Grading
Lecture Preparations (15%)
To prepare students for the lectures and to facilitate discussions, students
are expected to read one or more papers for each lecture. Links to the
papers are provided on the course schedule. Each paper must be summarized
in 1-2 paragraphs, describing the key ideas, problem statement and solutions,
results, etc. In addition, for some papers, students have to answer one
or more questions; the answers should be kept short and to the point (2-3
sentences each).
Survey Paper (15%)
Each student will prepare a survey or research paper on a topic to be
determined by the student. This paper can be a case study of a pervasive
system or it can focus on a concrete problem in the realization of ubiquitous
systems (such as privacy, human-computer interactions, systems and networks,
mobility, etc.). A paper must be at least 6 pages long (single-spaced, 10pt
font, no more than 1 inch margins) and is expected to provide information
that goes beyond the information provided by the lecture and reading materials.
The survey paper will be graded in two stages, a draft will be due mid-semester
and a final version will be due towards the end of the semester.
"How To" Tutorial (15%)
Students should be able to identify critical technologies and to describe
how to use them. Sample technologies will be covered in the lectures and
can include hardware components designed specifically for pervasive
environments, software tools (programming environments, languages), input and
output technologies, sensors and actuators, networking technologies and
protocols, etc. The tutorial is supposed to give the reader an understanding
of what the technology is, how to obtain it, how to use it, the current
shortcomings of the technology, etc. The minimum page requirement
is 6 pages and the tutorial will be graded in two stages (draft due
mid-semester and final version due towards the end of the semester).
Project (40%)
Each student will perform a semester-long
pervasive computing project. The project phase of the course will start
out with small coding assignments before students propose their own
project for the remainder of the semester.
There will be several deliverables:
a written proposal, a design document including story boards and an
assessment of technology requirements, an in-class presentation of the
initial design and progress report, a final demonstration, a final in-class
presentation, and a final report including an evaluation of the prototype.
While the focus of the project phase will be on pervasive systems and
applications on Apple handheld devices (iPod Touch), students are welcome
to use other resources made available by the instructor (such as Android-based
phones, embedded Linux computers, etc.).
Collaborative Assessment (15%)
All project documentation, story boards, reports, etc., will be maintained
on a course wiki. Students are expected to participate in constructive
assessment activities by providing critiques on surveys, how to tutorials,
project proposals, progress reports, presentation slides, story boards, etc.
Students are expected to provide such type of feedback for at least ten
pieces of documents from other students. The feedback must be polite,
professional, and constructive. Each feedback must be labeled with the
student's name. Such feedback can also be provided in response to somebody
else's feedback (i.e., a student may disagree with the assessment of somebody
else or provide additional constructive feedback that builds on another
student's feedback). Further, students will provide feedback on drafts
of survey papers and tutorials of other students and students are expected
to consider received feedback in the revision of their manuscripts.