Spring 2014

Mobile Application Development

CS 4520 / CS5520
College of Computer and Information Science

Class Location:		Behrakis Health Sciences Center 320
Class Time:		2:50 - 4:30 PM Mon/Wed
Credit Hours:		4SH
First Class:		Mon Jan 6, 2014
Last Class		4520: Mon Apr 15, 2014 5520: Wed Apr 17, 2014
Final exam		None
Final project due dates		4520: Tue Apr 15, 2014 by end of day 5520: Sat Apr 19, 2014 by end of day Last optional regrade (4520/5520): Fri Apr 25, 2014
Instructor:		Stephen Intille, Ph.D.
Office:		450 West Village H
Office Hrs:		Tue 8:30-9:30 AM
Email:		...@neu.edu
Message group		https://piazza.com/class#fall2013/cs4520and5520
Paper archive		PDFs of some readings will be posted on Blackboard
TA		Shang Ma (shangma.1st@gmail.com)
Grader/assistant		Zhongjie Mao (mao.z@husky.neu.edu)
Optional tutorial help session		Thursdays: 9:00am-11:00am, 210WVH
TA/grader office hours		Tuesday: 4:00pm-6:00pm, 462 WVH Friday: 9:00am-11:00am, 462WVH

Course Description:

This project-oriented course examines the principles of mobile application design and development. Students will learn application development on the Android platform. Topics will include memory management; user interface design; user interface building; input methods; data handling; network techniques and URL loading; and, finally, specifics such as GPS and motion sensing. Students are expected to design and develop a professional-quality mobile application that addresses a real-world problem in an innovative way. Coursework will include project conception, design, implementation, and pilot testing of mobile phone software applications, using health applications as the target domain.

Prerequisites:

There are no course prerequisites, but students in the course should be very comfortable with Java, C#, or another modern object oriented programming language. The basics of Java, which are required for Android programming, are not taught in the course, and students who do not know Java or who cannot pick it up very quickly will have a much steeper learning curve.

Course Objectives:

By the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe those aspects of mobile programming that make it unique from programming for other platforms,
• Critique mobile applications on their design pros and cons,
• Utilize rapid prototyping techniques to design and develop sophisticated mobile interfaces,
• Program mobile applications for the Android operating system that use basic and advanced phone features, and
• Deploy applications to the Android marketplace for distribution.   

Students will have created an innovative and robust mobile application that will be valuable addition to their programming portfolio. Students will have gained experience describing application concepts in writing and in oral presentations.

Students in the graduate version of the class (CS 5520) will have also developed an application that uses mobile sensing capabilities in a sophisticated way.

Classroom Format: 

Most classes will be divided into two parts. The first part of the class will be devoted to a lecture and question and answer period and/or code walkthroughs on technical concepts. The last 20-30 minutes of class will be devoted to short presentations from students on various technical and design concepts from the optional readings that reinforce the required material or provide exposure to useful concepts, toolkits, programming tips, etc. Some classes will be devoted entirely to project idea presentations or project prototyping exercises. The instructor will assume all students have read the assigned material for each class before arriving.

Required and Optional Texts:

The required text will be:

• Burnette, Ed, Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform (3rd edition) [$22.83 at Amazon and available in the bookstore]. This is a good introduction for someone who knows Java or C# but is new to Android and Eclipse. It is a bit dated, but still the best introductory resource I'm aware of and the initial assignments are based upon it.
  

Otherwise, we will use online resources for Android programming. In addition, we will read papers on the design of novel mobile applications that will be available online or made available via Blackboard.

Strongly recommended (especially for graduate students) but not required:

• Professional Android Sensor Programming [$33.00 at Amazon]. This is a terrific resource for anyone interested in using sensors in mobile applications. It will prove particularly helpful to students in the graduate version of the course.

