Speaker: Ashok Goel and David Joyner
Date: 2014-12-04 12:00:00

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar Series: Ashok Goel and David Joyner

How can we incorporate findings from learning sciences into online learning? How do teaching and learning experiences in online learning compare with a similar in-person course? How can we use an online course to conduct new research into learning science and technology? To examine these questions, we developed an online version of CS7637: Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence, and delivered it as part of the Georgia Tech OMS in CS program in Fall 2014. We deliberately attempted to incorporate several recognized pedagogical strategies, including problem-based learning, learning by example, learning by doing, learning by reflection, collaborative learning, and immersion in a community of practice. We also taught the regular in-person CS 7637 course in parallel for comparison. In addition, we have partnered with several learning scientists across Georgia Tech to conduct research on online learning. In this talk, we will describe the design, development and delivery of the OMS CS7637 course. We will compare the teaching and learning experiences in the online course with the parallel in-person course, report on student performance and feedback within both courses, briefly describe the research projects spawned by these experiences, and share our initial reflections on putting online learning and learning sciences together.

Bios: 
Ashok Goel is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing. He directs the Design & Intelligence Laboratory and the Ph.D. program in Human-Centered Computing. He conducts research into artificial intelligence and cognitive science with a focus on computational design and creativity. David Joyner is a Ph.D. candidate in Human-Centered Computing and a Course Developer with Udacity. His research focuses on using artificial intelligence to deliver scalable individualized educational experiences.

Speaker: Aaron Massey

Date: 2014-11-20 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar Series: Aaron Massey
Legal compliance is one of the most important and challenging problems in software engineering. Laws, regulations, and organizational policies codify societal values that software engineers must build into regulated systems. Methods, tools, and techniques for evaluating, establishing, or demonstrating regulatory compliance in software systems are critical for this effort. This relatively young area of research is known as Regulatory Compliance Software Engineering (RCSE).

This presentation examines RCSE research in two domains. The first domain applies traditional requirements engineering techniques to evaluate software requirements for compliance with electronic health records systems. I will begin by providing an overview of both a method for evaluating software requirements for compliance. Next, I will present our case studies examining how people actually make legal implementation readiness decisions for software requirements. The results of this work indicate that software engineers are ill-equipped to reason about regulatory compliance.

The second domain examines natural language processing as a part of the regulatory compliance process for privacy policies. I will begin with a study identifying software requirements in a set of over 2,000 privacy policies using topic modeling. This work may prove useful for both regulators and software engineers. Next, I will present our work examining how people identify and classify ambiguity in legal texts. The results of this work demonstrate the promise of natural language processing approaches to regulatory compliance software engineering.

Bio:
Aaron Massey is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing, a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and the Associate Director of the Academic Privacy Research Center (ThePrivacyPlace.org). His research interests include computer security, privacy, and regulatory compliance software engineering. He is a recipient of both a Google Policy Fellowship and a Walter H. Wilkinson Graduate Research Ethics Fellowship. Aaron earned a PhD and MS in Computer Science from North Carolina State University and a BS in Computer Engineering from Purdue University. He is a member of the ACM,IEEE, IAPP, and the USACM Public Policy Council.

Speaker: Krystina Madej

Date: 2014-11-13 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar Series: Krystina Madej
Studies in neurobiology substantiate the importance of physical activity in children's development. Grounded in orality and physicality, narrative rhymes enter our psyche at a young age to form a basis for physical, social, cognitive, and imaginative development. First read or sung to babies, rhymes are soon physically enacted by young children through play and games as they grow to be toddlers and pre-schoolers. Because of the physical immaturity of young children, and (until recently) the minimal physical engagement opportunities provided to them by digital environments, the physical engagement that has been an integral part of oral and print presentations of narrative rhymes for generations does not exist to any great extent in today's play within digital environments. This talk introduces research on the nature of children's physical engagement with narrative rhymes in which characteristics of young children's physical interaction with narrative rhymes in traditional oral and print media are contrasted with play in digital media.

Bio:
Dr. Madej researches narrative, in particular the narrative as material culture, narrative structure, and user experience/engagement with/through narrative. Her current work is in somatic engagement with young children's narratives across media, the Disney master narrative, and social media collaborative authoring. She is presently writing “The Development of Narrative Intelligence” about the characteristics of children's engagement with print and digital media. She co-authored “Disney Stories: Getting to Digital,” (2012) with Newton Lee and co-edited “Engaging Imagination and Developing Creativity," (2010) with Dr. Kieran Egan. She teaches at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and at the Master's of Digital Media, SFU, Vancouver, Canada.

