C SCI 4600 - Presentation from the Scientific Literature
C SCI 4600 -- The Human-Computer Interface
Spring Semester, 2002


The Presentation from the Scientific Literature
Sign-Up Deadline: Tuesday, February 26


As tomorrow's scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, it is important that you be familiar with the current scientific literature, particularly conference proceedings. It is also important that you acquire experience and become comfortable presenting talks to groups of your peers. This activity will afford you an opportunity to develop and improve both of these skills, which are often required throughout a professional career. If you wish, you may work in pairs with a classmate/partner of your choice.

This handout includes complete tables of contents from 10 important recent conferences relating to various aspects of HCI, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The conferences are:

     $\bullet$  ACM Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 1999, 2000 and 2001
     $\bullet$  ACM Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 1999, 2000 and 2001
     $\bullet$  IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), 2000 and 2001
     $\bullet$  ACM Bi-annual Conference on Assistive Technologies (ASSETS), 2000
     $\bullet$  ACM Conference on Universal Usability (CUU), 2000

Look through the attached material and choose 3 papers that you feel are of potential interest to you (NOTE: so-called ``poster papers'' are not allowed). The full proceedings are available to you online via the ACM and IEEE/CS digital libraries to which Rensselaer subscribes; alternatively, the print volumes are available for perusal in my office if you prefer. Either way, you may wish to skim through the papers themselves, to confirm they are what you expected, before you commit.

YOU NEED TO SIGN UP FOR A SPECIFIC TALK DATE!  According to my latest SIS class list, there are 51 students enrolled in the course. Assuming most presentations will be by pairs, we therefore need 26+ slots. Since we should be able to accommodate 4 talks per session (see below), I'm setting aside 7 meetings for this purpose: Tuesday, March 19 and 26, April 02, 09 and 16, and Friday, April 19 and 26 (to avoid a scheduling conflict, the last videolab of the semester will be on Tuesday, April 30). To sign up for the date of your choice, send me e-mail with the following information:

     (a) Your name and the name of your partner (if any)
     (b) The date on which you'd like to present your talk (first and second choices, please)
     (c) For each of the 3 papers you want to reserve: its author, the title, the conference where it
            appeared, and page numbers in the proceedings.

Allocation of papers and choice of talk dates will be on a first come, first served basis. I will merge all requests to avoid multiple presentations on the same papers. After the sign up deadline has passed, I will post the completed talk schedule on the Web by Friday, March 1.

After carefully digesting your readings, you will present and evaluate what you've learned from 1-2 of your papers to the class. Some author(s) may have additional information available on their personal web sites that will help you understand and appreciate the significance of their research. Your mission will be not only to distill the essence and summarize the important results from your papers, but also to critique the work, especially as it relates to the human-computer interface. What's good? What's bad? What did the author(s) overlook? Your talk (or yours and your partner's, if you have one) should be timed to run approximately 20-25 minutes, chosen because it is standard duration at many conferences. Presentation media may include MS/PowerPoint on your laptop or overhead projector foils, as you feel appropriate. A one-page class handout giving your name(s), the title and full citation information for your paper(s), as well as an abstract for your talk, is required. Within 10 days after your talk, submit a hardcopy of your presentation materials to me.