Instructors
|
Cecelia Buchanan
Office: MGH 306A Phone: (206) 221-7363 Email: cbuchana@u.washington.edu
|
David McDonald
Office: MGH 330A Phone: (206) 543-6429 Email: dwmc@u.washington.edu
|
Teaching Assistants
|
Pedja Klasnja
Email: klasnja@u.washington.edu
|
Marilyn Ostergren
Email: ostergrn@u.washington.edu
|
Description
In this course, Informatics majors apply the techniques they have learned in prior course work to a significant project of their own definition. The project may be completed through group or individual effort. The design of the course follows the goals for the capstone experience:
- Student-defined Information Problem: In the capstone course students define the information problem for themselves.
- Student-defined Method(s) of Investigation: In the capstone course students determine what techniques to use for the information problem they identify.
- Synthesis of Human-Centered and Technical Strands: The informatics approach integrates human-centered and technical dimensions of information systems. While a specific capstone project might emphasize one dimension or the other, it is expected that both dimensions will be present to some extent.
- Make a Difference: Following the overarching mission of the Information School, the Informatics capstone project should make a positive difference for the community in which it is carried out -- be it a business, school, hospital, or other context.
- Passion!: The capstone project should be something the student feels passionate about.
Course Organization & Meetings
The course meets Tuesday and Thursday 9:30am-1:20pm. After the first class session, the Tuesday meeting time will be used for announcements, student/group project presentations and feedback sessions. Depending on the number of in-process and final presentations, the Tuesday meetings may be short; other weeks the meeting time will be quite full. You should plan on being in class the full-time each week.
During the Thursday course meeting time, you are required to schedule a weekly project meeting with one of the Teaching Assistants. You weekly project meetings will last approximately 30 minutes. These project meetings are designed to help you keep your project moving. Projects often get stuck and need help or some kind of workaround. These meetings are places to bring up those issues before it is too late.
Project groups that will meet weekly with Pedja (in Suzzalo Cafe):
| • | Guitarolator - Guitar Teacher | |
| Haris Hodzic | ||
| • | Voice Modem Framework for Open Systems Applications (VMFOSA) | |
| Josh Krawitz & Steven Smith | ||
| • | University - Bound | |
| Prem Kumar | ||
| • | Synchronous Knoweldge Sharing | |
| Peter Griffin, Darien Hager & Jen Zee | ||
Project groups that will meet weekly with Marilyn (in MGH 234):
| • | Document Management System | |
| Kevin (Szu-Kai) Huang | ||
| • | Web Search Visualization | |
| Wan-Lin (Joyce) Chen & I-Yi (Eva) Li | ||
| • | Health Navigator: A Visual Search Tool for Online Health Information | |
| Amelia Lacenski & Grace Preyapongpisan | ||
| • | Improving Mobile Device Interfaces | |
| Alex Atienza, Kwan Yong Kim & Bradlee Wick | ||
| • | Trade Conference Networking | |
| Derek Boiko-Weyrauch, Nathan Bruneau, Henry Rose & Kevin Wong | ||
Grading
The course grading is tailored to the individual project through a project agreement between the TAs/Instructor and the student/group. Grading is based on the project work, presentations, peer evaluation and participation. In general, the materials used to evaluate the project will be natural products of completing a capstone project. The course grade will be composed of the following components.
| Project work: | 50% | ||
| Presentations: | 10% | ||
| Project poster: | 10% | ||
| Final written report: | 10% | ||
| Peer & Client Evaluations: | 15% | ||
| Individual Participation: | 5% |
- Project work: The course is a project course.
The largest single portion of the grade is about the
project. The scope of the project, the phases of the
project, and the emphasis on each phase is negotiated
between the project group and the TAs/Instructor. This is
represented by a project agreement (see Project
Structures below). A project agreement will be used by
you and your TA to determine deliverables for the
project. In general, there will be a minimum of two,
well developed, deliverables for each phase of your
project. Naturally, since each project is different the
specifics of the deliverables, the types and due dates,
are to be negotiated as part of completing a project
agreement with your TA.
