Course Timeline and Homework

Editable Link

Course schedule, in and out of class. Subject to change, particularly further in the future. If you have any ideas for a future class, please add them here!


Timeline Summary

Week 1: Course introduction and project 1 planning

Weeks 2-4: Plan and start project 1

Weeks 4-9: Project 1; journal reviews; project status presentations; project tutorials; project 2 planning

Weeks 9-14 Project 2; project status presentations; journal review, project tutorials and activities

Week 15: Final presentations

In-Class Activity Schedule Prefs

  1. Beatrice - March 1st - tutorial on UNH's VR point cloud editing software (est 30 minutes)

  2. Jakobi - March 3rd - Real-time Collaborative Tweet Data Exploration on a Webpage (est 40 minutes)

  3. Amanda - March 3rd - Women in the Olympics (est 45 min)

  4. Lucia - March 8th - VR vs 3D model navigation task (est 45 min)

  5. Mandy - March 10th - MEMS data (40 min)

  6. Robert - 3rd or 8th - collaborative archaeological map (est 40 minutes)

  7. Maia - 3rd or 8th - Openspace for Desktop (est 35 min)

  8. Tongyu - 8th or 10th - dynamic audio vis (est 30 min)

  9. Alastair - 3/3 or later - sentiment analysis in VR

  10. Paul - 3/8 or later - mars in VR (est 45 min)

  11. Nick - 3/10 or later - collaborative urban planning

  12. Aakansha - 3/24 or later (after spring break) - chemical data visualization (est 40 min)

Week 1

Class 1/27:

  • Class motivation, goals, structure, syllabus, wiki

  • Introduce everyone

  • Give a breakdown of the wiki

    • What was done last year

    • What is expected this year

    • Where to find everything

  • Project-oriented structure for class

  • How to evaluate a piece of software -- a brief explanation

  • Questions

  • Start planning projects

HW due MONDAY 1/31 @ 12:00 noon:

(You must complete the assignments below by Monday 1/31 @ 12:00 noon)

  • Set up your journal page and link it into top-level journal page

  • Join the course slack channel (https://join.slack.com/t/cs1951t-2022/shared_invite/zt-12j193238-pTOfCok_dlSGPYdq4uXpug ) and introduce yourself on it (briefly)

  • Review the course homepage

  • Read some of the last year's wiki and identify (but do not implement!) nine separate changes you would make to the wiki, each requiring varying amounts of time to complete:

    • Three changes should each require ~10 minutes to complete.

    • Three changes should each require ~1 hour to complete.

    • The final three changes should each require ~10 hours to complete.

    • Log these changes in your journal.

    • Execute one of the 10-minute changes.

  • Log a total of 4-5 hours of homework time in your journal; this could include doing some of the following activities:

    • Read some background papers

    • Research a piece of collaborative VR software -- this could be a game, a framework, or anything else related to collaborative VR

    • Research data types, data examples, software tools, other institutions doing big-VR visualization work

    • Do things from Course Activities page

    • Log time and any issues in your journal

    • Ponder project ideas (always!)

  • Recording of first class

Week 2

Class 2/01:

  • Discuss wiki tasks and changes from homework

  • Introduce project guidelines (i.e. explain milestones, in class activities, and deliverables)

  • Brainstorm project ideas

  • (hopefully) distribute headsets

  • Recording

HW for 2/03:

  • Quest 2 Setup Tutorial

  • Continue with activities from previous homework

  • Pick 2-5 potential pieces of software to explore and evaluate for your research project

  • Using this software, create 3-5 potential project ideas in your journal. Be prepared to share concisely (one sentence each) in class. We will ponder their levels of: 1) collaboration, 2) immersive VR, 3) scientific visualization.

Class 2/03:

HW for 2/08:

  • Review wiki / web to solidify your 3-5 project ideas

  • For each project idea:

    • list three things you will do during the project

    • list one class activity we might do for the project

    • list potential deliverables:

Deliverables are what future readers of the wiki will look at and learn from. Examples might be comparative prose about different software packages, a Consumer-Reports style table of evaluations of features and quality of different software, tutorials showing how to use software for data visualization purposes, measurements of how long it takes and how difficult it is for a group to do a tutorial, etc. A good way to make sure you have a deliverable is to say explicitly where it will go in the wiki.

