HINF 5300: Personal
Health Interface Design & Development
College of Computer and Information Science & Bouve College of Health Sciences
Fall 2015
Class Location: Richards Hall 233
Credit Hours: 4 SH
Class Times: Wednesdays 6-9 PM
Message Board: Piazza: https://piazza.com/class#fall2015/hinf5300
Instructor of record: Stephen Intille, Ph.D.
Office: 910-177 Huntington
Office Hours: Tue 8:30-9:30 (To get access to 177, you must contact me in advance)
Phone: (617) 373-3711 (but email is better)
Email: ...@neu.edu
Overview
This project-based seminar course explores the design of innovative personal health human-computer interface technologies. Examples include assistive technologies that aid persons with disabilities, consumer wellness promotion applications, patient education and counseling systems, interfaces for reviewing personal health records, and eldercare and social network systems that monitor health and support independent living. Working in transdisciplinary teams, students will design and build a prototype personal health interface system to solve a real problem using advanced user interface technologies such as smartwatches, Google Glass, Amazon's Echo, or wearable computing devices.
Topics surveyed in the course during the project design and development cycle include participatory design, iterative user interface design methods for advanced mobile interface systems, health interface development, innovative sensing for mobile and home systems, software architectures for iteratively testing prototype personal health interface technologies, human-computer interaction issues related to personal health technology, and technology transfer requirements to support future validation studies of technology.
Advanced (PhD) students will cover some topics in more depth, discussing case studies specific to doing health research with prototype health interfaces with transdisciplinary teams.
Students in this course will acquire practical experience working in a team to develop an innovative health technology concept from idea conception to fully functional prototype. Students will also practice public speaking, writing, and team skills critical for success in the workplace. Technical students will have an opportunity to develop programming skills for an advanced user interface device, such as smartwatches, Google Glass, Amazon's Echo, or some other novel user interface device/technology.
The best interface technologies developed by teams in this course will be field tested or used in personal health informatics experiments by students who take a follow-up course in Spring, 2016 (HINF 5301:Personal Health Technologies: Field Deployment and System Evaluation).
In Fall, 2013, the offering of this course was possibly the first in the country on the use of head-mounted computers for health. Projects from the Fall 2013 offering of the course were featured in the Northeastern News and in the Northeastern research blog. In the second year, teams also primarily used Google Glass devices. This year, teams will select from among several advanced user interface platforms, based upon their collective experience and the problem they are trying to solve.
Course Objectives:
By the conclusion of this course, all students will be able to:
PhD students will additionally be able to:
Classroom Format:
Most classes will consist of presentations by individuals or teams with student and faculty critique with seminar style discussion of assigned readings or presented material. A few classes will have some time set aside for team interactive design and development sessions.
Students will be asked to make short presentations on the material to provoke discussion and tie the material together with their team’s project development. Some classes will be devoted to presentation of preliminary or final project ideas and receiving feedback from invited experts. Weekly readings consist of technical documentation, selected research papers and book chapters, including material identified as relevant to team projects, once those ideas emerge. Some classes may consist of presentations from guest faculty describing case studies of needs assessment, development, evaluation, or dissemination of innovative health technologies used in research projects.
Individual-based coursework will consist of in-class presentations on assigned readings and design exercises and demonstrating effective group work using the shared, online tools. All teams will be responsible for creating a working prototype of a system that could be used in a follow-on experiment, including all documentation and materials necessary to transfer that technology to another team in the future. PhD students will (individually) submit additional 6-page (CHI format) paper describing the motivation for and technical innovation supporting the team's novel personal health interface system how the system their team has built could be used in a specific experiment.
Team-based coursework (where each team member has well-defined roles) will consist of development of a fully-functional personal health interface technology using a non-traditional, emerging user interface platform suitable for deployment in a pilot research study, documentation of that system sufficient for someone other than the developers to use it, and a video or slideshow documentary showing the evolution of the technology concept and development pitfalls and successes throughout the semester.
Required and Optional Texts:
This course has a moderate but steady reading load with an average of 4-6 research papers per week. Students will also need to find and read additional material related to their team's topic, including health papers and technical materials necessary to learn how to develop for the user interface platform chosen by the team. Readings required by the instructor will be available online or distributed in class.
Additional Materials:
None required. Team access to some innovative user interface platforms will be provided as needed (e.g., Google Glass, Android Wear smartwatches, etc.).
Course Schedule/Outline:
The class will meet once per week. Additional meetings between team members between classes will be required for some assignments.
