Meetings: Tue & Thu 3-4:15 pm, Shaffer 202

Instructor: Dr. Joanne Selinski
Office: New Engineering Building, Room 222, (410)516-4117
E-mail: joanne -at- cs.jhu.edu
Office Hours: best on Mon & Wed mornings, Tue & Thu afternoons, open door or by appointment

Course Assistant: Paul Soulos, psoulos -at- gmail.com, office hours TuTh 4:30-6:30 in CS lab

Course Web Pages: http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~joanne/cs250 for most information, Piazza for Q&A and nuggets, and Blackboard for homework submission and grades.

Catalog Description: This course will provide students with a rich development experience, focused on the design and implementation of user interfaces and mobile applications. A brief overview of human computer interaction will provide context for designing, prototyping and evaluating user interfaces. Students will invent their own mobile applications and implement them using the Android SDK, which is JAVA based. An overview of the Android platform and available technologies will be provided, as well as XML for layouts, and general concepts for effective mobile development. Students will be expected to explore and experiment with outside resources in order to learn technical details independently. There will also be an emphasis on building teamwork skills, and on using modern development techniques and tools. Prerequisite: 600.120 and 600.226. [General] 3 credits

Course Outcomes: Upon completion of this course students should be able to:

• Work effectively on teams.
• Use modern development techniques and tools.
• Design, evaluate and implement user interfaces.
• Develop mobile applications, from concept to design to implementation on the Android platform.
• Appreciate the need for and have the confidence to engage in on-going independent learning.

Course topics: The topics will be heavily integrated with each other. However, the approximate number of weeks spent on each are provided in ().

• (2) Android Overview, Features & Fundamentals
• (1) effective teamwork skills
• (1) introduction to HCI/UI/UX
• (2) user interfaces: design, prototyping, evaluation, implementation
• (3) Android technologies
• (1) advanced eclipse: testing, debugging, refactoring
• (1) issues in mobile app development: compatibility, efficiency, versioning, publishing, internationalization
• (1) societal impacts
• (1) student presentations

Required References: All materials are available on-line, either through developer websites or the JHU Library on-line catalog. We will also provide a list of additional resources, most of which are also freely available through the MSEL on-line service.

• Android Developer's Website
• Eclipse foundation website
• "Effective UI", Jonathan Anderson, John McRee, Robb Wilson, The EffectiveUI Team, O'Reilly Media Inc, 2010.
• "Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovative Applications and Devices", Dan Saffer, Second Edition, New Riders, 2009.

Assessment:

• 70% Assignments: You will have a combination of concept-based assignments, design assignments, peer evaluations, development (b)logs, presentations, and of course implementations, including a large team project.
• 5% Participation: students are expected to actively participate during class meetings, as well as on the Piazza discussion forum. Each student should contribute at least one "nugget" of information through a note posting.
• 25% Quizzes: to be scheduled

Course Schedule: This will evolve throughout the semester: readings details, big picture

Cheating is wrong. Cheating hurts our community by undermining academic integrity, creating mistrust, and fostering unfair competition. The university will punish cheaters with failure on an assignment, failure in a course, permanent transcript notation, suspension, and/or expulsion. Offenses may be reported to medical, law or other professional or graduate schools when a cheater applies.

Violations can include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments without permission, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition. Ignorance of these rules is not an excuse.

Academic honesty is required in all work you submit to be graded. Except where the instructor specifies group work, you must solve all homework and programming assignments without the help of others. For example, you must not look at anyone else's solutions (including program code) to your homework problems. However, you may discuss assignment specifications (not solutions) with others to be sure you understand what is required by the assignment.

If your instructor permits using fragments of source code from outside sources, such as your textbook or on-line resources, you must properly cite the source. Not citing it constitutes plagiarism. Similarly, your group projects must list everyone who participated.

Falsifying program output or results is prohibited.

Your instructor is free to override parts of this policy for particular assignments. To protect yourself: (1) Ask the instructor if you are not sure what is permissible. (2) Seek help from the instructor, TA or CAs, as you are always encouraged to do, rather than from other students. (3) Cite any questionable sources of help you may have received.

On every exam, you will sign the following pledge: "I agree to complete this exam without unauthorized assistance from any person, materials or device. [Signed and dated]". Your course instructors will let you know where to find copies of old exams, if they are available.

For more information, see the guide on "Academic Ethics for Undergraduates" and the Ethics Board web site (http://ethics.jhu.edu).