Course Schedule: Spring 2005

Three hours of lecture and one hour of laboratory per week. Course must be completed for a letter grade to fulfill degree requirement. Technological foundations for computing and communications: computer architecture, operating systems, networking, middleware, security. Programming paradigms: object oriented-design, design and analysis of algorithms, data structures, formal languages. Distributed-system architectures and models, inter-process communications, concurrency, system performance.

This course explores the relationship between organizations and the development and use of information technology and systems. It presumes that organizational models reflect the opportunities created by information technology and the changing institutional context. We will compare the implications of different organizational models for knowledge and information flows, learning within and between organizations, and learning between organizations and their environment. Case materials will draw from private and public sector organizations as well as professional, educational and other non-profit organizations. We will devote special attention to organizational transformations associated with new models of innovation and the “network” or knowledge economy.

The course is recommended for MIMS students, SIMS Ph.D. students, and graduate students in other departments with an interest in the relationship between information technology and the transformation of organizations.

Three hours of lecture per week. User interface design and human-computer interaction. Examination of alternative design. Tools and methods for design and development. Human- computer interaction. Methods for measuring and evaluating interface quality.

This course covers the design, prototyping, and evaluation of user interfaces to computers which is often called Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It is loosely based on course CS1 described in the ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction (Association for Computing Machinery, 1992).

HCI covers many topics including:

1. Human capabilities (e.g., visual and auditory perception, memory, mental models, and interface metaphors);
2. Interface technology (e.g., input and output devices, interaction styles, and common interface paradigms); and,
3. Interface design methods (e.g., user-centered design, prototyping, and design principles and rules), and interface evaluation (e.g., software logging, user observation, benchmarks and experiments).

This material is covered through lectures, reading, discussions, homework assignments, and a course project. This course differs from CS 160 primarily in two ways:

1. There is an emphasis on interfaces for information technology applications; and,
2. There is less emphasis on programming and system development, although some simple prototyping (for example, in visual basic or using JAVA GUI development tools) may be required. (CS 160 has a big programming project.)

Three hours of seminar per week. Intermediate to advanced course focusing on theory and empirical evidence for regional growth and development, using reading and discussion. Also listed as City and Regional Planning C227.

Three hours of lecture per week. Theories and methods for searching and retrieval of text and bibliographic information. Analysis of relevance and utility. Statistical and linguistic methods for automatic indexing and classification. Boolean and probabilistic approaches to indexing, query formulation, and output ranking. Filtering methods. Measures of retrieval effectiveness and retrieval experimentation methodology.

This course is intended to prepare you to understand the underlying theories and algorithms of advanced information retrieval systems and to introduce the methodology for the design and evaluation of information retrieval systems. The course will introduce you to the major types of information retrieval systems, the different theoretical foundations underlying these systems, and the methods and measures that can be used to evaluate them. The course will focus on the both the theoretical aspects of information retrieval design and evaluation, and will also consider the practical aspects of how these theories have been implemented in actual systems. These topics will be examined through readings, discussion, hands-on experience using various information retrieval systems, and through participation in evaluation of different retrieval algorithms on various test collections. The prerequisite for the course is INFOSYS 202, though this may be waived with the consent of instructor. A good familiarity with computers and programming is highly desirable.

This course is intended to provide the core skills needed for the identification of opportunities that can lead to successful, entrepreneurial high technology ventures, regardless of the individual's "home" skill set, whether technical or managerial. We examine in depth the approaches most likely to succeed for entrepreneurial companies as a function of markets and technologies. Emphasis is placed on the special requirements for creating and executing strategy in a setting of rapid technological change and limited resources. This course is open to both MBA and Engineering students (who enroll through the College of Engineering), and is particularly suited for those who anticipate founding or operating technology companies.

IS290 Digital Media Design Studio is an advanced graduate level studio course in which students develop and present a digital media application prototype. Projects would ideally involve the creation, use, and reuse of digital media and metadata (descriptions of media content and structure). IS290 Digital Media Design Studio is the second course of a two course series that began with IS246 Multimedia Information and is intended to enable Fall IS246 students to implement, iterate, and present their projects designed in IS246.

The course will feature two different sessions per week: 90 minutes of lecture/seminar and 90 minutes of studio instruction. The lecture/seminar topics and readings will include advanced topics in digital media applications and multimedia information systems focused on the particular student projects being developed in the course. The lecture/seminar sessions will also feature several guest lectures from leading digital media researchers and designers. The studio sessions will involve in-class design sessions, presentations, and crit of student work. Group projects (3 — 5 students per team) are strongly encouraged. The course will culminate in a public presentation of student projects with guest evaluators from industry and academia.

This course is ideally suited to second year MIMS students who have taken IS246 and who wish to do a media-related MIMS Final Project. The course is also open to all students who have taken IS246. A small number of other students working on digital media projects will also be considered for participation in the course.

About the Instructor: Marc Davis is an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Management and Systems where he directs the Garage Cinema Research group. Prof. Davis' work is focused on creating the technology and applications that will enable daily media consumers to become daily media producers. His research and teaching encompass the theory, design, and development of digital media systems for creating and using media metadata to automate media production and reuse.

The rise and fall of the high-technology industries of the 1990s reflect broader changes in markets, production organization, and business models, as well as the operation of government policies. These broader changes, which include but go well beyond the Internet revolution itself, suggest that the industrial economy is being fundamentally transformed by the diffusion of innovations in technology and business models across the industrial and industrializing economies. At the same time, these changes cannot be understood without a deeper examination of the factors that created competitive advantage at the national level in many of these industries during the previous three decades. This course explores the broad changes in “who is winning, who is losing, and why” in global markets for high-technology goods ranging from semiconductors to commercial aircraft.