The structure of this course each year will depend, to some extent, on the makeup of the students who elect to take it. The syllabus below is therefore tentative, to be revised during the first two weeks of class based on student experience and interest. Additional weekly readings will be added to most classes after Class 2.
|
Week |
Discussion topics |
Readings due |
Assignment due |
Recommended advanced readings |
|
Sep 9 |
Introduction to the course; introduction to personal health interfaces; next generation interfaces |
|
Please fill out the Introductory Course Survey by Friday Sep 11. |
|
Tue Sep 15 (10 PM) |
Part 1 (“The Digital Landscape: Cultivating a Data-Driven, Participatory Culture”) from Topol, E. (2012). The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Care. New York, NY: Basic Books. (On Blackboard or available via NEU library for online reading) | Assignment 1: Brainstorming ideas + 1-minute presentations (individual) | ||
| Sep 16 | Lessons from last semester
Important questions to ask and answer
Case study: exercise and the Northeastern campus project
Low-fidelity prototyping (for novel user interfaces); participatory design
Managing academic references |
Rettig, M. "Prototyping for Tiny Fingers" Communications of the ACM 37 (4), April 1994.
Read about one novel interface (Google Glass) and think about how you would adapt Rettig's approach to design a new interface and interaction model for it: Introductory material on Google Glass
|
Individual brainstorming presentation(s) in class | |
|
Tue Sep 22 (10 PM) |
|
|
Assignment 2: Project concept 2-minute presentations and interface papers (individual) |
|
|
Sep 23 |
2-Minute Brainstorming Presentations and Critiques
Technology to measure health states and behavior; sensors and pattern recognition overview
|
Identify and read two good articles, each on a different novel user interface
Read two additional articles on novel user interfaces to be provided (based on what classmates identify)
Kaplan, R.M. adn Stone, A. A. Stone, "Bringing the laboratory and clinic to the community: Mobile technologies for health promotion and disease prevention," in Annu. Rev. Psychol. vol. 64, ed, 2013, pp. 471-498.[Blackboard]
|
Individual brainstorming presentation(s) in class
[Teams assigned later this week] |
Chapter 1 from Minkler, M. and Wallerstein, N. (2008). Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: From Process to Outcomes. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Available via the NEU library as an online book).
Selections from Topol, E. (2012) The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Care. New York, NY: Basic Books. Remainder of Part 1 (“Setting the Foundation”) and Chapter 4 (“Physiology: Wireless Sensors”), Chapter 7 (“Electronic Health Records and Health Information Technology”), and Chapter 8 (“The Convergence of Human Data Capture”). |
| Tue Sep 29 (10 PM) | Assignment 3: Individual team project concept (individual) | |||
|
Sep 30 |
Trials and tribulations of working in transdisciplinary teams
Individual team ideas and critique
Strategies and tools for collaborative research system development
|
Fogel, K. (2005). Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project. http://producingoss.com/en/index.html
GIT Getting Started documentation
Pick 3-4 of the research papers found by your colleagues in Classes 1-2 (on Blackboard) and read them.
|
Individual team project concept presentation(s) and critique in class |
Mandl, K. D., Simons, W. W., Crawford, W. C., and Abbett, J. M. (2007) “Indivo: a personally controlled health record for health information exchange and communication”, BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 7; 25. [+ related documentation online]
Estrin, D. and Sim, I. (2010) “Open mHealth Architecture: An engine for health care innovation”, Science 330(6005), pp. 759-760. [+ related documentation online] |
| Tue Oct 6 (10 PM) | Assignment 4: Working Together: Preliminary team idea presentation (team) | |||
|
Oct 7 |
Team idea presentation and critique
Technology to analyze health states and behavior
|
Read at least 3 of these papers that discuss microinteractions: Project Glass: An extension of self Pinwatch |
Collaborative tools should be setup and in use
Team idea presentation in class |
Chapters 1-3 from Part I of Witten, I.H., Frank, E., and M.A. Hall (2011). Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques, Burlington, MA: Morgan Kauffman Publishers. (PDF in dropbox).
|
| Tue Oct 13 (10 PM) | Assignment 5: Team project concept presentation (team) | |||
|
Oct 14 |
Preliminary project concept critique (panel of guest experts invited to provide feedback) |
None |
Team project concept presentation (team) |
|
|
Oct 21 |
Software architectures for PHI research systems |
Bickmore, T. and Schulman, D. (2009). “A virtual laboratory for studying long-term relationships between humans and virtual agents”, Proceedings of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), Budapest, Hungary.