Other books Prof. Intille has found helpful:

• Jones, M. and Marsden, Mobile Interaction Design
• Darwin, I.F, Android Cookbook
• Abelson, F. et al., Android in Action
• Collins, C. et al., Android in Practice
• Brinkman, P., Making Musical Apps
• Deitel, P. et al., Android For Programmers, An App-Driven Approach

Additional Materials: 

All students are required to setup a Google Play Store account for submitting assignments ($25).

All development tools required to program in Android on PCs and Macs are freely available, and many applications can be developed and tested using the emulator. Both the Eclipse/Android setup and the newer Android Studio setups are available on CCIS lab computers. Assignment 1 has a note about picking between Android Studio or Eclipse.

Thanks to the CCIS Dean's office, A limited number of pay-as-you-go Android phones are available for loan during the course (Virgin Kyocera Rise model) to students who do not have access to an Android device. A limited number of additional Android phones of various models, including more advanced models, will be available during the tutorial sessions and the TA office hours. When necessary near the end of the term, more advanced phones may be loaned to teams for testing, pending availability. When phones are loaned out, students are responsible for taking excellent care of the devices and returning them. Failure to return a phone will result in a grade not being assigned.

Students will find it helpful to identify friends who have Android phones upon which apps can be occasionally tested, especially in the latter part of the term.

Getting Help:

Most of class lecture is devoted to description of concepts at a relatively high level, but learning Android will require hours of effort invested in iteratively developing ideas, writing and debugging code, and testing and revising applications.

There are three ways to get additional help:

Weekly tutorial session. Shang will host a tutorial session each week when he will step through additional android code and answer questions. Some sessions will have a "tutorial' flavor. Others will simply be open times for asking questions -- a friendly environment where students can help students as they learn and work on their code.

Weekly TA/grader office hours and hack sessions. In addition to the tutorial session, the TA will have office hours twice per week. We encourage students to attend and work on programming android in an environment where the TA and grader can help to answer questions and students can help each other.

Piazza online help. The Piazza web site should be used to post technical questions, and students are expected to help other students when possible.

Course Schedule/Outline:

Course requirements include (1) readings for class preparation and class participation, (2) individual and team design assignments, (3) individual and team programming assignments, (4) in-class presentations of either a programming concept or a research or design paper, (5) the final programming project, and (6) preliminary and final presentations on projects.

This will be an intensive course that will require significant reading each week, design exercises, and programming. Students should be prepared to fully immerse themselves in Android programming and mobile app design and development for the semester. Students who are not comfortable in Java will most likely need to spend additional time becoming comfortable with Java syntax and libraries.

This class is being improved each time it is offered based on student feedback, and therefore some of the details in the schedule below, are subject to change as the semester goes forward.