This course seeks to make sense of, inter alia, the decline and prospective recovery of U.S. high-technology industries, the evolution of innovation and technology strategies and policies in Western Europe and Asia, the historic and current roles of governments in shaping markets for high-technology goods, and the impact on business strategies of recent developments in early-stage capital markets. Our general approach views technological innovation and competition as dynamic processes that reflect previous choices made by firms and governments. Modern technologies develop in markets that are international in scope, often imperfectly competitive, and subject to influence by a variety of economic and political stakeholders. We will use an eclectic mix of theoretical, historical, and practical perspectives throughout the course in examining these issues, although no special familiarity with any of these is assumed. From time to time, we will be joined by venture capitalists, corporate executives, and technologists engaged in global high-technology markets for discussion of these issues.

CLASS FORMAT: Seminar with cases, discussions, lectures and guest speakers.

REQUIRED READINGS: All students should purchase the Class Reader which will include the required HBS case studies and other articles.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Students will be expected to undertake one substantial research project, in cross-disciplinary teams, requiring both traditional and on-line research skills. Each team will present briefly to the class as a whole. The grade will be based on the general in-class participation and the final research report.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: Charles C. Wu is currently a Lecturer in the Management of Technology Program with over 20 years of pragmatic experience in High Technology and 14 years representing foreign organizations. He is currently Managing Director and Founder of the Panasonic Digital Concepts Center, Matsushita's Technology Alliances, Venture Capital and Incubator Organization. Prior to Panasonic, Charles was the first US professional at Vertex Venture Holdings, the Venture Capital arm of Singapore Technologies. Charles has served on boards of 11 public and private companies assisting them with their international business relationships and strategy. Charles has a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an BS in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

See the MOT site for details. 

Typically offered in the Spring semester.
This is a Core Course of the MOT program.

Course Description
Most innovations fail. Yet companies that don't innovate die. Managing innovation thus constitutes one of the most difficult and critical tasks facing a manager. Nor is this solely the concern of high tech companies - companies in traditionally "low tech" businesses such as consumer packaged goods (like Procter & Gamble) find that innovation translates directly into growth in new businesses, and better profits in existing businesses.

The course adopts a capabilities-based view of the firm, drawing from economic, organizational, and engineering perspectives. The goal of the course is to identify the sources of innovative success and failure inside corporations, and how companies can develop and sustain a capability to innovate. The course will count towards students' Management of Technology (MOT) certificate, and graduate level cross-registrants from the Graduate College of Engineering (except those still in their first year of study) and School of Information are encouraged.

There are two books required for the course: 1) Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), and 2) Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape ( Harvard Business School Press, 2006). Full disclosure: I wrote both of these books. There is also a Course Reader. Continuation of course description

Course Syllabus (pdf)

This is a Related Course of the MOT program, usually taught in Spring.

Sustainable Design, Manufacturing and Management as exercised by the enterprise is a poorly understood idea and one that is not intuitively connected to business value or engineering practice.

This course will provide the basis for understanding (1) what comprises sustainable practices in for-profit enterprises, (2) how to practice and measure continuous improvement using sustainability thinking, techniques and tools for product and manufacturing process design, and (3) the techniques for and value of effective communication of sustainability performance to internal and external audiences.

Material in the course will be supplemented by speakers with diverse backgrounds in corporate sustainability, environmental consulting, and academia.

Discussions of papers in the reader including case studies will be used to illustrate topics. A final class project will be required (for those registered for 3 units), with students working individually or in small groups. Cross functional groups including both engineering and MBA students are encouraged. Class projects will apply the analysis techniques covered in this course to design and develop environmentally mindful products or processes or analyze policies that lead to environmental improvements. Interaction with industry and collection of real-world data will be encouraged.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
David Dornfeld received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976 in the area of Production Engineering. He joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley in the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1977 and is presently Professor of Manufacturing Engineering. Since July 1, 1999 he holds the Will C. Hall Family Chair in Engineering. He is presently Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies in the College of Engineering.In 1982 and 1992 he was Directeur de Recherche Associe, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris, Paris and Invited Professor, Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers- ENSAM, Paris, respectively.

Dr. Dornfeld's research activities are in several fields of manufacturing engineering and flexible automation: acoustic emission monitoring and analysis of manufacturing processes; burr formation and edge finishing (leads an industry consortium supporting work in this area); precision manufacturing with specialization on chemical mechanical planarization for semiconductor manufacturing; green manufacturing; and intelligent sensors and signal processing for process monitoring and optimization. He has published over 270 papers in these fields, contributed chapters to several books and has four patents based on his research work. He is a consultant on sensors, manufacturing productivity and automation and process modeling and the associated intellectual property issues.

Professor Dornfeld is a Fellow and an active member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), He was the recipient of the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award in 1986. He is a Fellow and past-Director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and a recipient of the 2004 SME Fredrick W. Taylor Research Medal, member of Japan Society of Precision Engineering (JSPE), American Society of Precision Engineering (ASPE), and Materials Research Society (MRS) . He is past-President of the Board of Directors , North American Manufacturing Research Institute (NAMRI/SME). He is an Active Member of the CIRP (International Institution for Production Engineering Research) where he serves as member of the governing Council and is past-Chair of the Scientific Technical Committee on Cutting.