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Headings denoted with an asterisk ( * ) is retrieved from the course syllabus version Autumn 2022
Content and learning outcomes
Course contents
The course is based on participation in a number of higher seminars that are offered by the HCI-group at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Before each seminar, the student reads distributed materials in the form of research articles and/or book chapters.
After each seminar, the student writes a page in their reflection diary. To complete the course, the student submits a report that is based on the texts of the reflection diary, demonstrating a clear connection to their own studies and prospective degree project.
Intended learning outcomes
After passing the course, the student should be able to:
read and critically review published research material
critically reflect on how the research influences and is influenced by social, economic, environmental, work environmental conditions, as well as sustainability, diversity, equality, and equal rights
relate ongoing research to their own education and conducted projects
reflect on the choice of research questions, theories and methods when planning a research project (such as for example the degree project)
write a research report that is correctly formated and structured according to established practices in human computer interaction
identify knowledge contributions both in others' and their own work
in order to:
be able to absorb current research in human computer interaction
be able to plan own research projects, such as degree projects, in Human-Computer Interaction.
INL1 - Assigment, 3.0 credits, Grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.
The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.
Ethical approach
All members of a group are responsible for the group's work.
In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used.
In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.
Further information
New forms of examination
To cater for the introduction of various AI-tools, in Autumn 2023, we shifted from one-page reviews of the papers students read into oral examination in groups of students. In Spring 2024, we shifted the process into a more interactive, post-it-based, discussion within each student group, before presenting to the teacher. They mark the post-it-notes with their names and afterwards, the teachers collect them to see that all students have contributed to the discussion of each paper. This method was appreciated by the students and seem to work as a way of reviewing a paper, getting multiple perspectives, and together learn how to engage critically with academic papers.
Student feedback
The course evaluation was done as a Google Form this year and can be found here. Only 10 students replied.
Course analysis
Based on the course evaluation, the following insights arose:
At least one of the papers should be more techy (UIST, Ubicomp-like) as the one we picked this year (Drones) was not techy enough?
The oral examination through post-its works the best so far. It allows you to look at one another's critique and learn from that.
The connection between critically reading a paper, writing your own, getting critique on your own text, and then using that to learn how to read up for/perform research for/write your own MSc-thesis was not 100% clear to all and will be further explained next year.
It might be good to end the whole course with a meta-analysis of the research methods the different papers make use of. (That is, this year, the papers employed: theory-argument, literature review, sociologically-inspired interview technique, qualitative evaluation, RtD, devising a method).
