Course syllabus — AY2024

Time:	Mondays, Period 4 (both semesters)
Room:	AN527
Department:	College of Global Liberal Arts
Credits:	2
Class format:	In person
Instructor:	Associate Professor Paul Haimes (See website for student office hours)
Instructor email:	haimes [at] fc.ritsumei.ac.jp

Please read the course policies carefully, prior to taking this course.

Course overview

This seminar enables students to complete their liberal arts studies by exploring a research question based on a topic within the field of Interaction Design (IxD), with a particular focus on spatial interaction. The seminar will introduce and explore several topics within this theme, such as:

Interactive environments
Design for disaster management
Accessibility and universal design
Smart cities
Sensory design (Augmented and virtual reality, olfactory design, etc.)
Ambient media

The seminar will also cover relevant research skills, including forming a research question, and how to conduct a literature review in IxD.

Prerequisites

While there is no official prerequisite course for this class, as this class is meant to be an advanced study in a topic within interaction design, it is strongly advised that only students who have a keen interest in design, and who have taken either Human Factors in Interaction Design, or Design and Society, take this course.

Course objectives

Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

Describe, discuss and present key topics within interaction design
Undertake an independent literature review in topics within interaction design
Understand the relationship between research and practice within interaction design

Course readings

There is no official textbook for this class. Readings will be provided in PDF format online. It is recommended that you print all readings so that you can make notes easily. Reading on paper is also far better for comprehension.

Weekly schedule

Introduction (Week 1)
Special topics in IxD plus research skills (Weeks 2-6): including writing a literature review and formulating a research question
Students to brainstorm topics for their thesis/essay (Week 7)
Student research (Weeks 8-12): including summarising research articles, writing an outline, and an abstract — Research reports are due in Weeks 9, 11, and 12
Reviewing and submission (Weeks 13-15) — Final essay/thesis due date is Friday 5pm in the final week of semester (July 20 2024 for Spring semester; January 20 2025 for Autumn semester)

Weeks 8-15 will be run as individual consultation sessions rather than in a class format.

Note that this schedule may change due to unforeseen circumstances. However, the overall topics and methods of assessment will not change. Students will be notified via Manaba immediately of any changes after the commencement of semester.

Please confirm all assignment deadlines on Manaba. Students are responsible for ensuring that their own work is completed and submitted on time.

Assessments

Important: Please read the course policies carefully, particularly regarding use of AI. In short, you cannot use AI tools to generate written content, and you also cannot use AI tools to edit your work (for example, using paraphrasing tools). What you submit should be written by YOU, not written by software.

You should also only use translation tools for translating difficult terminology (i.e., individual words or short phrases), not whole passages of text. Do not use AI (which includes Deep L and Google Translate) to translate a whole paragraph or essay from another language into English.

Thesis (3000 words +/- 10%) or Essay (1400 words +/- 10%): 60%
Draft thesis or essay at least 75% complete: 10%
Progress reports: 30%

Further details of assessments, including due dates, will be announced in class. Feedback for all assessment items will be given through Manaba and, where appropriate, in-person. Feedback on assignments will generally be returned within two weeks (10 working days), unless notified otherwise.

Thesis/essay, progress reports, and engagement, cover all four course objectives.

Thesis or essay—literature review

Research question:

The essay/thesis must answer a research question within interaction design through a review of the literature.

Word count:

1400 words (+/–10%) for essay.
3000 words (+/–10%) for thesis.

This assessment is worth 60% of your final grade, with a draft worth 10% prior to submission of the final version. Thesis is on a pass/fail basis for thesis course students, meaning that a pass for the thesis means that the full 60% will be awarded for this assessment in the research seminar. Essays will be graded on a point basis as per usual assessments.

Draft thesis/essay:

The draft will be assessed based on whether it is completed and submitted on time or not. Students who don't submit a draft on time forfeit their right to feedback prior to submission.

Progress reports

Throughout the semester, you should be working on your main research project. The following updates will be required of both thesis and non-thesis students:

Evidence of brainstorming your research topic and a draft research question to guide your literature review. Also include a reference list of seven references relevant to your research topic, formatted correctly in APA 7 style.
An annotated bibliography based on your seven references, formatted correctly in APA 7 style.
Essay/thesis outline, and updated research question.

Each item is given equal weighting for this assessment. These items will be assessed based on whether they are completed or not. This assessment is worth 30% of your final grade.

Further details of assessments will be announced in class, including grading criteria for the thesis and essay. Feedback for all assessment items will be given through Manaba and, where appropriate, in-person.

Citation style

All written work should use APA 7 referencing format. You can find a "quickstart" guide at http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~haimes/publications/citation.pdf. A more comprehensive resource is the official APA 7 guide at https://apastyle.apa.org.

Essay and thesis style

Essays and theses must be written in APA 7 paper format: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format.