Coursework and Grading

Your course grade will be a function of three elements: participation in class activities, a group design or evaluation project, and a final exam.

Class participation (30%):

The backbone of the course is a set of readings and class discussions. Your participation in these reading/discussion activities will be of several sorts.

Each class session will cover 2-3 subtopics on a theme, and each of these subtopics will have an assigned discussant, who will lead the class in discussing the readings. This discussant will also be expected to read the backup readings (see readings) and integrate the information from these readings as relevant.

Everyone except the discussant will submit reflections on the readings each week (see readings).

Someone will also serve as a recorder for each subtopic, taking notes and posting a summary of class discussion to our Web site.

All students will have the option to comment on or otherwise discuss any topic relevant to the course using our class discussion page.

Group project (40%):

Students will organize into small groups of 3-4 and carry out a group design or evaluation project. An evaluation project would involve the empirical study of an existing CSCW system, or of a collaborative work situation that could generate requirements for a CSCW system. A design project would involve the specification and prototype of a small-scale CSCW system of your choice. Groups will write a project report and will share their work with the class at the end of the semester.

A supplement to the project will be a collaboration report: each student will keep a collaboration journal during the group project, and the group as a whole will work from these journals to reflect on the group's collaboration successes and problems.

Final exam (30%):

At the end of the semester, students will complete a take-home final exam.