INSTRUCTOR:  Valeri P. Scott, AC IV, Room 457, (410) 455-3935, fax: (410) 455-1073,
                           email:  vscott@umbc7.umbc.edu
                               url:  www.research.umbc.edu/~vscott

CLASS TIME & LOCATION:  Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30 - 12:45 p.m., AC IV, Room 151 and ECS Bldg, Room 333 (PC Lab)

TEXTS:  User Centered Web Development, Jonathan Lazar, 2001
               Creating Web Pages with HTML, 3rd Ed., Patrick Carey, 2001

PRE-REQUISITES:  IFSM 202 & IFSM 303

COURSE OBJECTIVE:  This course is a second semester human factors course in which the student will have the opportunity to apply the user interface guidelines and fundamentals presented in the introductory course.  The course provides the student with hands-on experience using an interface development environment.  This semester, the environment will be the World Wide Web using html and other web authoring packages.  The goal of the course is for the student to follow the full system development life cycle in analyzing, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating interactive user interfaces. In addition, individual research in good interface design and interface usability testing will be required.  This course is primarily an upper level information systems course in human factors and secondarily a programming course.  The bulk of both the assignments and the course grade rely on the student's academic performance in human factors theory based work.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING:
    Attendance, punctuality and attention are expected.  The course is conducted primarily in the computer lab which creates a temptation to interact with the computers, even at times that are not appropriate to the specific activities; this behavior is distracting and rude.  It is expected that students will exhibit the appropriate behavior of interacting with the computer only at the designated times, as a significant portion of the course will be presentations and discussions. Cell phones, beepers and pagers are to be turned off during class; if one of these is heard during class, you will be asked to leave the room for the remainder of the class.
    This course will be conducted as a senior seminar in which student interaction and participation are expected and constitute a significant portion of the learning experience.  Class discussions will be based on the user interface design guidelines, issues, and applications presented in the required texts, and in other relevant material. The student will incorporate these aspects of interface design, along with the fundamentals of human factors engineering, throughout the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation/usability testing of their interactive hypermedia program.
     It is expected that all submitted work will be professionally accomplished and presented.  The course grade will be based on a variety of assignments that afford the student the opportunity to demonstrate assimilation and application of the relevant material.  Specific values of activities are reflected on the Course Calendar.

COURSE MEASUREMENTS:
Programming concepts and skills - 25  %
Interface Development - 28  %
HCI Theory - 20  %
Usability Studies - 27 %

All assignments and completion dates are shown on the Course Calendar.  Due to the cumulative nature of all assignment, completion dates should be considered as
absolute with no leeway for extensions.
All programming assignments are due by 10:00 a.m. of the assigned date; this is an absolute due time with no extensions and no reaccomplishments.
Programming quizzes will be given at the beginning of class; there will be no make-up quizzes.
All hard copy assignments are due at the beginning of class (11:30 a.m.).  Lateness will incur a substantial penalty as follows:
11:30 - 11:45 a.m. ( - 1/2 point) (being late to class means the assignment, whether on-line or hard copy, is late)
11:45 - 4:00 p.m. ( - 1/2 point)
4:00 p.m. - 10:00 a.m. of the following day ( - 1 point)
For every 4 hours thereafter ( - 1/2 point)

GRADING POLICY:  IFSM instructors are expected to have evaluative instruments which result in a reasonable distribution of letter grades.  With respect to final letter grades, the University's Undergraduate Catalogue states that:
"An 'A' indicates superior achievement
'B', good performance
'C', adequate performance
'D', minimal performance
'F', failure."
There is specifically no mention of any numerical scores associated with these letter grades.  Consequently, there are no pre-defined numerical demarcations that determine final letter grades; these can be defined only at the end of the semester when all accumulated points are tallied and compared.  In accordance with the published University grading policy, it is important to understand that final letter grades reflect academic achievement and not effort.  While mistakes in the arithmetic computation of grades and grade recording errors will always be corrected, it is important to understand that in all other situations, final letter grades are not negotiable and challenges to final letter grades are not entertained.
      Cumulative numeric scores will be curved to meet the following ranges established by the IFSM Department grading policy:
15 - 20% = "A", 20 - 30% = "B", 35 - 40%= "C"; students who drop the course are considered below "C".
      In this course, students taking the course on a Pass/Fail basis, must obtain a minimum of 70% for a "Pass".

STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC CONDUCT:  By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an active participant in UMBC’s scholarly community in which everyone’s academic work and behavior are held to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.  Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and helping others to commit these acts are all forms of academic dishonesty and they are wrong.  Academic misconduct will result in disciplinary action that may include failure of the coure, suspension or dismissal.
Acts of Academic Misconduct are defined as the following:
 - Cheating: Knowingly using or attempting to use unauthorized material, information, or study aids in any academic exercise.
 - Fabrication: Intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise.
 - Facilitating Academic Dishonesty: Intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another commit an act of academic dishonesty.
 - Plagiarism: Knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise, including works of art and computer-generated information/images.
To read the full policy on academic integrity, consult the UMBC Student Handbook, Faculty Handbook, or the UMBC Policies section of the UMBC Directory.

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