Overview

When the core content of a course involves people, engagement is absolutely critical. We will be doing design exercises in class, testing new software on each other, and providing critiques of each others’ work. This portion of your grade may be higher in HCI than some of your other courses for this very reason. Coffee up! It involves:

• Showing up to class
• Actively engaging in class activities
• Asking questions about the reading/videos at the start of class
• Answering questions about the reading/videos via Kahoot
• Actively engaging in design critique of classmates
• Submitting good questions for our visitors
• Occasional reflection on class activities

Attendance and Tardiness Policy

We will build a community of respect in this class. Part of respecting is others is valuing their time. I show respect to my students by promptly responding to emails and Slack messages sent between 8 AM and 5 PM. I show respect to my family and friends by ignoring work-related emails and messages between 5 PM and 8 AM.

Arriving late to class is disrespectful to your classmates, to me, and to the learning environment. Arriving later than 10 minutes after the start of class (8:15 AM or later) will result in an unexcused absence on your record. Per college policy, a student who misses 25% or more of class meetings automatically fails the course. For a two-meeting-per-week course, this is missing 7 classes or more. should there be a conflict between any class session and a religious holiday or observance, students should let the instructor know of their personal need. Religious observance warrants a legitimately excused absence. Missing class due to athletic competition is not an excused absence and does count against your total absences.

Accommodations for Attendance and Tardiness

I highly value communication around absences and tardiness. If you know you are going to be later than 10 minutes, message me on Slack at least 1 hour before class begins. Likewise, if you communicate early and remind me about an upcoming absence, I am more likely to be flexible with deadlines around that absence date. Note: this is not a guarantee – sometimes there are college policies that we all have to abide by.

There is no flexibility on the 25% attendance policy – missing 7 classes or more is an automatic F in the course. I take attendance each class period and will email warnings to any students with 4 or more absences reiterating this policy.

Engagement with the course reading materials (7 percentage points of out 10)

I expect you to come prepared to class, having done the readings before class. I do not expect you to fully understand the readings; however, you should ask about the things you do not understand. We will have a few minutes at the start of class to review the readings before we answer quiz questions using Kahoot. I will keep track of everyone’s scores throughout the class. The students with the top 3 scores at the end of the semester will receive the full engagement score (7%). The bottom 3 students will receive one percentage point for engaging with the reading (1%). The students in the middle will receive 4%. *Caveat: in the event of a tie or near-tie, I will adjust this system in favor of the students (meaning, students may earn more points than advertised here).

The remaining 3 percentage points (of your 10 percentage points toward Engagement) come from active participation in class (e.g., critiquing classmates, staying on task, participating in one-off activities, etc.).

Note: If you are a student with a testing accommodation, I will reach out directly to you about these Kahoot quizzes.**

Slack and online presence

We use Slack in this class for communication, both with me and with each other. You will use your Davidson Domains to host your blogs. Communicating through the internet has its own set of norms, so I expect you to follow these guidelines:

• I will send communication during my working hours (8:30 AM -5:30 PM on weekdays) and will not respond outside of those hours. Usually, I will respond within 24 business hours.
• Likewise, I will respect your personal working hours and will expect a response within a similar, reasonable amount of time.
• Treat each other with respect, and err on the side of being too courteous. It is too easy to be overly casual on the internet and cause miscommunications or hurt feelings.
• You may use this Slack to communicate with each other, via individual or group messages or channels.

Visitors and Field Trips

HCI is a diverse field. It has computer scientists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, artists, and everything in between. Giving you one perspective (my perspective) would shed light on only a corner of an increasingly exciting field that is shaping how people engage with the world around them. As a result, we will often have an opportunity to chat with people across this broad spectrum in-person and virtually by Zoom. What you need to do:

• Submit a question on Slack for our guest by 5pm the day before their visit.
• Before 8:00am the morning of the visit, indicate which current questions on Slack you like (with emoji, a comment, whatever). We will ask the top 3-5 questions submitted each week.
• For each visitor, I will request that one student (on a volunteer basis) serve as the coordinator. You will be responsible for asking the questions of our visitor.

Grading

Each opportunity to engage, participate, or critique will be entered as a score in the gradebook out of n points, where n is commensurate with the effort level of the activity. Full credit if you partipate, none if you don’t.