Academics
  /  
Courses
  /  
Descriptions
COMP_SCI 397, 497: Multimodal learning analytics and interaction analysis


VIEW ALL COURSE TIMES AND SESSIONS

Prerequisites

Permission from the Instructor.

Description

This class is intended for students who have completed a previous class involving multimodal analytics or multimodal interfaces, and who wish to build their final projects into publishable research. Accordingly, students are expected to do one of the following:

  1. Make significant advancements on a multimodal interface and conduct user studies
  2. Use an existing platform to collect a larger sample of data, and perform multimodal analyses with that data.
  3. Use an existing data set to explore additional multimodal analytic techniques that answer one or more research questions that are relevant to their field.
  4. A select group of students may initiate a new project, or join an existing project team.

This is a hands-on project course. All students will be heavily involved in developing data analysis and/or interface development skills. Additionally, students will be expected to submit their work to one or more conferences, workshops or journals before the conclusion of the course.

INSTRUCTOR: Prof. Marcelo Worsley

GRADING: There are several assignments for this class. Students are expected to complete all assignments on time. All assignments will be graded, and judged as either complete or incomplete. Please send me an email if you need to request an extension for any assignment.  Assignments are due by 9 AM central time, on the date posted.

ASSIGNMENTS: Students will be required to submit several homework assignments over the course of the term. The assignments are listed below:

HW 1: PROJECT PROSPECTUS

For your project prospectus, you will clearly outline your objectives for the quarter, and create a rough timeline. You will also set expectations for how your team will manage communication, identify a potential venue to submit the work, and also submit a summary of work to date.

HW 2-8: WEEKLY UPDATES

Each week students will highlight progress made thus far and any deviations from the project timeline. Students will re-evaluate their objectives for the remainder of the quarter and delineate the steps needed to reach those goals.

HW 9: PAPER FIRST DRAFT

Students submit a first draft of their final paper. This first draft should follow the appropriate conference/journal format and length requirements.

HW 10: FINAL PAPER SUBMISSION

After receiving feedback on their first draft, students will submit an updated version of their paper.

HW 11: CONFERENCE/JOURNAL SUBMISSION

Students will submit confirmation that they did, in fact, submit their paper to a conference or workshop.

*The nature of each assignment is likely to differ based on the specific focus on each project. Additionally, a variety of formats will be accepted for the homework submissions as based on the needs of each student/group.

READINGS (TBD):

Readings will be distributed to students on a per project basis. Namely, students will be directed towards a body of literature that is appropriate for their project. Additionally, students will be expected to identify pertinent research papers, and upload those papers to a shared Mendeley folder. Notwithstanding, a handful of papers from different ACM and IEEE conferences will be shared for the purposes of dissecting the “recipes” for successful papers.

Below is a tentative schedule of the topics that we will be discussing each week. During most sessions, the focus will be on actively making progress on the various projects in a collaborative environments. Students will also, periodically present their work to their peers and/or review papers with one another.

Week

Date

Potential Topics

Assignment Due

1

4/2                           

Introduction to course

None

2

4/9

Improving your user studies

HW 1

3

4/16

Data collection challenges

HW 2

4

4/23

Data processing challenges

HW 3

5

4/30

Improving the interface

HW 4

6

5/7

Finding relevant literature

HW 5

7

5/14

Conference paper writing tips: Thinking like a reviewer

HW 6

8

5/21

Navigating conferences

HW 7, 9

9

5/28

No class

HW 8

10

6/4

Presentations

 

11

6/11

Exam Week

HW 10,11

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: Any student requesting accommodations related to a disability or other condition is required to register with AccessibleNU (accessiblenu@northwestern.edu; 847-467-5530) and provide professors with an accommodation notification from AccessibleNU, preferably within the first two weeks of class. All information will remain confidential.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: Students in this course are required to comply with the policies found in the booklet, "Academic Integrity at Northwestern University: A Basic guide". All papers submitted for credit in this course must be submitted electronically unless otherwise instructed by the professor. Your written work may be tested for plagiarized content. For details regarding academic integrity at Northwestern or to download the guide, visit: http://www.northwestern.edu/provost/policies/academic-integrity/index.html