Date	Class topic	Reading Due (Beginning of class)	Readings for Scheduled Presentations (TBD)	Assignments Due
Part 1: Ramping up
Mon Jan 6	Hello Mobile World! Introduction to the Course Q&A	None
Wed Jan 8	Syllabus Q&A Presentations Academic honesty Planning for Assignment 1 Android basics Development and debugging tools The Play Store (App Market)	ADG: (Android Application Fundamentals) Hello Ch. 1 & 2 Hello Appendix A1 ADG: Workflow Hello Ch. 13 & 14 ADG: Beta testing and staged roll-outs ADG: Publishing ADG: Signing Applications		Email with presentation preference list sent to Shang and intro survey sent to Prof. Intille Recommended: Have your development environment setup
Thu Jan 9	Optional tutorial: Setting up GIT, BitBucket, and your development environment
Mon Jan 13	Mobile design guidelines More Android basics	ADG: Get Started, Style, Patterns, Building Blocks (including Application Structure) ADG: Activities ADG: Using DDMS ADG: Using the Dev Tools App		Sign up for presentation topic by today
Tue Jan 14 (EOD)				(Individual) Assignment 1: Hello Mobile Application Development (HelloMAD) on Marketplace and GIT
Part 2: Basic GUI and design
Wed Jan 15	Discussion Assignment #1 Addictive games Planning for Assignment #2: Ideas! Planning for Assignment #3: Building a word game	Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: a cognitive teardown of the user experience Chang, Gaming Will Save Us All (on Blackboard) Why are video games addictive? PASP: Designing a Speech-Enabled App (Ch. 15) FIRST Else smartphone hands-on demo from Mobile World Congress 2010 (short video)	Tapworthy Chapter 1 Tapworthy Chapter 2 Tapworthy Chapter 3
Thu Jan 16	Optional tutorial: Java basics and Android Hello World
Fri Jan 17 (EOD)				(Individual) Assignment 2: Addictive game and project idea mash up
Mon Jan 20	No class - MLK Holiday
Wed Jan 22	Discussion Assignment #2 Beginning widgets	Hello Ch. 3 & 5 ADG: Application Resources (excluding Localization Subsection) ADG: Manifest File ADG: Intents and Intent Filters	None
Thu Jan 23	Optional tutorial: Layouts; Intents and intent filters; Rights in Manifest files			(Individual) Assignment 3: Word Game Part 1: Dictionary (due EOD)
Mon Jan 27 (Last day to drop without a W on transcript)	Discussion from #3 1-Minute Madness (1 minute presentations of preliminary project ideas by individuals)		TBD	(Individual) Assignment 4 (Part 1): One-minute MADness presentation (Due noon, before class)
Wed Jan 29	2D graphics overview Planning for Assignment #5	Hello Ch. 4 ADG: 2D Graphics ADG: Drawable Animation ADG: Menu Design and Say Goodbye to the Menu Button	TBD
Thu Jan 30	Optional tutorial: Graphics and Soduku			(Individual) Assignment 4 (Part 2): Project Idea Pitch (due EOD)
Mon Feb 3	Discussion Assignment #4 Paper prototyping overview Saving data and state Testing	Rettig “Prototyping for Tiny Fingers” Ketola, Series 60 Voice Mailbox in Rome (on Blackboard) Bolchini et al., "Paper in Screen" Prototyping (on Blackboard) Hello Ch. 6 ADG: Reading and Writing Logs ADG: Data Storage ADG: Making Android Games that Play Nice ADG: Device ID ADG: What to Test	TBD
Wed Feb 5	Live paper prototyping		TBD
Thu Feb 6	Optional tutorial: Saving state and data; Internal/external memory
Sat Feb 8 (EOD)				(Individual) Assignment 5: Word Game Part 2: Addictive Word Game
Mon Feb 10	Discussion Assignment #5 Planning for Assignment #7 Threading, services, and AsyncTask	ADG: Services ADG: Processes and Threads ADG: Security and Permissions reread ADG: Using DDMS	TBD
Part 3: Making apps more sophisticated and robust
Wed Feb 12	Pair programming Wake locks Grabbing data from the web	Williams, Integrating pair programming into a software development process Introduction to Pair Programming Pair Programming ADG: WakeLock Hello Ch. 7 ADG: Performing Network Operations ADG: Transfering Data and Battery Issues	TBD	(Individual) Assignment 6: Final Project Individual Paper Prototype Design (Due EOD)
Thu Feb 13	Optional tutorial: Asynctask; Data from Internet
