| FJK Home | CPE/CSC 484 | Syllabus | Schedule | Lecture Notes | Assignments | Labs | Project |
| Status | Final |
| Points | 40 |
| Deadline | Week 10 |
This quarter, the projects should be aligned along two themes. The first one is the development of a prototype of a system, application or infrastructure that supports learning, and can be used in an environment similar to Cal Poly. The second theme is the use of tablet PCs and tablet PC software, both with respect to the end user's and the developer's perspective of an application.
The emphasis of the project should be on the user interaction and user interface aspects, not so much on the underlying functionality. You can also do a usability evaluation of an existing product or system, and design an alternative interaction paradigm or user interface for that system.
Each team can select their own topic, but please coordinate it with me. Preferably the final project should be a continuation of a topic addressed in earlier assignments.
The project is a team effort, with a team size of about 4-5 people. As for the assignments, please create a thread on the Blackboard discussion forum with a short description of your topic, and a list of team members. Add other materials as you go.
Time permitting, there will be an initial project presentation where you present your project idea, the initial design, a development plan, and a plan for the usability evaluation of the final product or system. The presentation should be accompanied by a document that describes the above aspects.
At the end of the quarter, your team will present the results of your work. In the final presentation, you will demonstrate the final design or product, and discuss important aspect of its conception, design, and development from a user-centered and usability-oriented perspective. You should also include a preliminary usability evaluation. This presentation is accompanied by a final report, and possibly a poster. If it is practical, the presentations will be given to a larger audience, either as a formal presentation, or through a poster session. The practical aspects of this event will be discussed in class
The documentation for your project should describe the purpose, goals and objectives, requirements, data collection outcomes, and final product or design of your project. If appropriate, you can also discuss the design process, main interaction methods, and evaluation methods that you used. This document does not have to be very long, and you can refer to or include earlier documents (e.g. from Assignments 2-4). The main part of the documentation can consist of images of the system you develop as the final class project, but it should be accompanied by some explanations that address the issues mentioned above. Please post the documentation on the Blackboard discussion board.
Since it can be difficult for me to judge the contributions of individual team members to the overall effort, I am asking for your feedback on the performance of your team mates. Follow this link to the template Mutual Team Member Evaluation Sheet as an Excel file. I expect all team members to provide specific and accurate feedback on their team mates. You may lose points for this part if you do a sloppy job on this, e.g. by filling out only the numerical scores, but not giving any justification. While there is necessarily a strong subjective component to such an evaluation, I also expect you to concentrate on the professional aspects of your team mates, and not on personal traits that you may or may not like. I reserve the right to adjust these scores, however, especially in cases where all team members give each other the maximum score without sufficient justification. I may also ask you for further documentation to support your contribution to the team, or your evaluation of a team member's contribution.
| Project Grading Scheme | ||
| Initial Presentation | 5 | |
| Initial Documentation | 5 | |
| Final Presentation | 10 | |
| Final Documentation | 10 | |
| Mutual Team Member Evaluation | 10 | |
The overall score for the project is 40 points; 30 come out of my evaluation of the team project, and usually every team member gets the same score. If there is a clear discrepancy between the contributions and performance of the different team members, I may give individual scores for team members. Up to 10 points come from an evaluation of your team mates, calculated as the average of all your team mates' scores for your contributions.
A substantial degree of your grade in this class depends on the overall performance of your team. This can be good (you do nothing, and still get a good grade) or bad (you do all the work, but you don't get the grade you deserve since the other team members didn't do that well). Ideally, every team member should contribute a roughly equal share. In reality, this is not the case because team members have different backgrounds, experience, work habits, cultures, etc. Just like in a professional work environment, you have to find a balance between looking after your own interest, and contributing to the overall team effort. If at any point you feel that there are serious problems with your project team, feel free to talk to me, and we will try to find a solution.
| FJK Home | CPE/CSC 484 | Syllabus | Schedule | Lecture Notes | Assignments | Labs | Project |
| Franz Kurfess |