Speaker: Bilge Mutlu

Date: 2014-11-06 17:00:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar Series: Bilge Mutlu
The emergence of robotic products that serve as automated tools, assistants, and collaborators promises tremendous benefits across a range of everyday settings from the home to manufacturing facilities. While these products promise interactions that can be far more complex than those with conventional products, their successful integration into the human environment requires these interactions to be also natural and intuitive. To achieve complex but intuitive interactions, designers and developers must simultaneously understand and address computational and human challenges. In this talk, I will present my group's work on building human-centered guidelines, methods, and tools to address these challenges in order to facilitate the design of robotic technologies that are more effective, intuitive, acceptable, and even enjoyable. In particular, I will present a series of projects that demonstrate how a marrying of knowledge about people and computational methods can enable effective user interactions with social, assistive, and telepresence robots and the development of novel tools and methods that support complex design tasks across the key stages of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation in the design process. I will additionally present ongoing work that applies these guidelines to the development of real-world applications of robotic technology.

Bio:
Bilge Mutlu is an assistant professor of computer science, psychology, and industrial engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute in 2009. His background combines training in interaction design, human-computer interaction, and robotics with industry experience in product design and development. Dr. Mutlu is a former Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of the NSF CAREER award and several paper awards and nominations, including HRI 2008, HRI 2009, HRI 2011, UbiComp 2013, IVA 2013, RSS 2013, and HRI 2014. His research has been covered by national and international press including the NewScientist, MIT Technology Review, Discovery News, Science Nation, and Voice of America. He has served in the Steering Committee of the HRI Conference and the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, co-chairing the Program Committees for HRI 2015 and ICSR 2011 and the Program Sub-committees on Design for CHI 2013 and CHI 2014.

Distinguished Alumnus Speaker: Shwetak Patel

Date: 2014-10-30 17:00:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: GVU Center Distinguished Alumnus Brown Bag: Shwetak Patel
Much of the fundamental research in computer science has been driven by the needs of those attempting to utilize computing for various applications, such as energy and health. Shwetak will first briefly talk about a new generation of electricity and water sensing systems that are capable of providing consumption data down to the individual appliance or device from single sensing points. He will then describe how his work in energy has helped inform his approach to the area of unobtrusive mobile health sensing. Shwetak will describe a collection of research projects conducted with his clinical collaborators that leverage the sensors on mobile devices (e.g., microphones, cameras, WiFi) in new ways to enable the self-management and study of diseases. These projects follow the theme of finding usable signals in unusual places, and often noise to most people, in order to enable scale. Shwetak's remarks will underscore advances in energy and health through the convergence of sensing, machine learning, and human-computer interaction.

Bio:
Shwetak N. Patel is an Associate Professor in the departments of Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, where he directs his research group, the Ubicomp Lab. His research interests are in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, Sensor-enabled Embedded Systems, and User Interface Software and Technology. He is particularly interested in developing new sensing technologies with a particular emphasis on energy monitoring and health applications. Shwetak was a co-founder of Zensi, Inc., a residential energy monitoring company, which was acquired by Belkin, Inc in 2010. He is also a co-founder of SNUPI Technologies, a low-power wireless sensor company. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008 and B.S. in Computer Science in 2003 both under the supervision of Gregory Abowd. Dr. Patel is a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship (2011), Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship (2011), Sloan Fellowship (2012), TR-35 Award (2009), World Economic Forum Young Global Scientist Award (2013), and an NSF Career Award (2013).

GVU Center Fall 2014 Research Showcase
Date:
2014-10-29 14:00:00

Location:
85 5th Street, Technology Square Research Building, 2nd Floor

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: GVU Center Fall 2014 Research Showcase
Faculty, researchers and students of the GVU Center will showcase innovative and interactive computing research that they are creating to empower people in their personal lives. The GVU Center will feature 25 labs highlighting more than 80 research projects on Oct. 29, 2-5 p.m., in the Technology Square Research Building. (Video no longer available).

Speaker: Blair MacIntyre

Title: Augmented Reality + Internet of Devices + Big Data: The End of Privacy?

Abstract:
Augmented reality, for all it's hype, is still far from the magical technology many people imagine: it will be many years before the beautiful graphical integration of virtual and physical worlds seen on televised sports is possible in an always-worn personal display. On the other hand, the Internet-of-Devices is already arriving, as everything from televisions to fitness monitors to thermostats and door locks are rapidly become networked and sending streams of information to the cloud. Individually, each bit of data is unconcerning to most people, but taken together and combined with everything else that is known about us, they reveal a shocking amount about us. This consolidation is already beginning to happen, as big corporations snap up companies like Nest and Moves. But the amount of information yielded by the IoD's about our homes, lives and those we pass by during the day pales in comparison to the data that will be generated and collected by the idealized Augmented Reality systems being imagined and developed. New technical, policy and business models are needed if the addition of such systems is not to lead to the end of privacy as we know it. In this talk, I will discuss these issues and the ecosystems in which they exist, highlight issues particular to Augmented Reality and talk about how this problem is guiding our ongoing work in the Argon AR Browser project.