Cell Phone Intervention Trial for You Project Interface and discussion
Additional readings TBD based on class input/interests |
|
|
|
Oct 28 |
Team demo and tech transfer exercise Influence of real-time feedback about behavior and physiology on behavior and habit formation |
Heron, K.E. and Smyth, J.M. (2009) “Ecological momentary interventions: Incorporating mobile technology into psychosocial and health behaviour treatments”, Br J Health Psychol. Feb;15(Pt 1), pp. 1-39.
Rothman, A. J., Sheeran, P., and Wood, W. (2009). “Reflective and automatic processes in the initiation and maintenance of food choices”, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 28 (Suppl), pp. 4-17.
Klasnja, P. et al. (2009). “Using Mobile & Personal Sensing Technologies to Support Health Behavior Change in Everyday Life: Lessons Learned”, AMIA.
Additional readings TBD based on class input/interests |
Assignment 6: Show something working (a.k.a. Simple tech demo and tech transfer) |
|
|
Nov 4 |
Iterative technical design and development strategies
Project progress discussion |
Rising, L. and Janoff, N.S. (2000). "The Scrum software development process for small teams", IEEE Software, vol.17, no.4, pp.26-32.
Moe, N.B.,Dingsoyr, T. and Dyba, T. (2009). "Overcoming Barriers to Self-Management in Software Teams", IEEE Software, 26(6), pp. 20-26.
Yau, A, Murphy, C., "Is a Rigorous Agile Methodology the Best Development Strategy for Small Scale Tech Startups?," University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer Science Technical Reports, Paper 980, 2013.
Additional readings TBD based on class input/interests
|
|
|
| Nov 11 | Veteran's Day Holiday - No class | |||
|
Nov 18 |
Presentations
Technology transfer to deployment with research team; code testing and documentation |
mHealth Evidence Workshop (http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scientific_areas/methodology/mhealth/mhealth-workshop.aspx)
Additional readings TBD based on class input/interests |
|
|
| Nov 25 | Thanksgiving Holiday - No class | PhD only: Concept paper due (individual) | ||
|
Dec 2 |
Privacy/security considerations for next-generation mobile (health) systems
|
Kelly, P. el al. (2013). “An ethical framework for automated, wearable cameras in health behavior research”, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 44(3), pp. 314-319.
De Montjoye, Y-A. et al. (2013). “Unique in the crowd: The privacy bounds of human mobility”, Scientific Reports, 3(1376), March.
Isaacman, S. el al. (2012). “Human mobility modeling at metropolitan scales”, MobiSys, pp. 239-252.
Prasad, A. and Kotz, D.
(2010). “Can I access your data? Privacy management in mHealth”, USENIX
Workshop on Health Security (HealthSec), August. Intille and Intille, "New Challenges for Privacy Law: Wearable Computers that Create Electronic Digital Diaries," 2003.
Additional readings TBD based on class input/interests |
|
|
| Dec 9 | Final project presentations (for panel of invited experts) | None | Assignment 8: Final prototype, documentation, and video documentary due (team) | |
|
|
|
|
PhD only: Final concept paper due (individual) |
|
Course subject content is tentative and will change based upon class interest and composition.
Grading Procedures and Criteria:
Prior experience with project-based courses such as this suggests that work in this course will generally fall into one of these categories:
· Superior, striking, or unexpected pieces of work with excellent effort demonstrating a mastery of the subject matter and a thoughtful use of concepts discussed in class; work that shows imagination, clarity of presentation, originality, creativity, and effort.
· Good work demonstrating a capacity to use the subject matter, with adequate preparation and clear presentation.
· Work that is adequate but that would benefit from increased effort or preparation.
· Work that is inadequate but demonstrates understanding of some material.
· Work that does not demonstrate understanding of the core concepts in the course.
Course work falling into these categories correspond roughly to A, B, C, D, and F grades.
The final grade for the course will be computed by weighting the results from each assignment (using the grading scale above) according to the following formula:
|
|
Non PhD students |
PhD students |
|
Assignment 1: Individual brainstorming ideas (individual) |
5% |
5% |
| Assignment 2: Idea presentation and reading gathering (individual) | 5% | 5% |
| Assignment 3: Individual team concept presentation (individual) | 5% | 5% |
| Assignment 4: Working together (team & individual) | 5% | 5% |
|
5% |
5% |
|
|
5% |
5% |
|
|
Assignment 7: Preliminary prototype and extended live demo (team) |
20% |
10% |
|
Assignment 8: Final project prototype, documentation, and video (team) |
35% |
35% |
| Class attendence and engagement (individual) | 5% | 0% |
| Class reading presentation(s) (individual) | 10% | N/A |
| Concept paper draft (PhD only; individual) | N/A | 10% |
|
Final concept paper (PhD only; individual) |
N/A |
15% |
Class reading presentations
Students will prepare 6-minute “provocation” presentations on readings in the class or specific technical concepts related to Google Glass. These presentations will be designed to stimulate discussion, connect the readings to project ideas and other course content, and teach other members of the class important concepts or how to use development or project management tools. Students will be provided with a template for the presentations and will be expected to have practiced the presentation in advance. Presentations will be graded on adherence to the format and overall presentation clarity, as well as demonstration by the student of a thorough understanding of the topic being discussed. All students will present at least once and likely more, depending on class size.