Mon Feb 17	No class - Washington's Birthday Holiday
Wed Feb 19	Notifications Broadcast receivers Sensors overview	ADG: Notifications ADG: Cloud Messaging ADG: BroadcastReceivers reread ADG: Intents and Intent Filters ADG: Manipulating BroadcastReceivers ADG: Sensors Overview ADG: Motion Sensors ADG: Position Sensors ADG: Environment Sensors	TBD
Thu Feb 20	Optional tutorial: Broadcast receivers; Intents/filters (more detail); Services
Sun Feb 23 (EOD)				(Individual) Assignment 7: Word Game Part 3: Two-Player Communication
Mon Feb 24	Discussion Assignment #7 Planning for Assignment #9 Sensor data: audio and speech; TTS	ADG: Audio Capture PASP: Using the Microphone (Ch. 14) PASP: Matching What Was Said (Ch. 17) PASP: Using Speech Recognition and Text-To-Speech APIs (Ch. 16)	TBD
Wed Feb 26	Sensor data: processing/using motion data	PASP: Detecting Movement (Ch. 8) TBD (Papers on motion data processing; Wocket API)	TBD	(Team) Assignment 8: Team project idea proposal and plans
Thu Feb 27	Optional tutorial: Internal Accelerometer Data; Code examples of Basic Filters discussed in class
Mon Mar 3	No class - Spring Break
Wed Mar 5	No class - Spring Break
Part 4: Designing and programming an innovative mobile app
Mon Mar 10	Custom views Themes Fragments	ADG: Custom Components ADG: Styles and Themes ADG: Fragments	TBD	Deadline for getting a Green Light on Assignment 8
Tue Mar 11 (EOD)				(Individual) Assignment 9: Word Game Part 4: Two Player Word Game (+sensor secret sauce for 5520)
Wed Mar 12	2-minute madness (2 minute presentations of project plans by teams) Planning for Assignment #11		TBD	(Team) Assignment 10: 2-minute MADness presentation
Thu Mar 13	Optional tutorial: Live paper prototyping to improve your project idea
Mon Mar 17	Sensor data: location and maps	Hello Ch. 8 ADG: Making Your App Location Aware	TBD
Wed Mar 19	SQLite Remote sync	Hello Ch. 9 ADG: Examining sqlite3 Databases from a Remote Shell ADG: Data Backup ADG: Storing and Searching for Data ADG: Building Connectivity	TBD
Thu Mar 20	Optional tutorial: Audio & TTS example; Location services
Mon Mar 24	3D graphics	Hello Ch. 10 ADG: 3D with OpenGL ADG: Property and View Animation	TBD
Part 5: Final development of final project
Wed Mar 26	Useful tools (telephony, SMS, multi-touch, livewallpaper, widgets)	Hello Ch. 11 Hello Ch. 12 ADG: Media Playback ADG: App Widgets ADG: App Widget Design Guidelines ADG: Copy and Paste	TBD
Thu Mar 27	Optional tutorial: Collaborative debugging session
Fri Mar 28 (EOD)				(Team) Assignment 11: Trickiest Parts of Project and Half-way Done
Mon Mar 31 (Last day to drop course Tue Apr 1)	Discussion of Assignment #11 Optimization and debugging tips	ADG: Designing for Performance ADG: Designing for Responsiveness ADG: Designing for Seamlessness ADG: Optimizing Your UI ADG: Profiling with Traceview and dmtracedump Lazy loading Debugging Arts of the Ninja Masters	TBD
Wed Apr 2	Wireless: Cellular, Bluetooth, WIFI, NFC	ADG: Bluetooth ADG: NFC ADG: WiFi Connect	TBD
Thu Apr 3	Optional tutorial: Collaborative debugging session
Mon Apr 7	Future mobile interfaces discussion	Hinckley and Song, Sensor Synaesthesia (on Blackboard)	TBD
Wed Apr 9	Making a living – Licensing and Billing; Internationalization	Hello Ch. 13 ADG: Localization Casting a wide net: how to target all Android devices (2010) Optimizing Apps for Android 3.0 Has Apple Just Screwed the Business Model for Selling Software (including comments) and GDC 2010: Ngmoco's Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world Articles on micropayments: Article1, Article 2, and Where are the MicroPayments ADG: New Tools for Screen Sizes	TBD
Thu Apr 10	Optional tutorial: Collaborative debugging session
Mon Apr 14	Final project presentations #1 (all undergrads + some grads)	None		Presentations due
Tue Apr 15 (EOD)				Final project due for 4520
Wed Apr 16	Final project presentations #2 (remaining grads)			Presentations due
Sat Apr 19 (EOD)			Try out other team apps	Final project due for 5520

