COSC411-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017

Advanced Topics in HCI

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 25 June 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 19 May 2017

Description

An introduction to research in human-computer interaction.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is concerned with the design, evaluation, and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them. It is an extremely active and broad-ranging research area, with contributions varying from inventive systems that demonstrate new ways of interacting with computers through to the use of formal methods for specifying interface behaviour.

This course investigates current research topics in HCI, with a focus on the methods that are used to evaluate user interfaces. Recent research papers in the area will be reviewed. Students will carry out a small research project in an HCI topic. Their project will be presented in the form of a paper suitable for submission to a research conference.

Learning Outcomes

  • This course is intended for honours and graduate students, researchers, and practitioners interested in Human-Computer Interaction.
  • Major areas will be introduced by the lecturer.
  • For each area, students will be assigned readings, and the readings will be discussed in class.

    After completing this course, successful students:
    - are able to understand and explain a range of empirical  methods used for conducting research in human-computer interaction.
    - are able to understand and explain critical factors that should be considered during experimental design.
    - are able to develop research hypotheses.
    - are able to develop and deploy experiments that test research hypotheses.
    - are able to read and summarize in writing recent research papers.

Prerequisites

1) COSC368, 2) Subject to approval of the Head of Department. BE(Hons) students must have completed COSC363.

Course Coordinator

Andrew Cockburn

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Weekly Readings and Participation 10%
Research Project 50%
Final Exam 40%


Students must submit short written reviews of all assigned readings.
• Each student will choose a research topic that involves the following:
– Background research on the area.
– The design, implementation, and evaluation of a user interface. – A comprehensive written report.

Textbooks / Resources

Materials for the course will be made available on Learn

Additional Course Outline Information

Grade moderation

The Computer Science department's grading policy states that in order to pass a course you must meet two requirements:
1. You must achieve an average grade of at least 50% over all assessment items.
2. You must achieve an average mark of at least 45% on invigilated assessment items.
If you satisfy both these criteria, your grade will be determined by the following University- wide scale for converting marks to grades: an average mark of 50% is sufficient for a C- grade, an average mark of 55% earns a C grade, 60% earns a B- grade and so forth. However if you do not satisfy both the passing criteria you will be given either a D or E grade depending on marks. Marks are sometimes scaled to achieve consistency between courses from year to year.

Students may apply for special consideration if their performance in an assessment is affected by extenuating circumstances beyond their control.

Applications for special consideration should be submitted via the Examinations Office website within five days of the assessment.

Where an extension may be granted for an assessment, this will be decided by direct application to the Department and an application to the Examinations Office may not be required.

Special consideration is not available for items worth less than 10% of the course.

Students prevented by extenuating circumstances from completing the course after the final date for withdrawing, may apply for special consideration for late discontinuation of the course. Applications must be submitted to the Examinations Office within five days of the end of the main examination period for the semester.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $963.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Computer Science and Software Engineering .

All COSC411 Occurrences

  • COSC411-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017