Spring 2008 - Journal Reports
One of the goals of a graduate class is to become familiar with reading recent research papers. Each week, we will read an article from an HCI research journal or conference. The paper to be read will be selected by a student, who will lead a discussion the following week. Everyone will write a one-page summary of the article and be prepared to discuss it for a few minutes in class.
I will present the first paper on February 5. Schedules for subsequent presentation will be posted soon after the first class. Each student should send a suggested paper to me at least one week before their scheduled presentation.
Your summaries should be sent to me, via e-mail, by 6 PM every Tuesday.
Articles suitable for these assignments can be found in any of the many research confererences and journals that focus on human-computer interaction. You should choose articles that you find interesting - for whatever reason. Don't be intimdiated by theoretical or statistical details that may go beyond your background or understanding: the best way to read research is to dive in head-first.
If you have any trouble finding a paper, go to the ResearchPort page. You will be asked to login with your TU bar code (from your ID). From this page, you will be able to get access to many relevant journals -even if you are off campus.
If you're unsure about the applicability of any publication, or if you need help finding papers, please feel free to ask me.
Journals/conferences suitable for finding papers include - but are not limited to - the following:
- International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
- International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
- Human-Computer Interaction
- ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
- Behaviour and Information Technology
- Interacting with Computers
- Universal Access in the Information Society
- Interactions
- ACM SIGCHI conference proceedings
Many of these journals have on-line content that is available when you are on campus at Towson. If you are unable to find an electronic copy of an article that you'd like to read, please let me know.
Be sure to read papers critically. Your reading, and your summary, should focus on building an understanding of the problem being discussed in the paper, and the solution being proposed. Several specific questions - written by Ben Bederson at the University of Maryland) might help might help you address these issues:
- What is the problem (specifically what tasks does it solve)?
- What assumptions are made?
- Who are the intended users of the research?
- Have those users been involved in the design or evaluation of the work (i.e., is the solution usable?)
- Is the solution scalable (how much data does it work with)?
- Is the solution generalizable (does the solution work in other domains)?
- What is your favorite one line/sentence in the paper?
- What is wrong with the paper?
- What does the reference list show about the biases of the authors?
- What would have been a better and more descriptive title for the paper?