Course Schedule: Spring 2008

As information and information systems projects have become increasingly strategic, information workers at all levels and in all environments must demonstrate higher levels of professionalism, not only to perform their duties competently, but to remain competitive in the job market. This course, in conjunction with the School of Information final project, gives students insight into the source and best practice of professionalism, and gives students the chance to refine the essential skills in a simulated but realistic working environment.

Note: This course is being offered on a S/U (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) basis.

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 lecture per week. The emergence of global digital networks, such as the Internet, and digital technologies that enhance human abilities to access, store, manipulate, and transmit vast amounts of information has brought with it a host of new legal issues that lawyers preparing to practice in the 21st century will need to understand and address. Although many are trying to "map" existing legal concepts onto problems arising in cyberspace, it is becoming increasingly evident that this strategy sometimes doesn't work. In some cases, it is necessary to go back to first principles to understand how to accomplish the purposes of existing law in digital networked environments. The course will explore specific problems in applying law to cyberspace in areas such as intellectual property, privacy, content control, and the bounds of jurisdiction. Students with familiarity with the Internet and its resources or with backgrounds in some of the substantive fields explored in this course are especially welcome, but there are no formal prerequisites. Grades for the course will be based either on a series of short papers or on a supervised term paper.

Note: This course is cross-listed with Law 276.1.

The design and presentation of digital information. Use of graphics, animation, sound, visualization software, and hypermedia in presenting information to the user. Methods of presenting complex information to enhance comprehension and analysis. Incorporation of visualization techniques into human-computer interfaces.

Computer visualization is used widely in scientific and engineering disciplines to help people understand the systems they study, but has only recently begun to be applied to general information. This course will focus on the use of visualization to enhance comprehension and analysis of structured information such as text collections, networked systems like the Web, work processes, etc. For examples of what computerized visualization is see: http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/casa/martin/atlas/atlas.html

Much of the relevant work is new and still being researched. For this reason, many of the lectures will be given by guest speakers with expertise in specialized subareas.

Readings and lectures will cover basic visualization principles and tools, and relevant work in the new field of information visualization. Students will gain hands-on experience with existing tools.

All students are expected to participate in class discussion, write a short survey paper or design a graphical presentation, and do a project. The project will consist either of creating or enhancing a visualization system or technique, or conducting a user study to evaluate a system or technique.

This course is targeted to both SIMS and computer science students. Students must be willing to read papers that contain some advanced math and must be willing to augment existing programs (using either a scripting language or a standard programming language).

The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to many different types of quantitative research methods and statistical techniques. This course will be divided into two sections: 1) methods for quantitative research and, 2) quantitative statistical techniques for analyzing data. We begin with a focus on defining research problems, theory testing, causal inference, and designing research instruments. Then, we will explore a range of statistical techniques and methods that are available for empirical research. Topics in research methods include: Primary and Secondary Data Analysis, Sampling, Survey Design, and Experimental Designs. Topics in quantitative techniques include: Descriptive and Inferential statistics, General Linear Models, and Non-Linear Models. The course will conclude with an introduction to special topics in quantitative research methods.

Web-based services have become popular since the Web was invented in 1989. The first wave of Web-based services were user interfaces to systems which before the Web could not be easily accessed over the network. This development made the Web as successful as it is today, as a medium delivering a globally accessible interface to services. The second wave of Web-based services are Web Services, using basic Web technologies (HTTP/XML) and robust protocols (WS-*) for implementing application programming interfaces and business-class composite applications. A more recent third wave of Web-based services uses lighter-weight protocols and ad-hoc design approaches to merge or "mash-up" information or services for use primarily by individuals. In this course, all facets of Web-based services will be examined, starting with server-side technologies for the Web, and then moving on to Web Services basics (SOAP/WSDL). Coordination and orchestration of Web Services are covered with BPEL, user interfaces to Web Services (XForms), and questions of how to design Web Services (openness and extensibility) are discussed as well.

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.

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)

Typically offered SPRING semester.

This is a Core Course of the MOT program and is not a required course for the MOT certificate.

This course is designed to give business and engineering students an overview of the main topics related to the management of technology, with a focus on innovation as it relates to products, processes, and business models. Why do so many new technology businesses fail, and why are so many successful businesses unable to recognize fundamental market transitions that can change the structure of an entire industry? The course covers the full spectrum of activities associated with technology businesses, from strategy and R&D through marketing and distribution. The format is highly interactive and includes readings, case studies, and guest speakers from inside and outside the MOT program.

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.

Course description not yet available.

This course will review the current literature in Information, Communications and Development (ICTD). Readings will be selected from the range of disciplines contributing to this field: computer science, sociology, economics, business, public health, etc.

Formerly titled "Advanced Reading Seminar in Information, Communication and Development"

This course is a broad survey of Web-based publishing, defined here as any well-designed service for providing information using Web formats and protocols. It touches on strategy and project planning considerations, but emphasizes design, implementation, and delivery issues.

Design topics include publishing process modeling and document workflows, content reuse, document formats, compound documents, internationalization and localization, and the associated questions of usability and accessibility.

Implementation issues include URI design, Web server setup, and storage management, starting from the foundation (XML databases) and moving on to specialized content management systems.

Delivery issues include cross-media publishing and syndication alternatives such as RSS and Atom.

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of developing information service consulting and project management. It focuses on ways to apply theoretical and conceptual knowledge to problem solving and project development. The goal of the Clinic is to provide students with hands-on experience in applying theoretical and conceptual knowledge toward practical problem-solving in designing and implementing new information services. The Spring Semester focuses on project development, implementation, and closure activities. Understanding and experience with this process will be as important as the final deliverable. Transparency in each step of project development is required and will help ensure the continued sustainability of the project.

Although it is not required, students are strongly encouraged to take both the Fall part of the Clinic course before enrolling in the Spring. The Spring semester is devoted to active development of well developed and planned projects. Students who take only the Spring part of the course should have a project plan and development strategy already completed before enrolling.

In the Spring 2010 semester, the course continues its focus on information in the public interest and student projects move from planning to development activities.

Note: Students may take both the fall and spring clinic courses once each for credit.