sub-topic to the course instructor and to the team in charge of leading the class.
Small Project
(40%)
You will propose and pursue a project in real time groupware. Projects must be approved by the instructor. Projects are usually performed individually, although I will allow team efforts in special circumstances. Depending on your interests, you can:
  • design, prototype and implement a real time groupware system, using Groupkit e.g.
    • support a heuristic evaluation post-analysis process
    • support a formal meeting process
    • support a group generating and organizing ideas
    • support contact facilitation...
  • write a literature review, where you research a particular topic relevant to real time groupware e.g.
    • any topic to be mentioned in class (but more in depth)
    • video-mediated interaction (I have a book on it)
    • groupware drawing tools (I have a book on it)
    • evaluation techniques...
  • critique and evaluate (with users) an existing real time groupware system using HCI evaluations technique e.g.,
    • Teamwave Workplace
    • NetMeetings...
Take home
exam
(40%)
You will be given an essay-type take home exam in the last week of class. You will have slightly over one week to return it.


Last updated October 1997, by Saul Greenberg