Course subject content is tentative and may change during the semester until the date of assignment.

Schedule after the last class:

• By April 21: Preliminary final project grades available
• Fri Apr 25: Last day to request optional regrade of (improved) final projects
• Mon Apr 28: Grades submitted
• Sometime in May, 2014: Competition winners announced                   

Please note that while the optional regrade of final projects is not required, it is quite common for teams to take advantage of this option and to need the extra time. Students may want to arrange travel plans accordingly.

Grading Procedures and Criteria:

Prior experience suggests that work in this course will generally fall into one of four categories:

• Superior, striking, or unexpected pieces of work with excellent effort demonstrating a mastery of the subject matter and a skillful use of concepts and/or materials discussed in class; work robustly and fully implemented; work that shows exceptional imagination, elegance of presentation, originality, creativity, and effort.
• Good work demonstrating a capacity to use the subject matter and the ability to handle problems encountered in the course. 
• Work that is adequate but that would benefit from increased effort or preparation.
• Work that is inadequate and does not suggest mastery of course content.

Course work falling into these categories correspond roughly to A, B, C, and D grades. In the last three offerings of this course, each time grades ranged from A-F, with a modest number of grades in A range and the bulk of grades in the B range. The final grade for the course will be computed by weighting the results from each assignment according to the following formula:  

• Individual class presentation (10%)
• Design assignments (20% total)  
• Assignment #2: Addictive game and project idea mash up (5%)
• Assignment #4: Project idea storyboarding and 1-minute madness presentation (5%)
• Assignment #6: Final project preliminary paper prototype design (5%)
• Assignment #8: Team project idea proposal and plans (5%)
• Assignment #10: 2-minute MADness presentation (borderline cases)
  
• Programming lead-up assignments (40% total)
• Assignment #1: HelloMAD on Marketplace and GIT (5%)
• Assignment #3: Word Game Part 1: Dictionary (5%)
• Assignment #5: Word Game Part 2: Addictive Word Game (5%)
• Assignment #7: Word Game Part 3: Communication Word Game (5%)
• Assignment #9: Word Game Part 4: Two Player Word Game With Secret Sauce (10%)
• Assignment #11: Trickiest Parts and Halfway Done (10%)
• Final project interaction design, robustness, inventiveness, and overall impression (30%)
• Engagement and overall impressions (borderline decisions). Overall level of engagement demonstrated by class attendance and participation and preparation and positive attitude, news group participation, and extraordinary effort or creativity shown on assignments or the final project. Class and Piazza contributions where students have clearly and regularly gone out of their way to help other students will also weigh in borderline grade decisions.

Expectations of quality work showing mastery of course material will increase with every assignment, culminating very high expectations for the final project.

Please read the late policy information below carefully.

Class presentations  

Every student will have multiple opportunities to hone presentation skills in this class, because they are critical to future career success. Students will make four presentations: (1) a 6 minute individual presentation on a mobile app development concept, (2) a 1 minute presentation on a preliminary app project idea, (3) a 2 minute presentation on a final project idea (possibly with team partner), and (4) a final 6 minute presentation on the final project implementation.

Students will be provided with a template for the presentations and will be expected to use a modified Petcha Kucha format for each (20s per slide, with an auto-advancing presentation). This format requires practice in advance! Presentations will be graded on adherence to the format and overall presentation clarity and evidence of practice, as well as demonstration by the students of a thorough understanding of the topics being discussed.

In each student's 6 minute individual presentation, the goal is for the student to teach the class an important idea/concept in as much depth as possible in a limited time (18 slides at 20s per slide). All students will develop a presentation from this Powerpoint template.

Presentations on project status and the final projects will also use a similar format (although most will be much shorter).

Code review   

In some classes, code from assignments may be randomly selected. In this case, the student(s) who wrote the code may be asked in class (without prior notice) to step through it, explaining key design decisions. Other students may be asked to critique the code. All code must be up-to-date using BitBucket and Git.