    • If you are confused or have any questions, feel free to post on the slack or email the TAs

  • Brainstorm software evaluation metrics

  • Continue adding potential software / data to the wiki

Week 3

Class 2/08:

First half of class:

Second half of class:

  • 15 minutes: Pair up and review project titles, and activities. Working together, add deliverables to each potential project. Ask questions if you are not sure what to do. Each student should pick their first-choice project.

    • identify what you need to learn and do before this first project begins so that you can design it to be successful. The projects will start next week, so you have only one more week for this pre-project work. Check out what we will do on 2/10 to help guide this.

  • 25 minutes: go around room and explain the project that you most want to do, including what we might do in class for it, what wiki deliverables you will produce, and what you need to do before the project. This will be done for each student via a max 1-minute individual oral-only presentation (no slides) followed by slightly longer discussion. I recommend speaking from notes, and I also recommend putting them in the shared class gdoc file at https://bit.ly/3r5J13f.

  • Document your potential pre-project activities in the wiki before leaving class

HW for 2/10:

  • Select one project from your list of potential projects and create a plan for your project. This project plan should have milestones to be delivered on 2/15, 2/17, 2/22 (2/24 is a holiday), 3/01, 3/03, 3/08, and 3/10. The project plan should include activities that span from February to the middle of March

  • Continue reading, doing, and logging with any extra time

Class 2/10:

  • 30 minutes: Pair up with someone you haven’t paired up with before and jointly evaluate your pre-project plans. Evaluations should consider:

    • Will the project deliverables be useful and significant?

    • Will the project activities improve the potential quality of the project?

    • Will the project activities help identify and reduce project risks? Risks often involve external dependencies that end up not being met or over-optimistic estimates of time required.

    • Will the project activities themselves add deliverables to the wiki?

    • Go over any questions from above, beginning with project concepts, deliverables, and activities described very briefly.

    • Look ahead to the Project Evaluation questions/criteria below.

  • 40 minutes: Each person should present to the class a 2-minute evaluation of another project. Essentially, it should discuss the answers to the questions discussed, both positive and negative with the goal of getting additional confidence about the evaluation and any additional suggestions.

  • Class Recording

HW for 2/15:

  • Learn enough about NREL and Kristi Potter to ask questions for her visit. Put your questions in "board" google doc https://bit.ly/3r5J13f.

  • Write your revised final project plan in your journal

  • Evaluate your project plan using the following rubric:

Note that these first project should have milestones for 2/15, 2/17, 2/22, 3/01, 3/03, 3/08, and 3/10. Second-half projects will begin on 3/16 and go through the end of the semester. Here is an evaluation rubric for projects:

  • Project Evaluation

Below are a set of questions that should help in evaluating project ideas. Answer each with one of:

          1. strongly disagree

          2. disagree

          3. neither agree nor disagree

          4. agree

          5. strongly agree

The questions are:

o The proposed project clearly identifies deliverable additions to our VR Software Wiki

o The proposed project involves collaboration in VR

o The proposed project involves large scientific data visualization along the lines of the "Scientific Data" wiki page and identifies the specific data type and software that it will use

o The proposed project has a realistic schedule with explicit and measurable milestones at least each week and mostly every class

o The proposed project includes an in-class activity

o The proposed project has resources available with sufficient documentation

  • Prepare 3 minute project descriptions with powerpoint (must be a .pptx or .ppt file) slides sent to David AT LEAST 24 hours ahead title, brief motivation, in-class activity, wiki contributions/deliverables, schedule/milestones.


Week 4

Class 2/15:

  • First half: visit by NREL scientist Kristi Potter, be prepared with questions

  • Project presentations -- three minutes each (plus likely substantial discussion and questions). Include results from your first milestone!

      • These may fill entire class

      • Finally, you can have some slides!

      • Primary thing to show is concrete schedule, including things you'll be evaluating/trying, n-class parts, and wiki parts you'll be adding.

    • Recording

HW for 2/17:

  • Prepare journal for in-class review. Journals will be evaluated according to the following rubric:

Activities logging rubric -- fill in in your journal

Activities logging rubric

key for each criterion:

5 == exceeds expectations

4 == meets expectations

3 == mostly solid with some gaps

2 == shows some progress

1 == some attempt

0 == not found

Criteria:

Journal activities are explicitly and clearly related to course deliverables

deliverables are described and attributed in wiki

report states total amount of time

total time is appropriate

  • Using the above rubric, evaluate your journal and include your self-evaluation in your journal

  • Meet first milestone of project

  • Work on project and log hours in journal

Class 2/17:

  • Continuation of project presentations

  • In-class journal review

    1. Select a partner and review their journal using the rubric above.

    2. Place your review in their journal and write your name next to the review.

  • Fill in class activity in the wiki timeline for the class time you would like.