Class attendence and engagement
Class attendence and engagement will be assessed based on overall attendence and whether students appear to be prepared and engaged for class (e.g., participating by asking and answering questions and demonstrating knowledge of assigned readings).
Teams:
Some work in this course will be done independently, but for the most part this course requires transdisciplinary teamwork. Teams will be assembled by the instructor to ensure that they are balanced in various areas of expertise required for the course project. Whenever possible, students with different backgrounds and skill sets will be paired.
Working in teams can be both rewarding and challenging, and one goal of this course is to give students experience working with a team of students who have complementary strengths and weaknesses. Students who have concerns about their team’s ability to work together or individual team members should talk with the instructor as soon as any problems are identified.
Students will be asked at the end of the course to evaluate the team as a whole and to independently describe their responsibilities and contributions to the team effort, as well as those of each of their teammates. These evaluations will factor into grade assignment.
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 major 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 will 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.
To facilitate discussion and learning, electronic devices must be turned off in class, including laptops and mobile phones. Slides shown in class will be available on the course website within a few days after each class.
Please do not eat anything during the class other than a drink or small, non-fragrant snack (e.g., fruit, granola bar). Out of respect for your potentially hungry classmates and instructor, please eat dinner before or after the class.
Writing/Presentation Policies:
Assignments that involve writing and presentation will be judged on clarity of presentation and professionalism of presentation, as well as intellectual content. Students who are having difficulty with writing will be referred to the Northeastern University Writing Center (http://www.northeastern.edu/english/writing-center/).
Late Policy:
Prior to 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. Unexcused late assignments will be subject to a reduction in grade of approximately one half letter grade per day late.
Missing Class:
This class takes place only once per week, and much of the learning will occur through discussion. Therefore, attendance is required and factored into grading. If you must miss class for any reason, please notify the instructor in advance.
Academic Honesty:
All students are expected and encouraged to discuss the topics raised by this course with each other. Ideas incorporated from an outside source or another student must be documented appropriately in write-ups or presentations. Students must abide by the NU Code of Student Conduct (http://www.northeastern.edu/osccr/code-of-student-conduct/) and Academic Integrity Policy (http://www.northeastern.edu/osccr/academic-integrity-policy/). Acts of academic dishonesty will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR).
Academic honesty is fundamental to the learning process and there is absolutely no tolerance for academic dishonesty. As a reminder,
Any
student found cheating on assignments or with software code that raises
concerns about potential cheating will receive a zero on that assignment and be reported to the administration of the student's college and OSCCR. A
second offense will result in a failing grade for the course.
Students with questions about what is acceptable or unacceptable collaboration on assignments should ask the instructor.
Intellectual Property:
Intellectual property created in this course will be subject to the same rules as for any other course. More information on IP rights and regulations at Northeastern can be found here: http://www.northeastern.edu/governmentrelations/public_policy/intellectual_property_info.html.
Students must agree to allow another team of students to test the technology created in a subsequent semester, and so students should not propose ideas if they would not be comfortable with this arrangement.
Accommodation:
Students who have a disability are encouraged to seek accommodations though the University Disability Resource Center. Please speak privately with the instructor about your needs for accommodations and strategies to support your success. This information will be kept confidential.
Course Evaluations:
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.
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.
Google Glass and Other Innovative Interface Devices:
The ability to use Google Glass devices in this class was made possible by a gift from Google, Inc. The gift was received because Prof. Intille proposed to use the Google Glass devices for research on personal health interface technology; one component of that work was teaching this class the first two years. Unfortunately, Google is not currently supporting Glass as it did in the past. However, the devices are still available should teams wish to use them. The limited number of Glass devices must be treated with extraordinary care.
Teams will need to time-share the use of Google Glass devices, smartwatches, or other advanced interface technologies they may be provided, checking them out from a lab in 177 Huntington and working with them while in the vicinity of the 9th floor. They are not to be loaned out or used by students who are not either in the class or authorized by Prof. Intille. Teams that are loaned devices will not be assigned final grades for the course until the devices are returned.