Design assignments  

The best way to reduce programming time is to spend time on effective design early in the development process. Therefore, in this class, design and rapid prototyping will be emphasized throughout. Design assignments will get students thinking carefully about design, leading towards a final project, and will ensure that students are working to help each other, across teams, to develop the most innovative mobile apps possible. In the past, some students have struggled with this aspect of the course. Students should be prepared to get honest feedback on designs, generate many ideas, and spend time testing concepts before they start programming them. An investment in coming up with a good design pays off as the final project is developed.

Programming lead-up assignments

A set of programming assignments will help individuals and then teams incrementally converge on an innovative final project. The assignments will get increasingly challenging, as individuals first make simple modifications to an existing Sudoku game and transform it into a completely different type of addictive game. Then teams will work on developing a a final project with a health purpose. (It is anticipated that most final projects will look nothing like the first addictive game developed by modifying Sudoku, thereby making it possible for students to add more than one app to their portfolio at the completion of the course: the word game and the final project.)

All assignments will be “submitted” via uploading apps to the app store and via committing code using Git and Bitbucket. . For grading, the apps will be updated and run on an actual mobile phone of an unspecified model. Emphasis will be on usability design, creativity of the design, professionalism of the application, and technical robustness. For the most part, the structure of the code behind the applications will not be reviewed during the grading process unless a problem is identified, but the latest code must always be online for review, and students must be incrementally committing code and using the feature and bug tracking features on BitBucket.   

Final project design and implementation

Although there are design and programming projects along the way, they are all designed to support the development of an outstanding final project. Students will design and implement a fully-functional mobile phone application for Android mobile phones that must be sufficiently robust so that it can be deployed with actual users. Students will work in two-person teams (recommended) or individually. Teams are expected to produce a polished and professional-looking mobile phone application that works robustly on a variety of phone models, meets the user interface design standards discussed in the course, and shows a substantial amount of creativity. The goal is not to produce yet another app that does the same thing as other apps on the app store, but to design an app that truly stands out from the crowd. Students should aim for focused apps that are addictive/fun/engaging but with a serious purpose that creatively exploit some of the unique capabilities of mobile interaction and mobile devices. The apps must address one of the key project topics presented in class. The app should be extremely easy and pleasing to use. To achieve these goals will require many rounds of design iteration and careful application of the design concepts discussed in class.    

To ensure that students can benefit from the collective experience of one another, and to focus the course to maximize the likelihood that students will develop novel application ideas, the course assignments and project will focus on the area of apps for health.

Final projects must address one of the topics discussed in the first or second class. Categories may include the following (but consult slides for the final list):

• Killer Exergame: Build a totally addictive novel exergame for kids (and possibly adults too) that uses motion sensing to keep the kids engaged in a very high level of physical activity for long periods of time.
• Hand Hygiene: Build a novel application that can be used to train people to do less hand-to-face touching and more hand washing to help them sustain this behavior for long periods of time (and reduce transmission of disease).
• Dietary Assessment: Develop a novel application that makes it very easy for people to enter information about specific foods and/or categories of foods consumed, even for particular days or for extended periods of time.
• Stressed Out: Create an application that helps people identify stress and helps them to reduce it. This idea could use motion and heart rate.
• Portion Control: Create an application that makes it incredibly easy for someone to gather data on the size of the portions of what they are eating in order to help them with a special type of weight loss routine.
• Eating Speed Control: Create an application that makes helps people eat more slowly (which will help them eat less).
• Virtual Bike Packs: Create an application that helps people organize and join bike convoys (details to be explained).
• Pupil Dilation. Create an application that will accurately measure the size of someone's pupil and test pupillary response (as the doctor' does when s/he shines a light in your eye). This project involves computer vision.
• Life Labeling: Create an application that makes it incredibly easy for someone to accurately tell the phone what they are doing throughout the day and chunk it up into parts using sensors (especially motion and keyword spotting). The app should let people fix up the data in some entertaining way later in the day. This app could include the use of the Pebble Smartwatch or Google Glass devices.
• Husky @NEU: Create an innovative health app that uses the data from the NEU campus project (to be explained).
• Sleep Quality: Develop an application that helps people get a better night sleep in a novel way. It might do this by measuring a person’s sleep environment and helping the person improve it, or creating some type of unique sleep experience.
• Stay Standing: Develop an application that can use a phone's sensors to determine if someone using a sit to stand desk has the desk in the sit or the stand position, and then provide feedback to get the person to use the desk in the stand position more.
• Sleep Deprivation: Develop an application that can assess the difference between sleep deprivation and alertness and help someone understand how their sleep is impacting how s/he feels during various parts of the day.
• Bluetooth Beacons: Develop an a system (app plus some external sensor option) that will allow the phone to determine and use information about position throughout a home and office building using dirt-cheap “Bluetooth beacons.”
• Commercial Exercise: Create a mobile app that would be used while watching television and get someone who is sedentary to exercise during commercials.
• Where Am I?: Develop an application that uses a phone's camera and microphone to determine where the phone is at all times (on a desk at work, on the kitchen counter at home, in the pocket, in a bag, etc.). This is not a health project, but could be used for a variety of health-related applications.
• Mystery Project: Build an app to specs provided by the instructor. This option will only be available to teams who, despite best attempts on the early design assignments, do not arrive at a project idea that is scoring high marks for feasibility, innovation, etc. by the 2-minute madness class.