Week 5

Class 2/22 (University Recess - No Class)

HW for 2/24:

  • Continue work on project and contributions to the wiki

Class 2/24:

HW for 3/01:

  • Prepare 3 minute project update with powerpoint (must be a .pptx or .ppt file) slides sent to David AT LEAST 24 hours ahead (pictures, videos, and other eye candy encouraged!) Focus on your milestones past and future to show where you are with your schedule and what modifications you might need to make.

  • Edit the homework entry before your activity below to indicate any preparation others should do before class. Class time will be very tight, so try to have it focused on things that can't be done ahead.

  • Prepare for Beatrice's in-class activity: Follow download/setup instructions on the UNH Tutorial page

Week 6

Class 3/01:

HW for 3/03:

  • Prep for Amanda's in-class activity by following the download instructions on this page

  • No prep needed for Jakobi-'s in-class activity

  • Work on projects

Class 3/03:

  • First half of class: Women in the Olympics (Amanda's in-class activity; est 45 min)

  • Second half of class: Real-time Collaborative Tweet Data Exploration on a Webpage (Jakobi's in-class activity; est 20 min)

  • Recording

HW for 3/08:

Week 7

Class 3/08:

  • First half of class: Collaborative Archaeological Map (Robert's in-class activity; est 40 min)

  • Second half of class: VR vs 3D model navigation task (Lucia's in-class activity; est 45 min)

HW for 3/10:

Class 3/10:

  • First half of class: MEMS data (Mandy's in-class activity; 40 min)https://sites.google.com/view/brown-vr-sw-review-2018/course-home-page/journals/mandy-hes-journal/mandys-in-class-activity

  • Second half of class: dynamic audio vis (Tongyu's in-class activity; 30 min) https://sites.google.com/view/brown-vr-sw-review-2018/course-home-page/journals/tongyu-zhous-journal/in-class-activity-310?authuser=0

HW for 3/15:

  • Prep for in-class activities

  • Maia's Prep: will probably require PaperSpace, so open 20-30 mins before class

  • Shashidhar' Prep: Install VR Sketch on Oculus(This app will be available on the app lab - experimental)

  • Work on projects

Week 8

Class 3/15

  • First half of class: Openspace for Desktop (Maia's in-class activity; 45 min)
    https://www.vrwiki.cs.brown.edu/course-home-page/journals/maia-mongados-journal/openspace-desktop-gaia-sky-headset-tutorial

  • Second half of class: Mars in VR (Paul's in-class activity; 35 min)
    https://sites.google.com/view/brown-vr-sw-review-2018/course-home-page/journals/paul-molnars-journal/pauls-in-class-activity

  • In class activity: Analysis of EMS calls (Shashidhar's in-class activity; ~20mins)
    https://sites.google.com/view/brown-vr-sw-review-2018/course-home-page/journals/shashidhar-pais-journal/shashidhars-in-class-activity-ems-call-analysis?authuser=0

HW 3/17

    • Finish first project

    • Prepare presentation for first project for next two classes

        1. Target 5 minutes for presentations -- they have been going long, so don't consider that a minimum!

        2. Your contributions to the wiki

        3. Some contributions will report on easily accessible information

        4. Some should include more active evaluation and analysis of collaboration, science, and VR

        5. Contributions that compare software are particularly interesting

        6. Your deliverables + photos & videos (please include some media!)

        7. If you think something is worth presenting, it should probably be in the wiki!

        8. Any takeaways + challenges;

        9. Maybe some thoughts about how your path deviated from its original course

        10. Anything you've learned

        11. Your ideas for second projects

        12. PPTX to David in personal slack channel by 10am Wednesday

Class 3/17

  • Project 1 Presentations

HW for 3/22

  • Read the Seven Scenarios Paper. Please make sure you know the seven scenarios and how they apply to your evaluations and wiki deliverables.

  • Draft of project 2 plan in journal for others to review. Explicitly state how you've used the principles outlined in the Seven Scenarios paper to design your project; feel free to reference sections of the paper that motivated your thinking.

