Course Syllabus

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Mobile Computing – Design and Implementation

lp1 HT21

7.5 hp

CLS055 (Chalmers University of Technology)
DIT075 (University of Gothenburg)

Offered by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)

Teaching Personnel

Course Responsible and Teacher:
Mehmet Aydın Baytaş
baytas@chalmers.se | @doctorBaytas | baytas.net

Examiner:
Paweł Woźniak
pawel.wozniak@chalmers.se | @hcipawel | pawelwozniak.eu

TA:
Frederik Göbel
gobelf@student.chalmers.se | frederikgoebel.de

Purpose

We define "mobile computing" in two ways:

  1. Portable digital devices. Examples: smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and other wearables, RFID cards, and IoT applications...
  2. Use cases where the user is mobile. Examples: commuting, tourism, driving, sports, air travel, space exploration...

In this course, we introduce concepts, methods, and technologies relevant to user interfaces for mobile computing. Students who pass should be able to appreciate, create, and study mobile computing artifacts, at a level where they are able to self-sufficiently contribute to both commercial and academic projects.

We cover a broad range of topics related to mobile computing. These range from more "conventional" views focusing on smartphones and tablets, to emerging technologies like VR, AR, and personal robotics (all of which we expect to become mobile and ubiquitous in the near future, though they may not be fully so at the moment).

Requirements and Warnings

  • Programming knowledge is a prerequisite for this course. We expect that you are comfortable with object-oriented programming concepts (variables, classes, functions, arguments, inheritance, arrays, loops, conditionals, standard library...); and have basic knowledge of database and networking technologies. If you do not fulfill this prerequisite, and still wish to take this course, contact the course responsible as soon as possible.
  • Since this course is typically taken in the second year of the Interaction Design and Technologies master's program, it assumes knowledge of topics covered in the first-year compulsory courses (e.g. basic interaction design, graphical interfaces, prototyping).
  • We do our best to provide for students with atypical needs, but it is work-in-progress. If you or someone you support/represent may have atypical requirements in terms of accessibility, scheduling, learning, etc., contact the course responsible (Mehmet – baytas@chalmers.se) ASAP. We will do our best to welcome everyone.

Privacy Warning

We may record videos during course sessions and publish them online.

  • In principle, only the teacher will be recorded.
  • The master recordings will be located on the teacher's local storage and will not be uploaded to any online service.
  • Some recordings may be published online. To prepare for publication, the master recordings will be edited by the teacher to remove student information. Edits include but are not limited to: redacting footage where students appear, replacing a voice with a voiceover and/or text, and redacting any students' names that the teacher might utter.
  • The un-edited master recordings will be deleted by the end of the learning period.

Please e-mail the course responsible re: any questions or objections about these policies.

Course Design

Content Overview

The 2021 edition of this course almost 100% online and mostly asynchronous. The workload will be close to 20 hours per week, for 8 weeks, between August 31 to October 23.

The typical workload per week is as follows:

  • 1 hour of "live" Sync Session attendance
  • 1 hour of "live" Discussion Session attendance
  • 5 hours of "Study and Response" – studying resources and responding to discussion prompts
  • 10 hours of project work and other assignments

The above adds up to 17 hours, hence also takes into account a "safety factor" with respect to the 20-hour-per-week time budget – in case the scheduled activities take longer than estimated.

Weeks 1-2 will involve much more Study and Response work.

Weeks 7-8 of the course are dedicated to project work. They include "live" personal supervision sessions between each group and the teachers.

Week 9 of the course is designated "exam week" university-wide. No work is scheduled during this week. However, during this final week, we will be accepting revisions, corrections, extra work, etc., which will be specified upon the evaluation of project deliverables handed in during the previous week. These are optional.

Learning Platform

Canvas will be used as the main learning platform for this course. All content will be published the Canvas, and divided into the following kinds of modules:

  • 1x Admin & Comms – This is a repository for course-related communication and administrative info, including schedules for live sessions.
  • 6x Study and Response – These are the main repositories for learning. They contain "graded discussion" blocks that should each take – on average – 1 hour to study and respond to.
  • 1x Project Work – Contains instructions and deliverables for the project. Structured as blocks of "assignments,"

Zoom will be used to conduct live sessions. We will always use the teacher's personal Zoom room for all meetings:

Scheduling

All mandatory activities during the 2021 version of this course will be online. Most activities will be asynchronous. Synchronous activities where attendance is expected are as follows:

  • A 1-hour Sync Session (usually Monday at 10:00 AM, SE time) where the teacher will introduce the week's topics and cover course administrativa.
  • A 1-hour Discussion Session (usually Wednesday at 10:00 AM, SE time) where we discuss the week's topics.
  • Project work is done in groups. Groups coordinate their own time.
  • Project supervision sessions with the teacher, during week 7 of the course (starting Oct 12), booked individually.

Most asynchronous activities have weekly deadlines, almost always on Friday.

The above is a "typical" schedule, valid for the first 6 weeks of the course.  Known exceptions:

  • Week 1 (starting Aug 31) – A Kick-off Session will be held on Wednesday at 10:00. No other live sessions.
  • Weeks 7-9 (starting Oct 12 and Oct 19) – Dedicated to project work. Office hours will be offered in place of regular live sessions.

IRL Activities

IRL and hybrid activities might be organized during the course. IRL attendance will not be required.

Grading

The course has two kinds of graded components:

  • 4 credits – Individual Assignments
    • 35 points – Responses to prompts under "Study and Response"
      • On average, every point corresponds to one hour of work, including watching/reading/listening content and writing responses.
      • These have deadlines on Friday every week. No credit will be given to late submissions. Comments which do not address the prompts properly may be marked down.
    • 15 points – Two writing and design assignments
    • TOTAL POINTS: 50
  • 3,5 credits – Project
    • 100 points – Project deliverables.
      • Project topic and structure will be announced on Sep 13 (Mon). 
      • Project deliverables have deadlines on Friday every week.  Late work will be handled on a case-by-case basis, and almost always result in a significant (>50%) reduction in grading.
    • TOTAL POINTS: 100

Notice: The "point" system does not correspond directly to the workload. Study and Discussion assignments cost you 1 hour per point. Implementation assignments cost 1 hour per 5 points. Project assignments workload will vary based on individual choices, and grading will be based on quality.

Conversion thresholds for final grades are given below. These will be used as a starting point: the examiner reserves the right to adjust the scheme if needed (e.g. if significant skewness emerges in the distribution of grades).

CIU 196 (Chalmers University of Technology) TIA 110 (University of Gothenburg) Individual Assignments Project
5 > 45 > 90
VG > 40 > 85
4 > 35 > 75
3 G > 30 > 60
F F ≤ 30 ≤ 60

Learning Objectives and Syllabus

See:

Student Representatives

Student representatives and the teachers meet three times: at the start of the course, halfway through the course, and after the course has been graded. Representatives are also encouraged to contact the teachers during the course as necessary to voice any feedback and/or requests.

We kindly request that course representatives contact the course responsible proactively to schedule the three meetings.

Student representatives have been assigned randomly, as follows:

Changelog

2021-08-30 Re-spec of individual assignments and grading
2021-08-30 Student reps update
2021-08-28 Student reps and TA info added
2021-08-23 Camera ready

Course Summary:

Date Details Due