Bio:
Blair MacIntyre is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. He co-directs the Augmented Environments Lab, the Argon AR-Web Project, and the GT Game Studio. He has been doing Augmented Reality research since 1991, and been at Georgia Tech since 1998. His research focus is on the design and implementation of interactive mixed-reality and augmented-reality software, games and experiences. In his work he aims to understand the potential of AR as a new medium for games, entertainment, education and work, and the software architectures needed to make AR widely available.

Date: 2014-10-09 11:30:00
Location: TSRB Ballroom
Speaker: Jennifer Clark

Title: Manufacturing by Design: The Rise of Regional Intermediaries and the Reemergence of Collective Action

Abstract:
After decades of disinvestment, manufacturing is again at the center of the policy discourse in the US and the UK (Bryson, Clark et al. 2013). The question of how to shape regional policies to incubate, support and sustain emerging manufacturing technologies and spur job creation has become the subject of extensive debate in the wake of the global recession. This discussion involves manufacturing firms, researchers in advanced and emerging technologies, and a network of institutional and policy actors responsible for shaping regional and national economic policy. In particular, regions---both “high tech” and older industrial cities---lack the capacity to provide and sustain export-oriented employment over time without a rethinking of regional economic development policy and practice and a reorientation towards job creation.

This presentation focuses on the role of regional intermediaries in the return of manufacturing---to cities and to the center of regional policy debates. Specifically, this presentation analyzes how supply-chain intermediaries, labor market intermediaries, and innovation intermediaries maintain, embed, and expand flexibly specialized production capacity in regions and create variation across places. The typology presented in this research highlights the diversity among intermediaries and underscores how they contribute to emerging models of 21st century manufacturing.

The research also highlights how these emerging regional intermediaries support the small-scale producers and enable these firms to emerge and grow as an embedded, localized, networked group----effectively operating as a cohort not tied by sector or technology but by process---to how they produce not what they produce. These intermediaries recast manufacturing as a practice of working with others rather than working for others thus reintroducing both agency and collective action to the narrative about manufacturing. This reconfiguration of firms and work has profound implications for both local and regional economic development policy.

References:
John Bryson, Jennifer Clark, and Rachel Mulhall (2013). The competitiveness and evolving geography of British manufacturing: where is manufacturing tied locally and how might this change? Evidence Paper 3: The Future of British Manufacturing: A New Era of Opportunity and Challenge for the UK.  Foresight | United Kingdom Government Office for Science, London 2013

Clark, Jennifer (2013). Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy. London, Routledge.

Clark, Jennifer and Pierre Clavel (2012). "Introduction: Progressive Approaches to Manufacturing Policy." Progressive Planning 190(Winter 2012).

Doussard, M., et al. (2009). "After Deindustrialization: Uneven Growth and Economic Inequality in "Postindustrial" Chicago." Economic Geography 85(2): 183-207.

Helper, Susan (2009). The High Road for U.S. Manufacturing. Issues in Science and Technology. 25: 39.

Helper, Susan., et al. (2012). Locating American Manufacturing: Trends in the Geography of Production. Washington DC, The Brookings Institution.

Bio:
Jennifer Clark is the Director of the Center for Urban Innovation and an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Clark's research focuses on regional economic development, manufacturing, industrial districts and innovation.  
Her first book, Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor, and Firm Strategies in the Knowledge Economy won the Best Book Award from the Regional Studies Association in 2009. She recently published Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy (2013). Her work focuses on policy models aimed at rebuilding the links between innovation and manufacturing in the US. She has collaborated on manufacturing and innovation policy projects with a broad range of organizations including the OECD, and the Canadian, UK, and US governments.  
Dr. Clark earned her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, a Master's degree in Economic Development and Planning from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. At Georgia Tech, Dr. Clark teaches courses on urban and regional economic development theory, analysis, and practice as well as research design and methods. She is also a distinguished visiting fellow with the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK.

(Video not found)

Date: 2014-10-02 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: The President's NSA Review Group: The Technology Issues
Speaker: Peter Swire

Title: The President's NSA Review Group: The Technology Issues

Abstract:
Professor Peter Swire of the Scheller College of Business served on President Obama's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, which published its report in December to widespread public attention. The President has adopted many of the group's 46 proposals, and others remain under consideration. This talk will describe the process for drafting the report. It will discuss the major recommendations, with a particular focus on information technology issues including encryption, zero-day attacks, and the role of offense and defense in cybersecurity. It will also discuss issues related to Internet governance in light of the intense public debate about how to use modern communications networks for diverse activities including surveillance, military operations, e-commerce, and the daily communications of individual users. The talk will feature an extensive period for Q&A about these topic issues of surveillance, democracy, and technology.

