CSE 595 - How to Submit Paper Reviews

CSE 595 -- Winter 2002 -- How to Submit Reviews of Papers

The major components of the course are reading the papers, the labs, and the course project. The field of human-computer interaction is now well-established and the literature has grown enormously in the past few years. You have an opportunity to develop a comprehensive understanding of a field in only 10 weeks, but this requires a lot of reading. The lectures and discussions will not cover all of the readings. Generally, there will be about 4 papers per week to read and review (fewer weeks 1 and 2, a heavier load week 3, no reviews the last two weeks).

Please submit a brief evaluation of each assigned reading by noon, the Thursday that paper will be discussed in class (see below for the Late Policy).

We will use the E-Post system for the reviews. A separate bulletin board will be set up for each paper, so that everyone's reviews of that paper will be available in one place. See the Schedule for the link to the bulletin board for each paper. You will need a UW NetID to access E-Post.

We will grade the reviews on a 0-5 scale, but the expectation is that a reasonable review will get full credit - in other words, 5 is not reserved for exceptional efforts.

Important: post your review before reading any others. (This is on the honor system.) However, after you've posted your review, we encourage you to browse through the other reviews and compare - you can also post comments on another student's review if you are so moved. (5% of the class grade is based on in-class and online discussion - comments on the reviews, as well as useful posts to the class e-mail list, are the two mechanisms for online discussion.)

Each review should include:

The main points that the article seemed to make (one paragraph is sufficient).
What you liked, disliked, found interesting or found unclear (one or more paragraphs).
A subjective numerical rating on a 1-to-6 scale (1 low, 6 high) of the significance of the material.

The rating numbers are to help get discussions started and shouldn't be agonized over.

Note that we are interested in brief reviews that summarize the main points and evalute the reading. A long review is not necessary (although if you have a lot to say, go ahead).

Late Policy: Reviews of each assigned reading are due by Thursday noon, if you send in your review after noon on Thursday and before class we will deduct 2 pts and then grade it. Reviews sent after class on Thursday will not be accepted. In exceptional circumstances make a prior arrangement with Ken.

Skips: You can skip up to 5 reviews. (A very few papers are marked "don't skip," however.) For each skip you have left at the end of the quarter we will drop one of your lowest grades. For example, if you have 3 skips left your 3 lowest review grades will be dropped.