Your grade is largely determined by performance
in three, equally-weighted areas: exams, homeworks, and the course project.
The balance of your grade is class participation.
Exams: 30%
There will be two exams, each worth 15%
of your grade. Both consist of short essay questions (e.g., 2-3 sentences).
The first exam (the midterm) covers only the first half of the course. The
second exam (the final) covers only the second hald of the course.
Homeworks: 30%
There will be ten homeworks, nearly one
per week. The homeworks are each graded on a 4-point scale: 3=outstanding
(thorough and creative); 2=good (demonstrates knowledge of course material
relevant to the assignment and background readings and activities specific
to the assignment); 1=minimal (something relevant but flawed was handed in
on time); 0=unacceptable (failed to demonstrate working knowledge of course
concepts and/or to successfully complete background readings and activities
specific to the assignment, or nothing was handed in on time. Note that
homeworks cannot be handed in late. If they are not handed in at or before
the start of class on the due date, they return a zero.
Because of the number of students in the class and the number of homeworks, we are not going to make specific written comments on the homework papers. I think it is more important to get a generous amount of active practice than to get detailed feedback on everything you produce. Normally, two students will orally present their homework solutions during class on the day that a homework assignment is due. These example solutions, and the discussion of the solutions, will give you an idea of what sort of solutions were possible, etc. We will try to post grades for homework assignments before the next class (generally, before the following Tuesday).
Course project documents: 30%
During the first week of class you will
be assigned to a project group. Throughout the semester the groups will carry
out a development project to model and practice the techniques of scenario-based
usability engineering. The project report is deliverable in three pieces,
a requirements analysis, a user interface design, and a usability evaluation.
Each of these three documents is worth 10% of your grade.
By default, all members of a project team receive the same grade. As most of you know, this work arrangement sometimes leads to interpersonal challenges, as it does in the 'real' world of software development. Managing, and learning from, these challenges is part of the activity. If unbearable problems develop, and you find that you just cannot manage them, they should be brought to me. I should warn you however that I will deal with problems at this magnitude seriously.
Class Participation: 10%
During the first week of class, each student
will be assigned a class presentation slot. These presentations are fairly
small, and come in three flavors: (1) describing your solution to a homework,
(2) showing an example of something discussed in class, (3) summarizing your
group's project. You can express preferences for the presentation slot
you would prefer, but we can't guarantee you will get that slot. The presentations
are worth up to 5 class participation points.
On many of our Thursday class meetings we will carry out in-class activities to practice concepts and skills. Just showing up (on time) and participating seriously in the activities is worth up to 5 class participation points.
During the semester, there may be oppotunities to serve as an experimental subject in human-computer interaction research being carried out by students and faculty in the Computer Science department. Serving as an experimental subject (these sessions generally run about 20-50 minutes) is worth an additional class participation point. Note that I cannot guarantee that there will be any experiments to participate in, I only know that some are planned.
You can also earn class participation points the old fashioned way, namely, by raising deep and original comments and questions in class. Please do not take this as an invitation (or a requirement) to merely talk up in class.