Project 1: Project Brainstorming and Pitches

Due Date

Tuesday, September 9, 11:59pm EST

Overview

Learning Goals

This is an individual lab assignment meant to help you brainstorm potential project ideas for your class project. By the end of this lab you will learn how to enage in divergent thinking to come up with and narrow down potential project ideas.

Requirements

By the deadline, you should have:

1. Filled out this Google Doc (make a copy).
2. Created a 3-slide, 3 minute presentation for your project pitches to be presented on October 29th.

Part 1: Discover

We're going to be using the double diamond design process model to guide our project work in this class. The first phase of the double diamond is the "Discover" phase, where we try to explore a wide range of potential problems and solutions before narrowing down to a specific problem to address.

1.1 By Yourself [20 mins]

Think about your goals for this class and the topics we've discussed (or will discuss) within Social Computing. In a Google Doc, write down 10 different "problems" you want to address and you think might benefit from building a social computing system. These can be problems you've experienced yourself, or problems you've seen others experience. They can be problems with existing social media platforms, or problems with the way people interact with technology. I want to encourage you to think broadly — go beyond problems that are particular to being a student at Swarthmore.

TODO: Fill out part 1.1 in the Google Doc.

1.2 Narrow Down Your Ideas [10 mins]

From your 10 ideas, narrow it down to three you're most excited about. Consider the following questions as you narrow down your list:

• Which problems are you most passionate about?
• Which problems do you think you can make meaningful progress on in 6 weeks?
• Which problems do you think are most amenable to being addressed with a social computing system?

TODO: Fill out part 1.2 in the Google Doc.

[60 mins] Research

For each of your top 3 problems, do some deep research to see what existing work has been done on the problem. Look for existing social computing systems that address the problem, as well as news articles or scholarly articles that discuss or address the problem. You can use Google Scholar or ACM Digital Library to find scholarly articles.

TODO: Fill out part 1.2 in the Google Doc.

Prepare Your Pitch

Create a presentation with 3 slides, one for each of your top 3 problems. You'll have 3 minutes to present your ideas to the class. Later, we'll do a matching process to form project teams based on these ideas.

Each slide should include:

• A brief overview of the problem and why you think it is important
• Two "anti-solutions" that leverage social computing (i.e., things that would make the problem worse)
• Two "solutions" that leverage social computing (i.e., things that would make the problem better)

At this point, you don’t need to have any fully fleshed out solutions. More importantly, you should focus on concretely describing a couple problem areas or topics that most interest you, and why you think they are interesting or important.

The solution doesn't have to be a traditional "social media" platform. Other examples include: wikis, event organizing platforms, collaborative document editing, chat and messaging forums, online marketplaces, social bookmarking, etc.

Project Pitches

You will pitch your three problem/solutions to the class. We will limit you to 3 minutes - you can use that time to discuss one idea or all three, up to you.

In lab next week: After you've had a chance to think about your project ideas and see everyone else's, you'll have a chance to form teams. You can choose to work with someone who has the same idea as you, or someone you want to work with.

Rubric: Your project pitches will be graded as follows:

• Novelty: Are the three idea significantly different from each other?
• Relevance: Are the ideas amenable to being address with a social computing system?
• Clarity: Are the ideas in your presentation clearly articulated?

Presentation: Create a 3 minute presentation your project proposal. You will pitch your project proposal to the class on . We will limit you to 5 minutes. Discuss why you chose that specific problem, why it is a problem, or describe a new idea and why it will enhance an existing application or practice. Then, discuss your proposed solution and how it will address the problem by leveraging existing scientific research.

Submission

Send me an email with a link to your Google Doc and your presentation slides by Wednesday, October 29, 11:59am EST.

Rubric:

Category/Value	Needs Improvement (1 pt)	Good (2 pts)	Excellent (3 pts)
Clarity and Organization	Presentation of the project idea was confusing and/or lacked organization.	Presentation of the project idea was somewhat confusing and/or lacked organization.	Presentation of the project idea clear and well-organized.
Problem and Motivation	Project idea was not clearly motivated by a real-world problem, did not incorporate scholarly research at all.	Project idea was motivated by a real-world problem, it was unclear how this project would help. May have cited scholarly research but did not make a clear connection.	Project idea was clearly motivated by a real-world problem and the project idea was directly linked to the problem. Incorporated scholarly research to describe the problem or propose a solution.
Timing	Presentation was severely over or under the time limit for either the demo.	Presentation was within 1 minute of the time limit for either the demo.	Presentation was within 30 seconds of the the time limit for the demo.
Q&A	Could not adequately answer class' questions and/or did not manage Q&A well.	Answered some of class' questions well and managed Q&A well.	Answered most of class' questions well and managed Q&A well.