Introduction
Each student is required to teach part of one class during the course of the semester. You will either present a set of papers and lead discussion, or present a technology tutorial on a subject relevant to the class. You must sign up for your presentation date on the spreadsheet linked from the main class page. This spreadsheet will give you the latest date by which you must notify me of what you will present; in general, it will be two weeks before the presentation date. Note that this date is the final deadline; if you have questions about what you will present—including clearing shorter/longer papers with me—or want to check to see if your selected papers are okay, you should do so in advance of this deadline. Failure to have an acceptable final set of papers will incur a penalty towards your grade.
Paper presentation
If you choose this option, you will select at least three full-length or six short papers to present to the class (or roughly 30 pages of text, not counting references). The papers should be relevant to the class topic and related to each other. You might choose, for example, papers that build on each other, or are on a related interaction technique, or other topic. You will synthesize the knowledge in the papers, present a coherent talk, and lead discussion about the work.
If you wish, you may draw your papers from the nine you chose for part 1 of the group project’s individual effort component; the papers still must adhere to the selection criteria below.
Paper selection criteria
Each of the papers you select should meet the following criteria. If you want to select something else, you should clear it with me first, with a clear argument why.
- The papers should be research papers published in a scholarly journal or conference proceedings.
- The papers should preferentially be full papers of 8–10 pages;
if you incorporate shorter papers, the paper content should be about
30 pages, not including references.
- If you want to use a longer paper (e.g. long journal article), clear it with me first.
- If you want to use a shorter paper (e.g. CHI Extended Abstracts), you should clear it with me first, and be prepared to have two shorter papers count as one.
- The paper should be an HCI paper relevant to the topic of the class. If you have any doubts, ask. Sources for papers include:
You should expect to spend at least 3–4 hours finding good papers to present. If you turn in papers that don’t meet these criteria, or seem rushed (i.e. picking the top results from a Google search for the topic name), you will be asked to select new papers and your grade will be reduced 20%. If you are unsure of whether your papers are appropriate, you should contact me well before the papers are due.
The presentation
You will present your papers on the assigned date. I will have previously assigned one of the papers to the class to read, but you should not assume they have read all of them. However, your goal is not to present every detail of the paper, but to clearly explain the topic you’ve chosen, the main themes and takeaways, on how the research is related to what we’ve done in class so far, and in providing useful background information and content (e.g. videos, follow-on research, related products, etc.). You should also prepare to lead the discussion. Think about interesting questions to discuss and ways to connect your readings to the personal lives of your fellow students.
You should prepare slides for the presentation, which you must turn in to me by 11:59 pm on the day before you present. The penalty for late slides is the same as for other assignments, as detailed on the syllabus.
Your talk should be 15 minutes long (strictly enforced), and you should be prepared to facilitate 15 minutes of discussion, for 30 minutes total (strictly enforced). This will leave us time for other presentations or discussion.
Grading
The presentation is worth 10% of your final grade. This breaks down as follows:
- Choose appropriate papers and turn in the list by the given notification date (2%)
- Slides turned in by 11:59 pm of the day before your presentation (4%)
- Presentation quality (3%)
- Slides are clear, easy to read, and have correct grammar and spelling
- Presentation identifies main themes
- Presentation gives details of papers (titles, publication locations, authors)
- Presentation uses images, videos (not just text)
- Presentation brings in interesting content from outside of the papers (current technology, project videos, etc.)
- Presentation is of appropriate length
- Discussion quality (3%)
- Presenter is prepared with questions beyond the obvious (e.g. “what did you think?” is not a good question)
- Presenter guides discussion
- Presenter is prepared to guide discussion for appropriate length of time
Technology tutorial
If you choose this option, you will present a tutorial for a technology relevant to what we are doing in the class. This could be a hardware or software topic, and could be related to something you are working on for your class project, for another class, or for your own enjoyment.
Selection criteria
You should select a technology to present that you know well enough to teach a single class about. I define “technology” fairly loosely here—you could teach, for example:
- a programming language (e.g. Python);
- a technique for interacting with devices (e.g. Cordova);
- a useful skill for MobileHCI work (e.g. an overview of computer vision);
- a handy library (e.g. OpenCV);
- basic principles (e.g. an introduction to electronics);
- hardware skills (e.g. how to use an Arduino);
- or something else.
If you are unsure of whether your topic is appropriate, you should contact me well before the notification date.
The presentation
You will present your tutorial on the assigned date. If there is setup for the class to do to be able to follow along (e.g. installing the Arduino environment), you must notify me at least one week before the date of your presentation, and provide clear instructions that I can pass on. Your presentation should provide a rationale of why the particular technology is relevant to the class, clear instructions on how students can use the technology (e.g. where to download, where to order parts, etc.), and details of the tutorial itself.
Your entire presentation should be 30 minutes long (strictly enforced). If you are particularly interested in presenting longer (e.g. for a more complex topic), talk to me well in advance of the notification date.
You should prepare slides for the presentation, which you must turn in to me by 11:59 pm the day before you present. The penalty for late slides is the same as for other assignments, as detailed on the syllabus.
Grading
The presentation is worth 10% of your final grade. This breaks down as follows:
- Choose an appropriate topic and notify me by the given notification date (2%)
- Slides turned in by 11:59 pm of the day before your presentation (4%)
- Presentation quality (6%)
- Slides are clear, easy to read, and have correct grammar and spelling
- Presentation identifies reasons for technology
- Presentation gives details of technology (who made it, where to get it, etc.)
- Presentation clearly teaches useful details
- Presentation uses images, videos (not just text)
- Presentation is of appropriate length