Virgin Kyocera Rise Android phones will be available for development and testing as needed, with more advanced models available at the tutorial/hack sessions and on a limited basis at other times. Teams interested in using other wireless sensors (e.g., Wockets motion sensors) will be provided with those as well.

At the end of the term students will present their project in class. Students will be provided with a template for the presentations, using a modified Pecha Kucha format (16-20 slides, 20 seconds each, on auto advance). Presentations will be graded on adherence to the format and overall presentation clarity on the final project, and evidence that the presentation was practiced.

Teams / Pair programming:

Students are strongly encouraged to form teams of two. Students will be able to self-select teams and we will have a class exercise that should help students find others interest in similar project topics. Students may elect to work individually, but this may make the course more challenging. Mobile phone programming can be tricky and frustrating at times, and working in pairs can not only improve efficiency but also enhance creativity of the final app. If students wish to have a partner but cannot identify one, the instructor will help with pairing to the extent possible, but students who cannot find a partner may be forced to work alone.

Pair programming has been shown to have a number of benefits including increased personal satisfaction and fewer errors. When students work in pairs, both must work together on a single computer, and both must write approximately half of the code. Very little code should be written without the other partner present and watching.

Teams are expected to apply software best practices such as tracking tasks and using software configuration management, and select appropriate supporting tools.

At the end of the semester, each team member will be asked to separately and anonymously document the other team member's contributions. This information will be taken into account when assigning final grades.

App Competition:

At the end of the class, students in the class and a small panel of distinguished judges from academia and industry will try out the applications and vote for the top apps based on creativity, robustness, usability, and usefulness. The winning team will receive a small prize (and bragging rights!). Past prizes in various semesters were Android Nooks or Net10 Android phones for each team member. The prize this semester has not yet been determined.

Classroom Policies:

Students are expected to demonstrate qualities of academic integrity: a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to five fundamental values:  honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility.

Actively engaging in verbal exchanges of ideas and concepts will be a component of learning in this course. This will be stimulated by readings, class discussions and case problem solving. Therefore everyone will be expected to actively and positively listen to others and to communicate their ideas during class. Some students are less comfortable speaking in class than others, but open discussion of ideas and even disagreement is essential.  Therefore, all students are expected to read course materials prior to class and may be called upon at times even if they do not raise their hands. Participation does not result from talking a lot, but as a result of critical thinking and articulation of ideas.

University policy dictates that students must seek the instructor’s permission to tape record class lectures.  I will always allow the use of tape recorders to support your learning.

As ironic as it may seem in a course about mobile application development, to facilitate discussion and learning, electronic devices, including laptops and tablets and phones and Google Glass, must be turned off in class unless otherwise specified by the instructor.

Slides shown in class will be available on the course web site 1-2 days after each class.  

