Data Systems Project

6 EC

Semester 1, period 1, 2, 3

5294DASP6Y

Owner Master Information Studies
Coordinator dr. Giovanni Sileno
Part of Master Information Studies, year 1

Course manual 2022/2023

Course content

This project stretches over the whole first semester and will let students from both tracks work together so that you can apply gained knowledge to solve a complex problem in a real world project. The Project is founded on two pillars:

1. Experience and understand the creative process of developing an interaction environment as part of research into complex systems, with a particular focus on stakeholder research, user-research, data identification, context mapping, interaction design from agile development to a technologic prototype, and evaluation (validation).

2. Stimulating personal & professional leadership, via activities that improve team building and project management skills, and activities that contribute to one's intellectual development, autonomy and employability. These activities are either organised by the students themselves, or are offered in the form of workshops. The aim, of this course is also to introduce students to a rigours application of academic skills, such as research question formulation, experiment design, and evaluation.

Within the 20 weeks of this projects the students work in groups of not more than 5 students and design, implement, and evaluate the interactive prototype  for a complex application. The overall structure of each project is  ideation (September - October), prototyping (November - December)  and implementation / evaluation (January). 

The application has to fulfil the requirements provided by the client, where the focus lies on the finding of a multi-disciplinary solution by

  • Understanding the client requirements, resulting in a requirement document (ideation)
  • Development plan and schedule (ideation, prototyping, implementation / evaluation)
  • Creative exploration of means of interaction available to address the client’s problem (ideation)
  • Reflecting on the findings and decision making regarding the potential prototype (ideation / prototyping)
  • Conceptualising the prototype (prototyping)
  • Iterative implementation (Implementation / evaluation)
  • Test (Implementation / evaluation)
  • The findings will be presented in a final report and in the annual DSP conference end January, where selected groups present during the conference sessions and all groups present during the poster sessions.

Objectives

  • translate the assignment to a set of requirements and design goals
  • carry out a literature study
  • execute interviews to discover stakeholder’s pains and context
  • map stakeholder’s unmet needs
  • successfully explore and utilize a set of strategies in response to the problem or assignment
  • validate assumptions with experiments/ critique the prototype on the basis of a scientific evaluation
  • critique, adjust, and select promising interaction solutions via interaction design standards
  • produce a working prototype of a proposed interaction approach
  • reflect upon and justify design decisions in written as well as public oral form
  • apply the social, cognitive, emotional and cultural dimensions of factors that influence the design

Teaching methods

  • Lecture
  • Seminar
  • Self-study
  • Presentation/symposium
  • Supervision/feedback meeting

This course offers various types of working methods

  • Working independently on e.g. a project and final deliverables

This is the main working mode in this project. Depending on the arrangement of the level of cooperation between groups within a project, groups have to organise their work independently but are helped by the supervisor. This includes planning meetings with stakeholders, design and implementation sessions, preparing the final material that will be graded, etc.

  • Workshops

There will be 2 workshops organised by INFORMAAT.

The address is:  Seinstraat 32 - 1223 DA Hilversum (top floor) .... roughly 15 minutes walk from the Train Station.

The first workshop will address methods to help you during the ideation phase. This will be held between September/October. The second workshop helps you to better cope with prototyping. This workshop will be held between November/December (dates to come).

  • Lectures

5 lectures are planned. The aim is to provide enough pointers to further help you to work structurally in your project.

The first lecture provides you with an overview on why scientific research is useful, how it is embedded in human thinking, and how it can be integrated into project work. The second and third lecture addresses quantitative research methods. The fourth and fifth lecture covers qualitative research methods.

  • Supervision/feedback meeting

Each group has a supervisor assigned. During the ideation and prototyping phases, meetings should be arranged twice per block, where each group gets an adequate time for discussion. In January, groups will get a supervision session of every Monday and Friday.

Learning activities

Activity

Hours

Presentatie

8

Werkcollege

130

Self study

30

Total

168

(6 EC x 28 uur)

Attendance

In TER part B of this programme no requirements regarding attendance are mentioned.

Assessment

Item and weight Details

Final grade

Inspection of assessed work

Grades will be announced to students via an email.

Assignments

Each group has to provide the final report, a 3 minutes pitch video, the poster, and, if selected for the conference presentation, the presentation.

The complete set of contributions will be evaluated as such:

Alignment of the solution to the needs of the stakeholders

Did the students describe the problem of the stakeholder?  Did  the students show that they established a need/requirement list? Did they later show that their discussion that they solved the problem/ answered the stakeholders need.

20%

Successful exploration and utilization of a set of strategies in response to the problem or assignment

Did the students explain why the chosen approach is reasonable (based on discussion with experts or on a literature review) and can they then show that the chosen strategy for the solution is performed properly.

Did they acquire the knowledge needed to cary out the project? Is the methodology appropriate and performed in a state-of-the-art fashion?

10%

Reflection and justification on design decisions

Did the students show that they understand the pros and cons of the decisions they have taken.

10%

Validation user-experience of the prototype 

Do the students address validity problems of the study? Is the test method described appropriately.

20%

Sustainability/feasibility and technical quality of the final product +Discussion

:Is the chosen approach easily extensible? Would it work in a daily setting? Does the group discuss the pros and cons of the chosen approach and reflects on alternatives?

If applicable, was the relevance for society well recognised (technological aspects, ethicas  aspects, historic context, or environmental aspects). Is the  description of the context readable for a non-expert in the field? 

20%
Presentation of the final product & process 10%

Team management

How was the overall working attitude of the group?  Did the group take initiatives by themselves to carry out the project? How did the group organise/plan work?

Did the students actively participate in work discussions? How  was the cooperation of  group members during the  research?

10%

 

Each student has to finish the course with at least a 5.5.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

WeeknummerOnderwerpenStudiestof
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Contact information

Coordinator

  • dr. Giovanni Sileno