Bio:
Peter Swire joined the Scheller faculty in the fall term of 2013 as the Nancy J. and Lawrence P. Huang Professor, in the Law and Ethics Program. At Georgia Tech, he has appointments by courtesy with the College of Computing and School of Public Policy. Previously, Swire was the C. William O'Neill Professor of Law at the Ohio State University. Swire has been a leading privacy and cyberlaw scholar, government leader, and practitioner since the rise of the Internet in the 1990's. In 2013, he served as one of five members of President Obama's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology. Prior to that, he was co-chair of the global Do Not Track process for the World Wide Web Consortium. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and the Future of Privacy Forum, and a Policy Fellow with the Center for Democracy and Technology. Under President Clinton, Swire was the Chief Counselor for Privacy, in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. He is the only person to date to have U.S. government-wide responsibility for privacy policy. In that role, his activities included being White House coordinator for the HIPAA medical privacy rules, chairing a White House task force on how to update wiretap laws for the Internet age, and helping negotiate the U.S.-E.U. Safe Harbor agreement for trans-border data flows. Under President Obama, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Swire is author of four books and numerous scholarly papers. He has testified often before the Congress, and been quoted regularly in the press. Swire has served on privacy and security advisory boards for companies including Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, and for eight years was a consultant with the global law firm of Morrison & Foerster, LLP. Swire graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and the Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Date: 2014-09-25 11:30:00

Location: Room 132 (ballroom), Technology Square Research Building

Speaker: Alex Trouteaud

Title: How Technology is Changing Human Trafficking Online and Offline in the U.S.

Abstract:
Human trafficking is the illegal buying and selling human beings, primarily through commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. At its core, human trafficking is economic activity subject to many of the same forces of change that affect legal industries--particularly technological innovation. In some instances technological innovation has caused human trafficking to diminish, and in other instances flourish. But unlike other industries such as media production and payment processing that are similarly undergoing rapid change due to technological innovation, the changes to human trafficking industries are measured in human lives saved and lost, making it both the greatest opportunity and tragedy of the Millenial generation.

Bio:
Alex is with the International Human Trafficking Institute (IHTI), a new student-focused initiative of the Center for Civil and Human Rights. The Center is an engaging cultural attraction that connects The American Civil Rights Movement to today's Global Human Rights Movements, and the IHTI seeks to connect and galvanize student groups locally and globally in the fight against human trafficking. Please visit www.civilandhumanrights.org to learn more about The Center.

No video available.

Date: 2014-09-18 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Omer Inan

Title: Non-Invasive Physiological Monitoring Technologies for Human Health and Performance

Abstract:
By 2030, the American Heart Association projects that 40% of Americans (150 million) will suffer from cardiovascular disease and the annual costs will approach $1 trillion. Cardiovascular monitoring at home could improve the quality of care and life for these millions of patients, and reduce healthcare costs for all Americans. Rather than reacting to catastrophic cardiac events such as heart attacks or strokes in the emergency room, care could be delivered proactively by tailoring treatment strategies to the changing needs of the patients. To accelerate this transition from reactive to proactive care, we need systems-level innovations in multi-modal physiological monitoring and signal interpretation. These solutions would leverage advances in embedded systems and sensor technology to achieve accurate and robust monitoring of clinically relevant parameters in the home. This talk focuses primarily on one such system: a modified electronic weighing scale designed to monitor the electrical and mechanical health of the heart. With this scale, we measured fluctuations in bodyweight resulting from the movement of blood throughout the vasculature, and combined physiologic insights with feature extraction concepts. Subsequently, we conducted multiple clinical studies with healthy and diseased populations in collaboration with cardiologists in the Medical School and local clinics to demonstrate the efficacy of this device for home health monitoring.

Bio:
Omer Inan is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he researches physiological and biomedical sensing and monitoring. Before joining Georgia Tech, Omer finished his BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering in ‘04, ‘05, and ‘09, respectively, from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Lieberman Fellowship in 2008-'09 for outstanding scholarship, teaching, and service. From 2009-‘13, he continued his research at Stanford as a Visiting Scholar while also working as Chief Engineer at Countryman Associates, a high-end professional audio manufacturer. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics and the annual IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference, and technical program committee member for several international biomedical engineering conferences. During his undergraduate studies at Stanford, Omer competed as a discus and shot put thrower on the Track and Field Team, and was a three-time All-American in the discus throw.

