Grading, Expectations, & Assignments

In addition to covering the core topic of biomedical information interactions and design, this course is designed to help you improve your skills in reading papers critically, defining and scoping a project, writing about a project, and presenting a body of work. The assignments in this course correspond to this style.

Grading:

Expectations:

• Class Participation - I hope this course will be a fun as well as educational experience, and part of the fun comes from participating in class discussions, group exercises, and class presentations. All students are expected to attend class and participate in these activities. For each class, please be prepared to discussion the papers in general or if provided, the questions for that class.
• Academic Honesty - To prevent possible misunderstandings, students will read the University of Washington's Statement on Academic Honesty. All students are expected to follow these high standards of academic honesty in all aspects of this course.

All assignments should be emailed to the instructor.

Reading reflections

Due for each reading by 10am of that class day - please email to the instructor

For each class reading, students are expected to write up a reflection that will help them prepare for the class discussion and exercises. Good reading reflections will result in interesting class discussions - something that we all benefit from. Each reading reflection should be a couple paragraphs long (about a half page or so) and include your thoughts about the assigned reading. These reflection paragraphs should include your personal reflections or reactions to the article and indicate that you have read and thought about the article thoroughly. The reflections should be an analysis of the article that could include any of the following:

• a comparison of the work to related material such as other readings in this course or any other reading that you happen to be familiar with
• suggestions for how the work could have been improved
• a summary of ways to expand on the work
• a critique of the work that questions its assumptions, or value
• a personal reflection on how the article relates to your own experiences
• questions that this material raises for you

Reading reflections should not be summaries of the articles read. I recommend printing out your reflections and bringing them to class to help remind you of points that you might want to make during the discussion.

Grades: If you turn in a reflection paper on time, you will receive a Ö+, Ö, or Ö- (equivalent to 4.0, 3.3, and 2.5 respectively). If you do not turn in a reading reflection, you will receive a zero for that class period. You will be graded based on the quality of your arguments and the clarity of your writing regardless of whether the instructor agrees with your reflections. You will receive some comments on your first two reflections, but all others will receive only the grade. You are always welcome to ask for a justification for any grade. All reading reflections must be submitted by 10am on the day that we will be discussing that reading because the point of these reflections is to prepare both the students and the instructor for the discussions and exercises in class. The day with the lowest reading reflection score will be dropped before calculating your grade.

Class participation

Research has shown that students learn more when they actively participate in class, rather than merely listen to a lecture. This course is designed to maximize the learning experience by encouraging and requiring active student participation during class. I hope this course will be a fun as well as educational experience for all of us, and part of the fun comes from participating in these class discussions, group exercises, and class presentations. All students are expected to attend class and participate in these activities.

Class presentation on related paper

Each student should choose a biomedical and health informatics paper (journal or long conference paper) that is related to the topic of class. After the instructor has approved your choice and made it available on the course e-reserve site, you should prepare a 20-minute presentation of that paper. Your presentation should follow the standard journal-club format (see content tips and style tips) and will be evaluated by your peers and the instructor based on this presentation evaluation form.

Observation Study and Report

You will conduct an observation of information interactions in a biomedical and health informatics field setting of your choice. The only restriction is that I do not want you to observe others who do exactly the same kind of work that you do.

To ensure that your observation is unobtrusive, try to dress like your participants, etc., so you blend into the setting and fill a natural role.

Try to observe the participants in your setting either over an extended period of time (i.e., a couple hours) or during a couple different timepoints. I expect you to observe at least 2 different people.

Record what you learned about information flow at the setting you chose, and reflect on the observation process in terms of methodological issues.  

Specifically, in your field notes:

• Describe the type of setting, its purpose when you were there and your observer role, diagram the setting’s lay-out, and record who was present and why (to the best of your knowledge). 

• Note what types of information were available and how that information functions within the setting. 

• Where possible, document the types of information that people sought or shared and the sources that they used. 

• Note any barriers to information flow that you observed. 

Code your field notes: Develop categories or themes that describe the findings from your study. Include representative examples for each category or theme. 

Write up a 4-6 page observational study report with your field notes as an appendix. Your report should follow the standard format for a publication of an observational study. It should include motivation for your study, setting details, methodology details, methodological reflections (what worked well and what didn't - what you learned about doing this kind of study), categories or themes found, implications of those findings, and conclusions.

Present a brief description (~5 minutes) of your setting and your findings in class. You may bring 1-2 transparencies if you like, but we won't have time for a PowerPoint presentation.

Grading Rubric:

Design Project, Presentation, & Report

As your final project, you will design (but not implement) a new kind of biomedical and health informatics tool of your choice. You must use one or more of the following methods to develop your design:

• Basing the design on an information interaction study - either your own Observation Study from class or on a published study

• Using scenario-based design

• Using personas

• Using participatory design

Then, you need to create (but not carry out) an evaluation plan for your newly designed tool. You must include users in your evaluation plan. The usability and user-centered evaluation portion of class could help provide insights into how to set up your evaluation plan, but you are not limited to those exact types of studies.

project plan

A project plan that contains the following:

• the type of tool or information problem that you hope your tool will address
• the design methodology (or methodologies) that you plan to use
• a list of tasks for accomplishing your plan with deadlines for each task

progress report

Describe your progress so far. At a minimum include:

• the list of original tasks and current status
• a list of remaining tasks with deadlines
• a summary of what you want to evaluate
• a high-level plan for how you will evaluate it

I will pair you up and have you critique each other's high-level evaluation plans

final report

Your final report should

• motivate your choice of topic and design methodology(ies)
• describe and refer to the methodology(ies) or information interaction study you chose
• motivate your design by connecting it to the design methodology(ies) or the information interaction study you chose
• detail (through a scenario) how your design would work
• describe in detail how you could evaluate your design
• summarize potential limitations
• conclude with a statement of the importance of your design and future directions

I expect the report to be about 6-8 pages worth of single-spaced text, but you are allowed to include as many figure as you like. Thus, the paper you submit could be 15 pages long if at least 7 pages were filled with figures or screenshots and explanations.

One way to organize your report follows:

1. Introduction - containing motivation and a preview of what the paper and project is about
2. Design - containing a summary of your design, the connection between your design and the methodology(ies) you used, other justifications for your design decisions, and at least one scenario of use
3. Evaluation Plan - include what your evaluation goal is as well as the details for the evaluation plan
4. Limitations of the design and evaluation plan
5. Conclusions - including a summary of the key points of the paper, your view of what the important contributions of your design are, and possible future directions
6. References

Final presentation

Please prepare a presentation of your project for the class. Presentations will take place during our final exam timeslot.  You may demonstrate your “mock-up”, show storyboards, or use other means to help us understand what information problem your design helps to solve and how your design works.

Your presentation should contain the same key elements as your final report, but framed appropriately for a 20-minute presentation with 5 minutes for questions.

Grading Rubric: TBD