Fall 09 Grad Course on: Information and Communication Technologies for Social Issues Tuesdays 3-6pm Porter Acad 245 CMPS290T - cross listed DANM
Primary Topic: How is all this technology we invent any good for anything. Poverty, liberty, peace, environment? Seriously, why would we want to learn about whatever it is we're learning? Ideally we'll cover a range of topics. In practice I have read most in poverty reduction, this sub area is starting to get called ICTD. But we will try to be broader. Privacy, games, and assistive technologies are all things worked on by someone in SOE. We'll read lots of papers, watch videos, etc.. Everything from cel phone microscopes, rural kiosks, interfaces for the illiterate, to networking when you have no power. Ideally, we'll come away with a understanding of the current state of this emerging field, and an answer to how each of us could apply our primary research to this area if we were so inclined.
are doing an MFA in the Art division and the film professor Sharon Daniels is interested primarily in 'participatory culture'. If you’ve talked with anyone who took the class Spring09, you know that it was not especially considered a good learning experience. I have taken steps to better structure the class this time.
Overarching Course Project: Because the DANM students are taking a year long course, there is an overarching theme project. As a CS student you’ll primarily work on an individual project, that may or may not be related to this theme. You will however also be thinking about the theme project. The course theme project revolves around providing consumers access to information on the cultural history of a product at the time of purchase. For example, we could use our cel phone to get not just competitive prices, or a social goodness score, but also an interview with the person who actually made the shirt you are buying.
Readings roughly 3 papers and 1 video per week. A ½ written reflection on the readings is required every week just to help you find time to do them.
Projects (for SOE students), they will do an individual project. Preferably we get people to do strongly interrelated projects so that in practice you can work with a team, but they will be individual goals and sub-projects. These projects will not be required to match the overall class goal, but I hope that some will. They will be chosen from a list I provide. I will allow strong willed students to choose their own project, but I'm going to put pressure to do one of mine, and require a good plan if you want your own. All projects should end with either a minor research paper or a useful tool for a partner NGO or an iPhone app which is released in the appStore. They will be smallish projects, but they will complete with CV worthy output. I have historically had 50% of class projects become accepted conference papers. Note that there are only 6 working weeks on the project, so think of it as a ½ qtr project, not a qtr project.
Grading: • Individual Projects will be chosen the first week. Then will be graded weekly for the next 6 weeks by the other members of the class. The next week is writeup/release week, the final week will not be used for projects if things go properly, its a buffer. Grading related to delivery of progress towards goals each week. 40% • Individual Project outcomes - at the end of the class a portion of grade is based on actual outcome that outlives the class. I will make sure this is possible for all projects prior to making them an option. 20% • Reading reflections - 1/2 page about readings each week, just to make you do the reading for real. 20% • Find a datasource – twice during the qtr each student will find a new source of existing data about some products and their social cost. For example, the monterey aquarium fish suggestions, or greenpeace suggestions, etc. Each person finds a new source of existing data, discuss with the class, and then arrange to get the data imported/converted into our giant spreadsheet of data. 20%
Class time: 1 hr - discuss readings, topics vary every week 1/2 hour - project status report from CS, 5 minutes each, assign grades to each 1/2 hour - project status report from DANM, (not sure what this is yet) 1/2 hour - discuss existing data we all found, and how we ram it into our database
Overall class goals:
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