Project 1: Project Proposal

Due Date

Tuesday, March 18, 11:59am EST

Overview

Learning Goals

By the end of this lab you will learn how to enage in divergent thinking to come up with project ideas.

Requirements

Your mission this week is to develop an idea for your class project.

By the deadline, you should have:

1. Created a Google Drive folder for your group and shared it with me
2. Written a 2 page write-up that includes:
   • A description of why you chose this problem
   • An analysis of the problem or idea
   • A proposed solution that is based on some scholarly research
3. Created a 5 minute presentation that includes:
   • Why you chose the problem
   • An analysis of the problem or idea
   • A proposed solution that is based on some scholarly research

Part 1: Discover

[10 mins] By Yourself, part 1

Think about your goals for this class and the topics within social computing. Write down 10 different "problems" you want to address and you think might benefit from building a social computing system. These can be problems you've experienced yourself, or problems you've seen others experience. They can be problems with existing social media platforms, or problems with the way people interact with technology.

[5 mins] Pair Up

Share your list with your partner. Narrow your list of 10 problems to 3 that you are interested in and believe you can make some meaningful progress towards in 6 weeks working within a team.

[15 mins] By Yourself, part 2

Create a presentation with 3 slides, one for each of your top 3 problems. You'll have Each slide should include:

• A brief overview of the problem and why you think it is important
• Two "anti-solutions" that leverage social computing (i.e., things that would make the problem worse)
• Two "solutions" that leverage social computing (i.e., things that would make the problem better)

At this point, you don’t need to have any fully fleshed out solutions. More importantly, you should focus on concretely describing a couple problem areas or topics that most interest you, and why you think they are interesting or important.

The solution doesn't have to be a traditional "social media" platform. Other examples include: wikis, event organizing platforms, collaborative document editing, chat and messaging forums, online marketplaces, social bookmarking, etc.

Project Pitches

You will pitch your three problem/solutions to the class. We will limit you to 2 minutes - you can use that time to discuss one idea or all three, up to you.

Now that you've had a chance to think about your project ideas and see everyone else's, you'll have a chance to form teams. You can choose to work with someone who has the same idea as you, or someone you want to work with.

Rubric: Your project pitches will be graded as follows:

• Novelty: Are the three idea significantly different from each other?
• Relevance: Are the ideas amenable to being address with a social computing system?
• Clarity: Are the ideas in your presentation clearly articulated?

Part 2: Explore/Define

Establish Your Partnership

You'll need to work with a partner for this lab. Teams are a common feature of the workplace, in virtually every industry; and HCI, UX, and Software Engineering are no exception. Many of you will have been, or currently are, involved in work teams, either formally or informally. In both face-to-face and remote contexts, team members have to practice good communication and collaboration. Job descriptions routinely ask for these skills, and I hope this class will help you to develop and reflect on these skills.

If you haven't already, read the syllabus for tips on effective teamwork. It's good to set expectations before you start a project so you have something to refer back to if (when) you encounter friction in your partnership.

Now, sit next to your partner and create a team compact. The team compact should include:

• Team Name: Come up with a team name that represents your partnership.
• Team Members: List the names of your team members.
• Meeting Times: List the times you plan to meet outside of class.
• Communication: How will you communicate with each other? (e.g., Slack, Discord, text, email)
• Conflict Resolution: How will you resolve conflicts that arise during the lab? Feel free to use me as a scapegoat: “Prof. V will not find this convincing. Why don’t we try…?”
• Division of Labor: How will you divide the work? Will you work on different parts of the lab or work together on everything? Remember, if one person does all the work, you won't be able to make much progress in a future lab. You also have to fill in a partnership survey at the end of each lab to indicate how much you and your partner contributed to the lab.
• Timeline: What is your timeline for completing the lab? When will you have certain requirements completed by?

Project Proposal and Presentation

The goal of this milestone is to deeply analyze a problem that could form the basis of a the project for this class, and propose an appropriate solution through a social computing system. Of the many ideas you and your team partners presented on, you will need to choose one.

Write-up: You will need to draft a 2 page write-up (single spaced, 12 point font, 1" margins) that includes:

• 0.25 page: A description of why you chose this problem. This description should justify why this is a useful problem worth spending half a semester addressing. State what the problem is and why it is a problem, or describe a new idea and why it will enhance an existing application or practice.

• 0.75 page: An analysis of the problem or idea to give more background and context. Do not just focus on the negative aspects of the current situation, but also identify some positive aspects that may be beneficial to retain. A few salient examples from existing systems or practices could be used to support those claims. If appropriate, you may conduct this analysis by describing a scenario that illustrates how someone might encounter and resolve the problem.

• 1 page: A proposed solution that is be based on some scholarly research (preferably within the fields of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), or Social Computing). You will need to find at least one scholarly article that is relevant to your problem and solution. You will need to cite this article in your write-up. You can find scholarly articles using Google Scholar or ACM Digital Library. Relevant conferences and journals include CHI, CSCW, DIS, GROUP, Transactions on HCI, Transactions on Social Computing, HCOMP, ICWSM, and WWW. Bonus points if you also reference some fundamental socail theory from a social science scholarly article.

Presentation: Create a 5 minute presentation your project proposal. You will pitch your project proposal to the class on March 18th. We will limit you to 5 minutes. Discuss why you chose that specific problem, why it is a problem, or describe a new idea and why it will enhance an existing application or practice. Then, discuss your proposed solution and how it will address the problem by leveraging existing scientific research.

Submission

Create a shared Google Drive folder for your group. In that folder, create a Google Doc for your write-up and a Google Slides presentation for your project proposal. Share the link to the folder with me by the deadline.

Rubric:

Category/Value	Needs Improvement (1 pt)	Good (2 pts)	Excellent (3 pts)
Clarity and Organization	Presentation of the project idea was confusing and/or lacked organization.	Presentation of the project idea was somewhat confusing and/or lacked organization.	Presentation of the project idea clear and well-organized.
Problem and Motivation	Project idea was not clearly motivated by a real-world problem, did not incorporate scholarly research at all.	Project idea was motivated by a real-world problem, it was unclear how this project would help. May have cited scholarly research but did not make a clear connection.	Project idea was clearly motivated by a real-world problem and the project idea was directly linked to the problem. Incorporated scholarly research to describe the problem or propose a solution.
Timing	Presentation was severely over or under the time limit for either the demo.	Presentation was within 1 minute of the time limit for either the demo.	Presentation was within 30 seconds of the the time limit for the demo.
Q&A	Could not adequately answer class' questions and/or did not manage Q&A well.	Answered some of class' questions well and managed Q&A well.	Answered most of class' questions well and managed Q&A well.