Every student is expected to read course readings assigned each week and come prepared to discuss in class each week. Course readings includes two aspects:
A) the HCI Remixed essays ("essays") and
B) the original articles ("original articles") upon which those essays are based.
You are required to read all readings. However, each student will be given 5 passes from doing writtten reviews of 5 papers throughout the semester (see Discussion Write-Ups for more information). On those articles that you choose to take a "pass" on, you must still read the HCI text essays so that you have a sense for the paper's impact on the essayist. This will help you participate in class discussion as well. You will also be at an advantage if you also read or skim through the original article that you are taking a writing pass on.
Discussion will be student-led. Students should be prepared to pose questions and thoughts to keep discussion going in a collegial fashion. The Reading Syllabus (see link at top of site page) itemizes weekly reading assignments of essays and their associated original articles. Readings are available as listed in the Reading Syllabus, primarily through one of two avenues: The ACM Digital Library or the CU E-Reserves (see right for both). To access the ACM Digital Library, you will need to either 1) be on campus to download the document or 2) use VPN to be on the campus network when working remotely. For E-Reserves, you will need to know your identikey.
In addition to feeling comfortable with the readings, each student should come to class knowing a little bit about who the essayists are to give context for their selections and for the essays they write. What fields do they most closely associate with? What institution are they at now? What kind of research do they do? This familiarity is more general and introductory than the Get-to-know-an-HCI-researcher presentations (which requires more background research and familiarity) but you should have some basic background for all essayists. Google is your friend.