Date: 2014-09-11 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 175 (Auditorium)

Speaker: Rebecca Burns

Title: Stranded in Atlanta's Food Deserts

Abstract:

In Atlanta, the ninth-biggest metropolis of the world's richest country, thousands of people can't get fresh food, and some are getting sick-even dying-as a result. Which raises a simple question: Why can we build multimillion-dollar highway systems and multibillion-dollar stadiums but not more grocery stores? If we can build a museum dedicated to a soft drink and one that celebrates college football and another that trumpets civil rights, can't we help our neighbors with what seems to be a most essential and basic right: putting an affordable and healthy dinner on the table?
When you talk about Atlanta's food deserts, you have to talk about the three themes entwined in every civic issue in this region: race, class, and sprawl. The fact is, food deserts are more prevalent in nonwhite neighborhoods. In poor communities, food is more expensive. And here's an irony: Much of the local produce prized by the city's finest chefs is grown in urban farms in poor neighborhoods-produce that is often trucked across town to farmers markets in wealthier enclaves. But of all the factors, none is more important than transportation. Our low population density combined with a lack of comprehensive public transit means that many people simply cannot get to places where fresh food is available.

This talk will draw on research for recent articles for Atlanta magazine and POLITICO, looking at the complex challenges of access to fresh and healthy food. The talk will focus on case studies of three unlikely, but very effective, "food oases."

Bio:
Rebecca Burns is an Atlanta-based journalist and author whose work focuses on social and economic justice, civil and human rights, and urban development and preservation. She is the deputy editor of Atlanta magazine and contributes to other publications such as POLITICO, the Guardian, and the Atlantic Monthly's CityLab. She is the author of three books on Atlanta history, most recently Burial for a King (Scribner 2011). A frequent speaker at colleges and community groups, she also teaches journalism and digital media, most recently at Emory University and the University of Georgia.

Date: 2014-09-04 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Munmun De Choudhury

Title: Opportunities of Social Media in Health and Wellbeing

Abstract:
People are increasingly using social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, to share their thoughts and opinions with their contacts. Consequently, there has been a corresponding surge of interest in utilizing continuing streams of evidence from social media on posting activity to reflect on people’s psyches and social milieus. In this talk, I will discuss how the ubiquitous use of social media as well as the abundance and growing repository of such data bears potential to provide a new type of “lens” for inferring health related behaviors and mechanisms. Specifically, I will discuss the harnessing of social media in examining patterns of activity, emotional, and linguistic correlates for childbirth and postnatal course in new mothers, and how online social tools provide a conducive platform of support to vulnerable populations. Finally, I will also discuss clinical and design implications, as well as our social and ethical responsibilities around interpretation and automatic inference of health states of people from their online social footprints.

Bio:
Munmun De Choudhury is currently an assistant professor at the School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech and a faculty associate with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. Munmun’s research interests are in computational social science. She builds and applies computational methods to large-scale online social data to understand and reason about people’s behavior and well-being. Munmun’s research has won several awards, including a best paper and honorable mention awards from ACM SIGCHI, as well as has been extensively covered in popular press. Previously, Munmun was a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, and obtained her PhD from Arizona State University in 2011.

Date: 2014-08-29 16:00:00

Location: Clough Commons 152

Speakers: Richard Garriott, CEO and creative director at Portalarium and Starr Long, executive producer at Portalarium.

Abstract:
Join one of the founding fathers of the video gaming industry, Richard Garriott, and his business partner, Starr Long, as they discuss the past, present, and future of video gaming.

Speaker Bios:
Richard Garriott began designing computer games while still in high school, and published his first commercial game, Akalabeth, in 1980. His Ultima series of role-playing games remains one of the most successful and longest running franchises in entertainment software history. In 1983, Richard and his brother, Robert, established Origin Systems, at which many influential game designers launched their careers. In 1992, Origin was acquired by Electronic Arts. In 2009, he cofounded Portalarium, where he is CEO and creative director of his latest game, Shroud of the Avatar, which has raised over $4 million through crowd funding.

In 2008, Richard journeyed to the International Space Station and became the sixth private citizen to fly in Earth's orbit, becoming the first second-generation American in space. He has invested in related ventures such as the Zero-G Corporation, X-Prize, and Spacelab. Richard is currently chairman of Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's premier private space exploration company.

He regularly hosts the Austin Shakespeare Festival on his estate with his creation of a Shakespeare's Globe replica.

