Course Syllabus

The syllabus is meant to serve as an outline and guide for this course. Please note that the syllabus and course schedule may be modified with reasonable notice in order to accommodate the needs of the class. 

Course Details

Instructors: Professor Kate Isaacs, Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) 4660

Meetings: 

• When: Thursdays, 11AM to Noon
• Where: Zoom most days, one a month the HCC lab in MEB
  • Linke TBD, Passcode: TBD
• What:
  • Perusall Readings, course code: TBD
  • Assignments, two each week
    • A pre-meeting write-up
    • In-class participation including:
      • Meaningful, spoken feedback regarding the week's reading to the author
        
        • Please note unhelpful feedback may constitute academic misconduct in this class. See the section on Academic Integrity.
      • Camera must be on the entire time

Mailing List: http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/hcc-seminar

Requesting a Permission Code as an Undergraduate: To receive a permission code, you must have already taken a 3 (or more) unit human centered computing course (e.g., CS 3540) with a grade of B or better. Please email the instructor asking for a permission code and explaining which course fulfills the requirement. 

Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge that this land, which is named for the Ute Tribe, is the traditional and ancestral homeland of the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute, and Ute Tribes. The University of Utah recognizes and respects the enduring relationship that exists between many Indigenous Peoples and their traditional homelands. We respect the sovereign relationship between tribes, states, and the federal government, and we affirm the University of Utah’s commitment to a partnership with Native Nations and Urban Indian communities through research, education, and community outreach activities.

Quick Links:

• Campus Mental Health Resources
• Identity-based Student Support Organizations

 

Overview

This seminar focuses on building and strengthening research skills in Human-Centered Computing (HCC) research, with an emphasis on writing research papers. The course is primarily based on a combination of:

• Reading in-progress research papers 
• Discussing how to improve in-progress research papers
• Discussing the research process itself

In general we will be seeking to gain an increased understanding of how to frame and communicate HCC research through analysis of in-progress research papers from the University of Utah community.

 

Course Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will have gained a better understand of:

• Comprehend, analyze, and contextualize academic writing for publications from human-centered computing.
• Construct, organize, and refine academic writing for publication in human-centered computing.

 

Required Course Materials

Zoom, Perusall

Please sign up for the hcc-seminar mailing list: http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/hcc-seminar.

As the seminar is open to non-enrolled researchers in HCC, communications will be done primarily through the mailing list rather than through this Canvas site.

 

Notice of Objectionable Materials

 

Attendance and Class Behavior

Participation is required and is a major factor in the course grading. Canvas is set to ignore the 1 lowest participation grade (i.e., those 1 missed class will have no effect on your grade). The purpose is to provide a buffer for illness or other emergencies during the semester. Please do not ask for 'excused absences,' the dropped class serves that purpose. If you have an emergency spanning longer than a week, please discuss with the instructor.

As this is a largely informal group, there will be a grace period within the first five minutes and last five minutes of class. Time missed beyond these periods will be factored into attendance as partial, rounded up to the nearest 15 minutes.

All class members including students are expected to treat others in an inclusive manner. We do not tolerate exclusionary or disrespectful behavior, including gatekeeping, dog whistles, or other indirect forms of disparagement on the basis of identity or area of study. Exclusionary behavior commits harm on the community and bolsters the well-being and academic performance of some at the cost of others. Exclusionary behavior will be considered a course policy academic integrity infraction.

Examples:

• Gatekeeping: "You don't know virtual memory [or other piece of knowledge]??"
• Gatekeeping: "Machine learning [or other area] isn't real computer science."
• Dog Whistles: "[Person]'s not qualified to speak on computer science." or "This is just not how computing is done in the real world." (where [Person]'s identity is from a group more likely to be questioned on their qualifications and legitimacy)
• Gatekeeping/Dog Whistle: "[Person]'s work could have been a blog post. It didn't deserve to be published."

 

Grading

The grading breakdown in this course is as follows:

• Participation (70%)
  • You must make a meaningful comment to help the paper author improve their work. Finding a typo or repeating something you did not write on Perusall does not count. 
  • Zoom camera must be on
• Pre-Seminar Write-ups (30%)

There is no final exam.

We will attempt to communicate expectations and feedback throughout the course, but it is your responsibility to communicate with us if you would like guidance in this regard.

If you believe something was graded incorrectly, please email the instructor. Please explain specifically what part you believe was graded incorrectly and in what way it was graded incorrectly and we will review it.

 

Late Policy

Late write-ups are not accepted. 

See Attendance section for late attendance policy

 

Assignment (Write-Ups & Participation) Overview

By the morning of the meeting (9AM), you are expected to have read the given reading material for the day and submitted to Canvas a written summary in your own words as described below. 

Please see the section regarding the use of AI language tools.