  • Be prepared to discuss second-project ideas you are considering -- slides/visuals could be appropriate

Week 9

Class 3/22

  • Presentation overflow

  • Project 1 overarching take-home discussion

  • 7 scenarios paper and project 2 discussion

  • Wiki discussion

HW for 3/24

  • Write your revised final project plan in your journal

  • Evaluate your project plan using the rubric from project 1:

Note that your project should have milestones for 4/05, 4/07, 4/12, 4/14, 4/19, 4/21, 4/26, 4/28, 5/03, 5/05.

Class 3/24

  • Project 2 presentations (TWO SLIDES ONLY), target 3 minutes or less

    • slide 1: title, name,
      left side: very concise description,
      right side: wiki results list

    • slide 2: dates and specific milestones (try not to have them be activities!)

Week 10

Class 3/29 (No Class - Spring Recess)

Class 3/31 (No Class - Spring Recess)

Week 11

HW for 4/05

  • Write your revised final project plan in your journal

Class 4/05

HW for 4/07

  • Consider the levels in Bloom's Taxonomy below as you deepen understanding of the knowledge you have put into the wiki and planning to put in the wiki. This is often used to capture learning in education, but it makes sense in any context involving learning about new things.

Class 4/07

  • Sayan's in-class activity

  • Alastair's in-class activity

  • Bloom Taxonomy ,seven scenarios, software evaluations, and wiki insights


Week 12

HW for 4/12

  • Refresh Bloom Taxonomy in your brain

  • Make sure journal is ready to review in class -- no missing links, hours up to date, etc.

Class 4/12

  • Alastair's Tutorial

  • Bloom taxonomy discussion (maybe seven scenarios as well)

  • Journal peer-review. Please evaluate a peer's journal according to the following rubric. Post your review in your partner's journal along with your name:


Completeness Review

Please answer yes or no to each of the following questions:

  • Approximately ~100+ hours logged. Also, hours logged is listed at top of journal

  • Wiki contributions for first project are clearly listed at top of journal

  • In-class activity is linked to top of journal

  • Project 1 proposal + presentation is linked to top of journal and is accessible

  • Project 1 final presentation is linked to top of journal and is accessible

  • Project 2 plan is linked to top of journal and is accessible

  • Project 2 presentation is linked to top of journal and is accessible


Quality Review

Please evaluate your partner’s overall journal using the following criteria:

  • 5 == exceeds expectations

  • 4 == meets expectations

  • 3 == mostly solid with some gaps

  • 2 == shows some progress

  • 1 == some attempt

  • 0 == not found

In addition, please explain why you chose the number you selected.

  • Journal entries are up to date

  • Journal activities are explicitly and clearly related to course deliverables

  • Journal entries demonstrate project progress (e.g. links, screenshots, or mentions of failure / success)

  • Deliverables are described and attributed in wiki


  • End-of-semester logistics discussion

HW for 4/14

  • Choose one of your wiki pages to have reviewed in class (and perhaps spruce it up, if you know of issues). Choose something where you feel like you would benefit from feedback.

  • Make sure your journal is ready for a peer-review

Class 4/14

  • Hacking on the Wiki: review + editing

  • Journal peer review (see last class for rubric)

HW for 4/19

  • Create progress report and send to David at least 24 hours before class. Media must be embedded in the presentation (no external links) and presentation must be in .pptx format!

Week 13

Class 4/19

  • Project progress reports

HW for 4/21

Class 4/21

HW for 4/26

Week 14

Class 4/26

HW for 4/28

Class 4/28

  • Shashidhar's in-class activity

  • Aakansha's in-class activity (30 mins)

  • Lucia's in-class activity (30 mins)

HW for 5/03

Week 15

Class 5/03

HW for 5/05

Class 5/05

  • Paul's in-class activity (20-40 minutes)

  • Alastair's in-class activity (30 minutes)

  • Jennifer's in-class activity (30 minutes)

  • Nick's in-class activity (20-40 minutes)

HW for 5/10

Send slides to David for final project presentations

Week 16

Class 5/10


For our final class we will have concise final presentations of second projects as well as full-semester flash talks. Both will help prepare you for the final public demos. Since those will still be over a week away, it's ok to have some placeholders. The content of the presentation should be more directed at the class, while the poster that accompanies the talk can be directed at the public.


Project 2 Presentation


The project 2 presentations should be 3 minutes long. If you go over, I will warn you at 3:15 and stop you at 3:30. Please practice to get the timing close!


Project 2 presentations should focus on your VR+data+collaboration learning during the second project. I would hope that what you learned is captured in wiki pages, so you might want to include the names of those pages and some of the main messages captured there, particularly evaluative info.