Starr Long has been making video games for two decades. Starr started his career at Origin Systems, where he was the project director of Ultima Online, the longest running massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in history. In 2000, Starr cofounded Destination Games with Richard and Robert Garriott, and later that year, it was acquired by NCsoft. In 2009, he joined The Walt Disney Company as an executive producer, where he produced eight minigames in Club Penguin (including Pufflescape, the second most popular minigame in that virtual world), Club Penguin mobile, the Disney Parent App for Facebook. His Disney Connected Learning mobile apps ranked in the top 10 in iOS educational and kids games. In 2013, he joined Portalarium, where he is executive producer of Shroud of the Avatar.

(No video available)

Date: 2014-08-28 11:00:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Kent Lyons

Title: Mobile & Beyond: Wearables Go Mainstream

Abstract:
Wearables have been an area of research in academia for many years. However, we are now seeing active commercial interest from both startups and multinationals alike with products ranging from glasses to smartwatches to fitness trackers. As wearables go mainstream, the nature of research needs to shift as well. In this talk, I'll provide an overview of disruptive innovation theory and discuss how it relates to the mobile and wearable landscape. Using that framing, I will present several research projects I've worked on that investigate how wearables might fit within today's mobile ecosystem and discuss implications for moving beyond mobile.

Bio:
Dr. Kent Lyons is a Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo Labs. His work focuses on creating novel technologies for wearables, mobile, and ubiquitous computing devices. He does this by creating interactive systems using wearable technologies like watches and near-eye displays. He has also built and studied fundamental interaction techniques including text entry and pointing for wearables. This research often spans hardware, firmware, mobile and multi-device technologies. Prior to joining Yahoo Labs, Kent was at the Nokia Research Center in Sunnyvale and at Intel Research in Santa Clara, CA. Kent earned his Ph.D. in C.S. from Georgia Tech in 2005.

Video is not available for this event.

Date: 2014-08-21 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Keith Edwards

Title: GVU Center Brown Bag Kickoff - Research and Engagement Grant Project Overviews

Special Ice Cream Social after Brown Bag

Abstract: In the first GVU Brown Bag Seminar of the academic year, Keith Edwards, GVU Center Director and Professor of Interactive Computing, will open the event with an overview of the center, outlining its unique resources and opportunities available to the research community and previewing some events coming up this semester.

Georgia Tech researchers funded by the GVU Center and IPaT Research and Engagement Grants will follow. They will give brief overviews of their work and its contributions to their respective fields.

Presentations:

Digital Policy: Communication Tools to Shrink the Science to Policy Gap
Nassim JafariNaimi, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
Kim Isett, School of Public Policy

The Move Lab: a STEAM Community of Learners
Betsy DiSalvo, School of Interactive Computing
Al Matthews, Eyedrum
Onar Topal-Sumer, Eyedrum

Exploring Movement-Based Games to Encourage Social Behaviors in Children with Autism
Agata Rozga, School of Interactive Computing
Brian Magerko, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
Ashley Cheek, The Lionheart School
Victoria McBride, The Lionheart School

Patients’ Information Needs Related to Diagnostic Processes around Health Concerns
Lauren Wilcox, School of Interactive Computing
Munmun De Choudhury, School of Interactive Computing
Aarti Sekhar, Emory Healthcare

Wearable Technology Exhibition Digital and Literary Extension
Clint Zeagler, School of Industrial Design

Date: 2014-04-24 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Agata Rozga

Title: The “B” in “CBS” (Computational Behavioral Science): a View from the Trenches

Abstract:
Computational Behavioral Science is an emerging new discipline that combines psychology and computing, with the goal transforming the way we measure, analyze, and understand human behavior. As a developmental psychologist with a focus on autism, I see much potential for novel sensing capabilities and computational modeling approaches to (1) deepen our understanding of this condition, and (2) address real-world issues such as scaling early screening and diagnostic efforts and improving quality of care. Over the past four years, I have had the chance to work closely with experts in computer vision, acoustic analysis, activity recognition, ubiquitous computing, human computer interaction, both at Georgia Tech and beyond. They have helped me explore the applications of CBS to studying autism. In this talk, I would like to reflect on this experience, as a psychologist. What does it mean for a psychologist to become a computational behavioral scientist? What changes in approach or practice do psychologists have to make to enable them to successfully collaborate with computer scientists? What new research opportunities become possible when you adopt a CBS perspective? I will explore these questions and illustrate them with examples from my own work, including the use of on-body sensing to study problem behaviors in individuals with autism in a clinical setting; using depth cameras and computer vision to study social attention in young infants; and developing novel capture and access technologies to support remote-diagnosis of children with autism using videos collected by families in their homes.