Pre-Seminar Summary

Due 9AM, the day of the seminar meeting. For the given reading, write at least 1-2 sentences each explaining:

• The main purpose of the research,
• the methods used in the research,
• the primary findings of the research, and
• at least two substantive comments-for-improvement regarding the work not already stated by others in the Perusall at the time of your submission. You may add these to Perusall yourself if you feel they would help the authors but you are not required to. We understand you may be new to this and unsure if your comment is helpful.

Substantive Comments-for-Improvement

For the purpose of this class, substantive comments are those that will help the author improve the paper. They should aim to be sincerely helpful. Please do not make a suggestion for the purpose of making a comment. The instructor may highlight on of your comments during the class meeting if she thinks it would help the authors. Comments can include:

• Suggesting missing details or alternative organization to make the paper easier to read. Examples:
  • "I think the authors need to add more about target population to the background section because...",
  • "I'd like to see more rationale for why the authors chose [method] because...", and
  • "It would be helpful to the argument argument to note in the introduction that you'll discuss this later."
• Comments explaining possible reviewer and reader concerns about the research or paper that might lead them to argue to reject the submission.
• Comments highlighting what are particular strengths of the paper that should either be further emphasized or definitely kept when revising the writing.
• Highlighting text that would be hard for a reviewer to understand (e.g., "I had trouble following this paragraph because...[reasons]" if there is a reasonable expectation that a research well-versed in the subject matter would have trouble reading it.)

Please note that small comments pointing our typos are welcome but are not considered substantive for the purposes of this class.

In-Class Participaton

• You must provide the paper author with at least one constructive comment during class.
  • Simple comments like typos do not fulfill this requirement
  • You may reiterate something from your write up or Perusall assuming you submitted it before someone else made the comment on Perusall. If you are only reiterating someone else's comment, it does not fulfill the requirement. You can add to someone's comment with original content.
  • Low quality comments that do not help the paper improve may be grounds for an academic misconduct violation.
• You must be present with your Zoom camera turned on (if applicable).

 

Use of AI Language Tools

AI Language Tools such as ChatGPT may not be used to generate text for this class. You may not ask these tools to summarize the reading for you. You may not ask these tools to generate comments for improvement for you.

You may use AI Language Tools to improve writing you have already done if properly cited. For example, if you wrote a summary but are concerned about the writing, you may give your writing to these tools and ask them to generate improved text IF you cite that you have done so and include the prompts you used with your original text.

You may use a spell-checking tool without citation. You may use office-product (e.g., Google Docs, MS Office, Libre Office, Open Office) grammar checkers without citation. If you use a grammar service such as Grammar.ly, please note that you have done so but you do not need to include the original prompts.

 

Grading Scheme

The following grading standards will be used in this class:

Grade	Range
A	[95, 100]
A-	[90, 95)
B+	[87, 90)
B	[83, 87)
B-	[80, 83)
C+	[77, 80)
C	[73, 77)
C-	[70, 73)
D+	[67, 70)
D	[63, 67)
D-	[60, 63)
F	[0, 60)

 

College of Engineering and University Policies

Please be aware of the College of Engineering Guidelines.

Drop/Withdrawal. Students may drop a course within the first two weeks of a given semester without any penalties. Students may officially withdraw (W) from a class or all classes after the drop deadline through the midpoint of a course. A “W” grade is recorded on the transcript and appropriate tuition/fees are assessed. The grade “W” is not used in calculating the student’s GPA. For deadlines to withdraw from full-term, first, and second session classes, see the U's Academic Calendar. 

 

Academic Integrity. It is assumed that all work submitted to your instructor is your own work. When you have used the ideas of others, you must properly indicate that you have done so. Even if you do not directly quote (e.g., if you change some of the words or paraphrase) without citation, this is plagiarism and is a serious academic integrity offense. If you are not familiar with plagiarism, please see the U library resources on plagiarism for a primer.

Please do not share your individual assignments with other students. We've observed that often leads to wholesale copying. You may discuss how you approached the assignment with others, but each of you should write up your answer on your own. If you are concerned about the appearance of over-sharing, we recommend you add a note to your assignment listing who you discussed it with, what kind of discussion took place, and what topics were covered. In the past, some students have even included photos of whiteboards from these collaboration sessions.

Dishonesty in reporting is another form of academic misconduct. This includes fabrication of data, such as misreporting attendance or lying about the work of other individuals in the course.

Unethical treatment of humans is not tolerated in this course and will be considered academic misconduct. Though we do not seek IRB approval for the assignments in this class because they are for educational purposes only, you are expected to treat participants with the same ethical standards as an IRB-approved study. Furthermore, you are expected to treat members of this class in a respectful and ethical manner.

This seminar focuses on improving the draft work of your fellow students. Low effort, insincere, or otherwise unhelpful comments are unethical in that you are harming other students by advising them in ways that may decrease the quality of their work. They are thus a form of misrepresentation. As such, they may be treated as academic misconduct in this class and handled accordingly.

Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and may be punished by failure on an individual assignment, and/or failure in the course. Academic misconduct, according to the University of Utah Student Code,

“...Includes, but is not limited to, cheating, misrepresenting one’s work, inappropriately collaborating, plagiarism, and fabrication or falsification of information…It also includes facilitating academic misconduct by intentionally helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic misconduct.”

For details on plagiarism and other important course conduct issues, see the U's Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities (Links to an external site.) as well as the School of Computing's Academic Misconduct Policy.

As this is a graduate course with a research focus, integrity is paramount. The instructor will recommend course failure as a sanction for any academic integrity infraction.

 

Course Materials Copyright.  The Content is made available only for your personal, noncommercial educational, and scholarly use. You may not use the Content for any other purpose, or distribute, post or make the Content available to others unless you obtain any required permission from the copyright holder. Some Content may be provided via streaming or other means that restrict copying; you may not circumvent those restrictions. You may not alter or remove any copyright or other proprietary notices included in the Content. 

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The University of Utah seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services, and activities for people with disabilities. If you will need accommodations in this class, reasonable prior notice needs to be given to the Center for Disability Services, 162 Olpin Union Building, (801) 581-5020. CDS will work with you and the instructor to make arrangements for accommodations. All written information in this course can be made available in an alternative format with prior notification to the Center for Disability Services.

Given the nature of this course, attendance is required and adjustments cannot be granted to allow non-attendance. However, if you need to seek an ADA accommodation to request an exception to this attendance policy due to a disability, please contact the Center for Disability and Access (CDA). CDA will work with us to determine what, if any, ADA accommodations are reasonable and appropriate.

 

Mental Health Resources. Rates of burnout, anxiety, depression, isolation, and loneliness have noticeably increased during the pandemic. If you need help, reach out for campus mental health resources, including free counseling, trainings and other support.

Consider participating in a Mental Health First Aid or other wellness-themed training provided by our Center for Student Wellness and sharing these opportunities with your peers, teaching assistants and department colleagues.

 

COVID-19 Resources and Policies. For the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 protocol, please refer to https://coronavirus.utah.edu/. 

Other resources are

1. Student Guidance: What Steps to Take for a Possible or Confirmed COVID-19 Exposure
2. Registrar’s Office COVID-19 Information and FAQ’s
3. Housing & Residential Education

 

Addressing Sexual Misconduct. Title IX makes it clear that violence and harassment based on sex and gender (which Includes sexual orientation and gender identity/expression) is a civil rights offense subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, color, religion, age, status as a person with a disability, veteran’s status or genetic information.  If you or someone you know has been harassed or assaulted, you are encouraged to report it to the Title IX Coordinator in the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, 135 Park Building, 801-581-8365, or the Office of the Dean of Students, 270 Union Building, 801-581-7066.  For support and confidential consultation, contact the Center for Student Wellness, 426 SSB, 801-581-7776.  To report to the police, contact the Department of Public Safety, 801-585-2677(COPS).

 

Undocumented Student Support Statement. Immigration is a complex phenomenon with broad impact—those who are directly affected by it, as well as those who are indirectly affected by their relationships with family members, friends, and loved ones. If your immigration status presents obstacles to engaging in specific activities or fulfilling specific course criteria, confidential arrangements may be requested from the Dream Center. Arrangements with the Dream Center will not jeopardize your student status, your financial aid, or any other part of your residence. The Dream Center offers a wide range of resources to support undocumented students (with and without DACA) as well as students from mixed-status families. To learn more, please contact the Dream Center at 801.213.3697 or visit dream.utah.edu.

 

Inclusivity Statement. I stand in support of compassion, dignity, value-of-life, equity, inclusion and justice for all individuals regardless of color, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, language, socioeconomic status, ability, gender, gender identity or expression, immigration status, or any type of marginalization. I stand in support of making our society more inclusive, just, and equitable for all individuals. I stand against individual and systemic racism in all its various forms.

Please see Student Support Organizations for a list of different support organizations on campus, each with specialized experience in different identities and circumstances.

 

Mandatory Reporter Notice

The instructor and teaching staff for this course are mandatory reporters. This means we must report instances of violence, harassment, and discrimination that we observe or that are reported to us. If you do not want your incident reported (or are not ready to have it reported), the University has several confidential options for talking about and receiving support for your situation:

Office of the Ombudsman | 801-213-3757 | facultyombudsman@hsc.utah.edu

University Counseling Center | 801-581-6826 | counselingcenter.utah.edu

Victim Survivor Advocates | 801-581-7776 | advocate.wellness.utah.edu | advocate@sa.utah.edu

Women's Resource Center | 801-581-8030 | womenscenter.utah.edu

 

Changelog

None Yet