The idea with the presentations on Tuesday is to:

(1) prep you for your final presentations

(2) provide an opportunity for you to highlight your results for project 2, as we did with project 2.


Although the project 2 presentation is prep for talking to guests who come to your public demos, the content of what you say will have to adjusted to their body of knowledge--this is to say that guests will know less about VR than the class, so your discussions at the public demos should adjust accordingly.


The project 2 presentations will be limited to only your project 2 results. You'll want to extend your poster to include learnings from project 1 as well for your final poster.


You have a choice for how to do these presentations. I recommend the first option, which is to present from a physical poster. That will give you practice creating one and presenting from it. You can then use an updated version for the final public demos. It would be fine to have material not necessary for this project 2 presentation that you will use during the public demos, eg, info from your first project. It's also ok to have some space left to do that. The second option is to create a single-slide powerpoint "poster" and present from that. That will mean using a 16:9 aspect ratio and having the much lower resolution of a projector. The third option is to use slides as we've done for other presentations. I am offering this option since I hadn't specified the poster earlier, but I fairly strongly encourage you to use the first.


Please reply in the slack by Saturday with the option you are going to use. If you are going to use slides, please get them to me enough before class that we can assemble them.


Poster - Class Presentation vs. Final Presentation


Since the poster can be used to present with both the project 2 presentation and the public demo, for our final class it can include information solely about project 2, and it can be updated to give a full semester overview for the public demo. It could also include a full semester overview, and when presenting on Tuesday's class you can focus on what you learned from project 2 only. The content of the presentation on Tuesday should be directed at the class.


Final Poster Guidelines

One way to think of a poster is as a set of regions similar to slides that you can use to complement what you want to say. It's also helpful to have the poster able to stand on its own, so the gist of the flash talk should be there in a way that a viewer can understand it without you being present.


There are 5 examples of posters from the past here: https://www.vrwiki.cs.brown.edu/course-archives/spring-2020/2020-final-posters. Think about how you might present from them and copy the parts of their structure that you think are useful. Ross and I are happy to give feedback on the posters before next week, and we will also do so after class to help you refine them for the public demos.


You can use either Powerpoint or Photoshop to create a poster. You'll want to resize your slide / photoshop canvas to the actual size of the poster (e.g. 4' wide by 3' height). For Powerpoint, this can be done using the resize slide feature. Please be careful not to make a blurry poster. Images should be high-enough resolution that they are ~200-300 DPI when printed. Text should not be turned into an image. Ensure that images are high enough resolution when scaled to the correct size.


In order to better handle slides and posters together, let's go with landscape orientation -- wider than high. 4' wide by 3' high is a pretty good size. 4' wide by 2.25' high is standard HDTV (projector) ratio -- I find that to be uncomfortably and awkwardly short when printed.



Flash Talk


Please also prepare a flash talk of 40 seconds for Tuesday's class. Send me a powerpoint slide or a small number of slides with timings. I will ensure that the total time for your slides is 40 seconds, and they will advance automatically. There will be an additional 5 seconds between speakers to transition.


This flash talk for Tuesday's class will also be presented at the public demo. It should focus on what you learned about Data Viz + Collaboration over the course of the semester.



Poster Printing instructions:

  • The poster printer (HP Designjet Z5200) is in Room 475 and is connected to a Mac

  • Log into the 475 computer using your department username and password.

  • Office hours for the printer are 8:30am - 5:00pm on weekdays.

  • Once you log onto the computer, make sure your poster is in PDF format (either save it as a PDF or have it as a PDF already)

  • Open up the pdf in Adobe Acrobat Pro (you'll likely want to upload your poster to Google Drive, sign into Google on the Mac, and then download it)

  • Each user will need to define a custom page size under the print menu -> page setup -> page size -> manage custom sizes. The paper roll is 42 inches wide, that can either be height or length:

  • Be sure to select HP DesignJet Z5200 Postscript as your target printer If the poster is coming out sideways or too small or whatever hit the red button before too much paper gets wasted. Then double check settings and try again.

  • Once printed, you'll want to crop your poster using the mat cutter:

Week 17

Class 5/19 2pm final exam period!

Class Final Projects

Virtual Reality for Collaborative Data Visualiztion

Thursday, 5/19/22, 2pm

CIT 101


[pictures]


2:00-2:15pm: flash talks presented with slides in CIT 101.

2:15-3:20pm: posters and live demos. Where will this be?

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