Bio:
Agata Rozga (Ph.D., UCLA) is a developmental psychologist and a research scientist in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She is the Director of the Georgia Tech Child Study Lab, a richly instrumented laboratory playroom that serves as a main data collection site for the GT-led Expeditions in Computing Grant on Computational Behavioral Science: Modeling, Analysis, and Visualization of Social and Communicative Behavior.

Date: 2014-04-17 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Nick Taylor

Title: Now You're Playing With Audience Power: The Work of Watching Games

Abstract:
The emergence of high-definition, accessible live-streaming services has led to a surge in online spectatorship for competitive (and other forms of) digital play. Major League Gaming (MLG), long regarded as a console-driven e-sports organization, now boasts a ‘mass', globalized audience for its live-streaming broadcasts of competitive play in Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. This talk compares two MLG tournaments (one in 2008 and one in 2012) from the perspective of spectators and the kinds of activities they undertook at these events. The different forms of audience labor at these events indicate at least a partial re-entrenchment of conventional divisions between media producers and spectators – even as platforms such as Twitch.tv point to emergent forms of participatory spectatorship. In drawing out this tension, this talk invites consideration of the following questions: what is the ‘work' of spectators in (and for) the e-sports industry? What socio-economic and socio-technical forms is this work taking across different contexts? What are the implications for the ongoing transformation of gaming into spectator sport?

Bio:
Dr. Nicholas Taylor (http://nickttaylor.net/) is Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Communication at North Carolina State University. His work applies critical, feminist and socio-technical perspectives to experimental and mixed-methods research with digital gaming communities. Recently, this includes an educationally-focused ethnography of League of Legends players, micro-ethnographic analyses of play in Telltale's The Walking Dead, and design-based research of a game design curriculum for non-programmers. He also co-directs the CIRCUIT Studio (http://circuit.chass.ncsu.edu/), a collaborative makerspace and digital media research lab at NC State.

Date: 2014-04-16 14:00:00

Location: Atlanta, GA

Technology that is changing the scope and quality of many human interactions - including healthcare, social networking, education and civic engagement - is being created at the GVU Center and the Digital Media Graduate program at Georgia Tech . We invite you to explore and interact with that future technology at our Spring Research Showcase. What will be the next great innovation in mobile apps, digital design or wearable computing? At the research showcase, experience a hands-on vision of the ideas and applications that you may be carrying in your pocket or using in the workspace in the near future.

Users will be able to test drive many of the more than 80 demos including applications that let you text without looking, interact with virtual objects placed in real physical spaces, and learn to play the piano with a tech-enhanced glove.

Researchers will show off technology that is part of local community and government initiatives to create civic engagement and change. One example benefits cyclists using a new app that will allow Atlanta city planners to allocate funds for a new city biking infrastructure. Also, take a peek at forward-thinking designs, such as a wearable computing system for dogs with occupations.

We look forward to seeing you on April 16th!

No video available.

Date:
2014-04-10 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker 1: Chris DeLeon

Title: Relationship Between Payment Models and Game Design Tastes

Abstract:
The videogame industry has repeatedly experienced dramatic changes in the way that the most profitable, highest visibility digital games earn revenue. This presentation begins with coin-op arcade games, to the long reign of shareware PC games and full cost retail for early console or handhelds, subsequently dovetailing within the past decade into subscription MMORPGs, sponsored Flash games, $15-$20 downloadable casual games, dollar mobile apps, ad-driven games, special offers in Facebook games, free-to-play with microtransactions, and now into the latest wave of paid betas and crowd-funded projects. I'll introduce my early, work-in-progress investigation into how these payment models, alongside other technical constraints and context factors, have formed temporary ecosystems for the evolution of different patterns of player preferences in regard to play session length, overall game duration, difficulty curve, replay value, styles of multiplayer, and other design considerations.

Bio:
Chris DeLeon is a PhD student in Digital Media. He completed a Masters in Digital Media in 2012, with his thesis about on pinball's gameplay design and business connections to early coin-op videogames. He completed his BS in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Between undergraduate and graduate studies he developed videogames professionally for a large AAA studio, at a casual web games start-up, and in the then-new market for smartphone games. Outside of professional game development his primary interest has been developing noncommercial games for the past 15 years, and helping others get started doing so.

Speaker 2: Jie Tan

Title: Learning Bicycle Stunts

Abstract:
The bicycle was voted as the best invention since the 19th century because it is an inexpensive, fast, healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transportation. In this talk, we will present a general approach for simulating and controlling a human character that is riding a bicycle. The two main components of our system are offline learning and online simulation. We simulate the bicycle and the rider as an articulated rigid body system. The rider is controlled by a policy that is optimized through offline learning. We apply policy search to learn the optimal policies, which are parameterized with splines or neural networks for different bicycle maneuvers. We use Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topology (NEAT) to optimize both the parametrization and the parameters of our policies. The learned controllers are robust enough to withstand large perturbations and allow interactive user control. The rider not only learns to steer and to balance in normal riding situations, but also learns to perform a wide variety of stunts, including wheelie, endo, bunny hop, front wheel pivot and back hop.

