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3724 Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, Fall 2005 |
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Extra CreditStudents often ask about getting extra credit. In this course, no individual extra credit assignments will be given. However, several opportunities for extra credit will be offered to everyone in the class. Any extra credit earned will be applied to your grade AFTER the grade letter breakpoints have been determined (i.e. you will not be penalized for not doing extra credit work).You may earn up to 2 points of extra credit that will be added on to your final course grade by completing one or more of the activities that will be posted in the "Extra Credit" section of the web site during the semester. For each activity that you complete in a satisfactory manner, you will receive 0.5 points added to your final course grade, up to a maximum of 2 points (i.e. you may complete 4 activities). Some activities may be repeated - for example, if one of the activities is to write a summary of a research article, you could repeat this activity with a different research article. You may select any combination of activities up to the maximum of 4 activities (2 points). Additional opportunities for extra credit may be presented during the semester - if so, these will be posted on the course web site.
Extra Credit Opportunity #1 -- Write a summary of a CHI short paperEvery year, ACM SIGCHI holds a Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, known as CHI. As part of this conference, a number of "short papers" are accepted and presented. These short papers are only 2 pages long and typically contain descriptions of the latest HCI research in progress. The short papers are published in the ACM Digital Library as part of the CHI Extended Abstracts.Select a short paper from the CHI Extended Abstracts from 2003 or 2004 and write a brief summary of it. The paper you select must describe some type of study or evaluation and present results from the study (note that not all papers describe studies so you will need to find an appropriate paper). Your summary should contain sections: 1) a one paragraph overview of the topic and the study/evaluation, and 2) a summary of the important results reported in the paper. Your summary should not be long - no more than 250 words. Make sure that your summary is in your own words and that you are not just copying text from the paper. CHI Extended Abstracts for 2003 are available through the ACM Digital Library** at: http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=765891 CHI Extended Abstracts for 2004 are available through the ACM Digital Library** at: http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=985921 ** Note: If you are trying to access the ACM Digital Library from off-campus, you will need to use the VT library proxy. For information about this, see the library page: http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/extended/extproxy.html Turn-in your summary to the instructor as a paper printout on a single sheet of paper. The format for your summary should be:
Extra Credit Opportunity #2 -- Participate in an approved HCI studyFrom time to time, HCI researchers in the Computer Science and ISE departments run studies that involve human participants. These studies may be usability evaluations or may be research-oriented projects to better understand some interaction or behavior with a computing device or interface.As part of your educational experience to learn about HCI, you may receive extra credit in this course for being a participant in an HCI study. The study must have been approved by the Virginia Tech IRB and must be on a list of studies approved by your instructor. Receiving extra credit for participation in a course in not something to take lightly. Here is what the Virginia Tech IRB says about extra credit as compensation for participation in a study:
In this course, you can either receive extra credit for participating in an approved study, or you can receive extra credit for writing a brief summary of a CHI short paper as described in Extra Credit Opportunity #1. Summarizing a CHI short paper requires reading a 2-page paper and writing brief summary of it. This is designed to be an equitable way to earn the same amount of extra credit without participating as a participant in research. Studies that are approved for extra credit in this section of CS3724 will take approximately 30-60 minutes plus some time to schedule and arrive at the study location. The paper summary option is designed to take about the same amount of time. Note: In order to receive credit for participating in the study, you will need to show your instructor documentation that you participated. One easy way to do this is to show your instructor the copy of the signed informed consent form that you should be given by the study experimenter. Currently, there is only one study that is approved for extra credit in this section of CS 3724. A description of the study is given below.
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