Please do not eat during the class unless you plan to provide food for everyone.

Students are expected to be particularly attentive when their peers are presenting.

Writing/Presentation Policies:

Assignments that involve writing and presentation will be judged on clarity of presentation as well as content. Students who are having difficulty with writing will be referred to the Northeastern University Writing Center.

Late Policy:

Unexcused late assignments will automatically be lowered by one letter grade. Assignments will not be accepted more than one week late. Because the team project activities each week build on the prior weeks’ results, teams are strongly encouraged to turn in their work on time in whatever state it is in.

In extenuating circumstances, well prior to (e.g., two weeks before) an assignment due date, a student may request an extension with a reasonable explanation. It is the discretion of the instructor to permit late assignments and this is rare, because all students have one late assignment pass.

Get out of being late pass: Getting behind in this course creates serious problems as students go forward, because early foundational work is necessary to successfully complete a high-quality, professional final project. Therefore, assignment deadlines will be strictly enforced, following the late policy above. However, each student will be allowed one "get out of being late" pass for any assignment other than the final project and the in-class individual presentation. If this pass is used, an assignment can be turned in up to one week late with no penalty. The pass cannot be used on a team assignment unless BOTH team members have an unused pass.

Academic Honesty:

All students are expected and encouraged to discuss the topics raised by this course with each other. Ideas or content (including graphical content) incorporated from an outside source or another student must be documented appropriately in the app submissions, write-ups, and presentations. Students must abide by the NU Code of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity Policy. Acts of academic dishonesty will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution.

Students are encouraged to help each other with programming assignments, but copying of blocks of code from another student or team is not acceptable. Students must be prepared and capable to explain the work they have done. Similarly, students working in teams are expected to jointly work on the code they develop and BOTH students should have a thorough understanding of all of the code.

Academic honesty is fundamental to the learning process. As a reminder,  

• Students are expected to present as their own only that which is clearly their own work in tests and in any material submitted for credit.  Students may not assist others in presenting work that is not their own. 
• Purchasing term papers or coded applications from commercial firms or individuals is a serious violation of University policy.  Offenders are subject to disciplinary action (Office of Judicial Affairs). (Undergraduate and Graduate Student Handbook, 2000-2001, p.108)
• Any member of the academic community who witnesses an act of academic dishonesty should report it to the appropriate faculty member or department chair (or equivalent).  The charge will be investigated and if sufficient evidence is presented the case will be referred to the Northeastern University Student Judicial Hearing Board.
• Plagiarizing includes: representing someone’s else’s work as your own, insufficient acknowledgement, receiving or giving unauthorized help on choosing a topic, analyzing data, or drawing conclusions.  Using the same paper or portions of a paper for two courses without explicit permission from professors of both courses.

Any student found cheating on an assignment or with code that raises concerns about potential cheating will receive a zero on that assignment. A second offense will result in a failing grade for the course and reporting the student(s) to the Northeastern University administration. Note that even the suspicion of cheating will trigger these actions, and therefore students must actively work to prevent others from using their work in unauthorized ways.

Any code snippets or content used in any assignment throughout the class must be document in that particular assignment, as will be described in class.

These policies will be discussed in the second class.

Students with questions about what is acceptable or unacceptable collaboration on assignments should ask the instructor.

Accommodation:

Students who have a disability are encouraged to seek accommodations though the University Disability Resource Center.  If the Disability Resource Center has formally approved you for an academic accommodation in this class, please present Prof. Intille with your "Professor Notification Letter" during the first week of the semester and speak privately with me about your needs for accommodations and strategies to support your success. This information will be kept confidential.

Trace:

The instructor will distribute optional mid-term and final course evaluations, to be returned anonymously. Responses to the questions help to improve this course during the current semester and for future students. Significant modifications to the design of this course have been made based on prior surveys returned.

All students are also strongly encouraged to use the TRACE (Teacher Rating and Course Evaluation) system near the end of the course to evaluate this course. A reminder about TRACE should arrive via email about two weeks before the end of the course.