- Presentations: During the course you will be
expected to make three presentations. In the early stages
of the project you will make two ‘in-process’
presentations. In-process presentations are short (10
minute) presentations that describe the problems,
methods, and possibly, results for a specific phase of
the project. In-process presentations are your
opportunity to get feedback from student peers who may be
dealing with similar problems. The in-process
presentations are meant to be somewhat less formal, to
facilitate exchange and feedback. In-process
presentations must include one visual aid, to help
explain or illustrate the discussion; PowerPoint is
optional for an in-process presentation. In-process
presentations will be scheduled during a class meeting as
near the completion of a project phase as possible. At
the end of the course you will need to give one
‘final’ presentation. The final presentation
will be 20 minutes in length and should tell a coherent
story of your project.
- Project Poster: The project poster is a
short-form representation of your project. This is a
representation suitable for submission to the UW
Undergraduate Research Symposium. Sample posters of prior
projects will be brought to a class meeting for you to
review. Your project poster will be used for the
Informatics Capstone Event in May. The final printed size
of your poster will be 40x32 inches. You must design
your poster for a finished size of 40x32. However,
for the purposes of grading, you will scale and print
your poster on Tabloid (11x17) size paper. You will need
to submit 5 printed copies of your poster and
email an electronic copy of your poster to the
Instructor.
- Final Written Report: This report is a written
representation of the entire project that brings together
all of the work in a coherent story. This is a formal
written description of your project. The report should
cover the work performed in each phase of the project.
The report should adhere to common standards of academic
writing (e.g. you should cite sources as appropriate).
You will need to submit 5 printed copies of your
final report.
- Peer & Client Evaluations: Your project
will be evaluated by your peers throughout the course.
Your peers will evaluate your (a) presentations, (b) your
poster, and (c) your final written report. Peer
evaluations will be in the form of written evaluations
and will be provided to the project groups anonymously.
If your project has a client or sponsor, then the sponsor will be asked to provide feedback on your project. Naturally, this only applies to the groups that are working with a client/sponsor.
- Individual Participation: You are expected to
participate in all parts of the course. Not only in your
project work and project presentations but also by
reflecting on the other projects in the course. This
reflection can be through verbal questions you ask, but
will also include how you contribute through peer
evaluations.
Project Structures
The "project work" can be structured in a number of ways. The design of information systems is often an iterative, cyclical, endeavor. The project agreement can be structured to support either a single-cycle project or a multi-cycle project.
Single-Cycle Projects
Single-cycle projects are probably the most familiar to the students in the course. In a single-cycle approach, the student/group performs three main phases to bring a project to completion:
- Needs Assessment: In this phase the project focuses in on a problem that is derived from the "real world." In the context of the problem the student/group investigates how the problem creates needs and what those needs are.
- Design/Implementation: In this phase the project focuses on possible solutions to the chosen problem and how well each possible solution matches up with the derived needs. The end result of this phase is some kind of ‘system’ that appropriately addresses the needs.
- Impact Assessment/Evaluation: In the evaluation phase, the project evaluates the impact of the system relative to the derived needs.
The emphasis placed on each phase, the techniques applied in each phase, and the deliverables for each phase will be negotiated as part of developing a project agreement. In general, a minimum of two deliverables will be required for each phase. These deliverables are in addition to the draft of your final report that describes the phase.
Multi-Cycle Projects
Multi-cycle projects are conducted more in the spirit of Participatory Design, where the designer engages fieldwork, system design, and evaluation in a very tight and fast manner. Each engagement often includes some amount of needs assessment, some intervention, and some evaluation, all in a single engagement. Because this is slightly different than the single-cycle project, the phases of a multi-cycle project are just called Intervention 1, Intervention 2 and Intervention 3. Some possible interventions might include:
- Ethnography (interviewing or participant observation)
- Focus groups
- Paper/Cardboard mock-ups
- Computer mock-ups or prototypes
- Wizard of Oz prototypes
- Video based prototypes
- Card games
- Simulation games
The emphasis placed on each intervention, the type of intervention, and the products of each intervention will be negotiated with the instructor as part of developing a project agreement.