New Media, Spring 2006

Assignment 3: Development of a new media-related prototype, or a written in-depth essay

Links to ongoing ass 3 projects can be found at the bottom of this page.

General instructions

This last course assignment can be performed in one of two different ways. Either

1. by developing a prototype of relevance to the field of new media (and delivering a corresponding report), or
2. by writing an essay on a subject of relevance to the field of new media.

Note that in both cases, the focus of the work has to be agreed upon with the lecturer before starting.

Alternative 1: prototype (in groups of 2-3)

This is your chance to demonstrate an idea you might have about a new hypermedia mechanism, a new way of presenting content, exploring new web technology you have come across, or even to create a networked game you think the world simply cannot do without! The choice of development environment is entirely up to you and the course responsible will do everything possible to supply you with necessary software and hardware.

The prototype (expected to be demonstrated at the final presentation) is to be complemented with a relatively brief description from a technical perspective and use perspective, in the shape of a technical report, as is normal for assignments at the Dept. of Computing Science.

Ideas for new media prototypes

• none at the moment, bring your own!

Alternative 2: essay (in groups of 1-3)

Being an entirely theoretical project, the demands on the quality of the essay are relatively high. In particular, scientific style and argumentation is one of the most important criteria.

Jürgen Börstler's lecture notes from the conference course (TDBD18) are very good in explaining how to write scientifically, how to search for information, how to format references, paper evaluation critera, how to do a good presentation etc. Note that the parts on peer review meetings etc. do not apply on this course

Depending on the number of group participants and the subject, the size of the essay can be expected to range from approximately 15 to 40 A4 pages although quality is infinitely more important than quantity.

Essay ideas

If you want inspiration for defining a subject for your your essay, feel free to take a look on the following subjects.

• What was the dot com bubble?
• File-sharing and law, Internet and copyright
• The digital divide - Internet access no matter where on the planet you live (?)
• The digital divide - Internet access no matter how young or old you are (?)
• Privacy - recent political and technical development

Deadlines (also marked in the schedule)

• Thu 05/11 23.59: Choice of subject deadline. Send an email to the lecturer, with copy to all your excercise partners, containing information about the the topic of your thesis/project. After positive response from the lecturer, start your work! Divide the work as it suits you in the group.
• Wed 05/17 23.59 submission of essay/prototype report draft
• Fri 05/20 13.30-16.00 obligatory discussion based on your draft with lecturer group by group, schedule to appear
• Wed 05/24 23.59 submission of final essay/prototype report, as well as slideshow for presentation
• Tue 05/30 13.15-17.00 presentation

Ongoing ass 3 projects (preliminary titles)

Prototypes

• to be filled in as soon as you decide!

Essays

• to be filled in as soon as you decide!