Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Assessment

CS 7470 Spring 2000

20% Lecture preparations

We anticipate that at times there will be a lot of reading material for given lecture topics. In order to encourage preparation for lecture discussions, we are going to require that students be responsible for preparing summaries of readings for lectures both before and after the actual lecture date. Each student will be assigned to cover readings for some number of lectures during the semester. Two evenings before the lecture date (e.g., Sunday night for Tuesday lectures and Tuesday night for Thursday lectures), a summary of the reading must be placed in the class CoWeb under Ubicomp library page. After the lecture for a given reading, the same students will be required to modify the reading summary to reflect any follow-up thoughts or understanding that resulted from the in-class discussion.

Before a lecture, the summaries will be assessed for their clear explanation of the key ideas behind the readings. During the lecture, students responsible for a reading will be expected to lead discussion of issues relating to their reading. After a lecture, the modified summaries will be assessed for their overall quality and insights.

We encourage all students to regularly visit the reading summaries both before and after the lecture. Before the lecture, we hope that the summaries will provide insights into the content of the readings. After the lecture, we expect all students to offer constructive insights into the readings based on lecture discussions. In fact, these constructive insights will count toward every students final assessment in the course, as explained later.

For each reading each student prepares during the course, the pre-lecture summary, the in-class leadership, and the post-lecture follow-up will be graded out of 10 points. The pre-lecture summary will be due two nights before the given lecture. Late pre-lecture summaries will be docked 5 points. Post-lecture follow-up will be required within one week of the lecture and will be docked 5 points if late. Each student will be responsible for 2 lecture preparations.

15% Extended research papers

Each student will be responsible to prepare an extended research paper on some topic covered in lecture. Topics selected must be approved in advance by the instructors. The research papers must be created within the CoWeb space under the Extended research reports: Spring 2000 space.

The purpose of the research report is to synthesize in written form the understanding for a given topic. The report needs to cover all assigned reading for the topic and is expected to bring in information from additional references in the traditional scientific literature as well as from the Web.

Students will be allowed to work individually or in teams up to three on this report.

These research reports will be graded in two stages. At the end of Week 8 (March 2), the first draft of the report is due and will be commented on by the instructors and given a grade out of 100. The final draft of the report is due in Week 14 (April 13) and will be given a grade out of 100. The final grade for the research report will be calculated as a weighted average of the first and final drafts, with the final draft counting twice as much.

15% How-to tutorials with technology

One important skill for doing ubiquitous computing research is to be able to identify critical technologies and how to use them in developing applications. We will be introducing some critical technologies in this class and we expect that all students have some ideas on technologies considered important or interesting from a ubicomp perspective. Each student will be responsible for developing a tutorial for a given technology. This tutorial is supposed to give the reader an understanding of what the technology is, how to obtain it and how to use it in practice to develop some application.

Students may work individually or in groups up to three on developing this "how-to" tutorial. The tutorials are to be placed in the Tutorials on critical technologies space on the CoWeb. Topics for your tutorial must be approved in advance and the instructors can help to identify potential technologies throughout the course.

These tutorials will be graded in two stages. At the end of Week 4 (February 3), the first draft of the tutorial is due and will be commented on by the instructors and given a grade out of 100. The final draft of the tutorial is due in Week 12 (March 30) and will be given a grade out of 100. The final grade for the tutorial will be calculated as a weigthed average of the first and final drafts, with the final draft counting twice as much.

40% Projects

Individuals or groups of up to three students will be required to develop requirements and some form of a prototype of a mobile or ubiquitous computing project.

There will be 5 deliverables for the project: a written proposal (February 22) a design document including story boards and an assessment of technology requirements (March 21), an in-class presentation of the initial design (March 28 and 30), a final demonstration and document including an evaluation of the prototype (April 25) and a final in-class presentation (April 25 and 27).

10% Collaborative assessment

Since we are relying on the CoWeb to hold most of the material produced in this course, it is possible for the class as a whole to participate in constructive assessment activities. For this part of the overall grade, we will be looking contributions from each student that critique lectures, reading summaries, "how-to" tutorials and group projects. It is important that when you edit some part of the CoWeb space in order to put in some constructive comments that you make clear your assessment by labeling it with your name. The initial assignment in the course is to create a space in the CoWeb that introduces you. This is to be done within the Who's Who: Spring 2000 page of the CoWeb.