Informatics 201 Week 1: Introductions - PowerPoint Presentation

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Informatics 201Week 1: Introductions

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Introducing each other

Pair up with someone you don’t know very much about.

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Talk to him/her

Eye contact.

Good listener.

Clear communicator.

In ten

minutes, you’ll each be asked to introduce the other, and then critique the other person’s intro of you.

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Note

This is not just a schmaltzy exercise in team building.

Academia involves a great deal of listening/reading carefully, synthesizing/summarizing what you’ve heard, presenting content to others,

and mutual critique.

So it actually relates to the topics

of the course (as

well as being

a schmaltzy team building exercise

).

Here’s what you’ll be asked to do, ~10 minutes from

now

…

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Tasks

Person 1: Tell us about

partner

What is her/his name?

What program is

s

/he in?

What was

s

/he doing 1 year ago?

What was

s

/he doing 1 month ago?

What research topics/work areas is

s

/he interested in?

What out-of-school activities does

s

/he like?

What else did you learn about her/him from your discussion?

Person

2: Critique

Kindly but rigorously point out flaws,

missed points, etc.

Then switch roles.

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Goal of the Course

Help you become successful academic researchers (or successful in whatever information work you may some day end up doing).

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Primary Target

PhD students, MS students interested in pursuing PhDs some day, MS students interested in learning about research

Alternate target: non-research focused students who are required to take this course to graduate. (I’ll try to provide alternate paths through the various assignments that are of value to you. If you would like to propose a particular alternate assignment that is more relevant to your life plan, please let me know.)

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Quick Poll

10-15

minute break half-way through, or end class

10-15

minutes early

?

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Introducing myself

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Go through Syllabus

https://eee.uci.edu/11f/37170

  

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Ground Rules

Mutual respect

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Attendance

Attendance is mandatory. Please contact

me in

advance if you anticipate a conflict for any reason.

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Grading

30% participation

30% interim assignments

40% final project

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Assignment trajectory

Breadth->Depth

1

hypothetical CV

with 5 years of future work on it

5

hypothetical

abstracts

2

real

lit searches

1

real related work

section

1 real methods section

1 4000

-7000

word start of an academic

paper

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Learning Goals

CV: Community standards/expectations, long-term thinking

Abstracts: Finding research topics, scoping projects

Lit Searches: Finding prior work, using tools for managing references, revising content in light of new material

Related Work: Situating research in an intellectual context, establishing originality and significance

Methods: Determining appropriate processes for conducting research

Start of paper: Describing why a research project is interesting/important

Entire trajectory: One potential process

for developing a research project

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Outcomes

One project well under

way

Several

others in the back of your

mind

Understanding of at least one processes for beginning others

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Assignments for the quarter

Grading: Check/no check on all parts up until the final paper. All content should hopefully be useful to you.

Final paper graded on tradition

al A-F scale.

Participation graded on

attendance, contributions

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Discuss Alternate Trajectories

MS Students

(If it’s a longer discussion, take time at the end with interested students)

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Assignment for next week (Part 1)

Begin exploring the ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar, and other sources to find papers that interest you.

Read their abstracts, skim their content, and look at the web pages of their authors.

(No deliverable)

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Assignment for next week (Part 2)

Make a professional web page for yourself

.

Include current CV.

Upload URL to

DropBox

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Note:

Unless you let me know otherwise, all assignments for this course may be used as examples on which to base our in-class discussions

.

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Note 2:

It is appropriate to work on the assignment for a given week with an awareness of future assignments. In fact, it will likely make the process more efficient.

This is also true of a PhD thesis – the process is designed to build on itself. (The process doesn’t work as well if you keep switching topics, though.)

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If the Goal Is to Do Great Work…

What advice do you have for each other, based on your varied life/work experiences?

Learning from each other

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You Know More than I Do

Maybe not every one of you on every topic.

But taken together, you know more than I do on just about everything.

(Maybe not environmental issues in information technology, simulating social relationships, or making puppet films.

:)

)

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Questions?

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Go Over Reading

Getting what you came for…

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None (Well, Half) Shall Pass

~50% of PhD students don’t graduate.

Why not?

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Lack of Guidance/Orientation

Is, in some ways, intentional.

Can you work when no one is telling you to work?

Can you care more than anyone else cares?

Can you know more than anyone else knows?

These are questions of self-motivation, not of being assigned specific tasks.

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Unstructured Time

You have been given a mandate by society (your culture, your family, yourself) to pursue knowledge and understanding at a high level.

Many of the people involved don’t know *why* it’s important, but they sense that it *is* important.

Need to discover what works best for you in living your life as a productive researcher.

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Why is it important?

Someone needs to be thinking broadly and deeply about how the world has been, how it is, how it will be, and how it could be.

That’s you

.

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Other Thoughts on Reading

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What Would You Like to Get Out of This Course?

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Questions?

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Thank you!

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Discussion of Alternative Trajectories