2010 Syllabus

Tue 9-10:30/Th 9-12; NSH 2609

Instructor: Jen Mankoff (jmankoff @cs.cmu.edu)

Office: NSH 2504A

Office Hours: TBD

Textbook

Required: Turabian, K. L., A manual for writers of research papers, theses and dissertations: Chicago style for students and researchers, Revised by Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M. & University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff. The University of Chicago Press, 7th Edition

Recommended: Reis, R. M., Tomorrow's professor: Preparing for academic careers in science and engineering, IEEE Press

Important Dates (more details in Assignments page)

    • Thursday, 16 September Individual project proposals & Presentations
    • Thursday, 30 September: Group project proposals & Presentations
    • Tuesday, 7 December: Project Final Presentations (NSH 1507, 1-4pm) Note: TENTATIVE: may change depending on the finals schedule

IMPORTANT: DO NOT BUY A HOLIDAY PLANE TICKET WITHOUT CONFIRMING THE DATE OF THE FINAL PRESENTATIONS WITH ME. ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED.

Topics and Activities (Tentative)

Course work will be divided into discussions about the nature of interdisciplinary research in HCI in the context of enduring problems, as well as activities building specific skills, and a semester long group project experience. Some examples of specific topics include:

About Research

    • Examples of Interdisciplinary work in problem areas such as the social web, etc.
    • Differences and values
    • Example project(s)
    • Human subjects and IRB
    • Other selected ethics topics (e.g., authorship/credit, confidentiality, and conflict of interest in the review process)
    • Quick tour of methodologies
    • Publishing norms
    • Picking problems
    • Reward structure (tenure criteria as a model)

Skills

    • Literature Skills
    • Writing Skills
    • Organizing and motivating material
    • Research papers
    • Writing a proposal
    • Presentation skills

Project related topics and activities

    • Introduction and background for the project theme
    • Individual proposals (written and presented)
    • Group proposals (written and presented)
    • Work on the projects proper
    • Ongoing critiques
    • Group final project results (written and presented)

On-Line Materials

Class materials including slides from presentations and readings will be posted on-line. Public materials are available on this website, private materials require that you are logged into the google group for the class.

Assignments:

Critiques and small writing assignments are used extensively in this class. See the Assignments page for information on larger assignments.

(Tentative) Grading Criteria

    • Class participation [talking in class, prepared questions, good group citizenship] 15%
    • Individual performance [journal, writing, etc] 20%
    • Individual project proposals 15%
    • Group project 50%