Bio:
Jie Tan is a PhD candidate of computer science in Georgia Institute of Technology. His research is to develop computational tools that facilitate scientists, engineers and artists to understand and to simulate human and animal locomotion. His work on articulated swimming creatures, soft body locomotion and learning bicycle stunts investigate the problems of locomotion control in complex environment. In addition to computer graphics, his other interests include robotics, computer vision and machine learning.

No video available.

Date: 2014-04-03 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Geoffrey Bowker

Title: Changing Media/Changing Knowledge

Abstract:
Looking at the development of emerging modes of knowledge production and expression in a number of fields from the humanities to the natural sciences, I explore the questions of ways in which our ways of knowing the world are changing with new media and whether we are developing apposite knowledge infrastructures (http://knowledgeinfrastructures.org/) to accommodate them. I argue that fostering these new modes entails moving beyond the structures that have worked so well since the Enlightenment.

Bio:
Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor at the School of Information and Computer Science, University of California at Irvine, where he directs the Evoke Laboratory, which explores new forms of knowledge expression. Recent positions include Professor of and Senior Scholar in Cyberscholarship at the University of Pittsburgh iSchool and Executive Director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara Together with Leigh Star he wrote Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences; his most recent book is Memory Practices in the Sciences. More information can be found at: http://ics.uci.edu/~gbowker.

No video.

Date: 2014-03-27 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Thad Starner

Title: Wearable Computing: Through the Looking Glass

Abstract:
Google's Glass has captured the world's imagination, with new articles speculating on it almost every day. Yet, why would consumers want a wearable computer in their everyday lives? For the past 20 years, my teams have been creating living laboratories to discover the most compelling reasons. In the process, we have investigated how to create interfaces for technology which is designed to be "there when you need it, gone when you don't." This talk will attempt to articulate the most valuable lessons we have learned, including some design principles for creating "microinteractions" to fit a user's lifestyle. In addition, I will present some unusual wearable computing interfaces, ranging from silent speech recognition to fingerless gloves that can help the wearer learn piano melodies or Braille typing without active attention.

Bio:
Thad Starner is a wearable computing pioneer. He is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Technical Lead on Google's Glass. Starner has been wearing a head-up display based computer as part of his daily life since 1993, perhaps the longest such experience known. Thad is a founder of the annual ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, now in its 18th year, and has authored over 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He is an inventor on over 60 United States patents awarded or in process.

Date:
2014-03-13 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speakers:

(Multiple Speakers)

Title:

GVU Research and Engagement Grants Talk

Abstract:

Each year, GVU provides seed grants, with support from IPaT, to research initiatives committed to building on our success in interdisciplinary research and innovation in the human experience of computing. These investments create a path for external funding as our research prospers.

Implementation and Assessment of One-Bus Away Atlanta

Transit provides mobility to those who cannot or prefer not to drive, including access to jobs, education and medical services. Transit reduces congestion, gasoline consumption and the nation's carbon footprint. However, from a customer perspective, a mobility choice is only a choice if it is fast, comfortable and reliable. One inexpensive way to combat unreliability from the user perspective is real-time transit information. The OneBusAway transit traveler information system was originally developed at the University of Washington by Dr. Brian Ferris, Dr. Kari Watkins, and Dr. Alan Borning to provide real-time bus arrival information for riders in greater Seattle-Tacoma. OneBusAway is comprised of multiple interfaces to access information, including a website, a telephone number, text-messaging, a mobile-optimized website, and native applications for both the iPhone and Android platforms (see http://onebusaway.org); it currently hosts more than 100,000 unique users per week. OneBusAway was developed under multiple federal grants as an open-source system allowing other transit agencies to adapt the code for their own systems. Additional deployments using the code base have begun in New York City, Tampa and now Atlanta. Previous studies have shown that real-time can increase transit ridership, increase satisfaction with transit performance, improve perception of safety, and decrease perceived and actual wait time. The goal of the Atlanta deployment is to provide a service to area transit riders and to further quantify the impacts of real-time information by conducting a study of OneBusAway users and compare their ridership and perceptions to those of non-users.

Team: Kari Watkins, School of Civic and Environmental Engineering; Russ Clark, School of Computer Science

Launch Support for The Game Studio at Georgia Tech

The Georgia Tech Game Studio is a new, internal, by-application game design and development organization focused on facilitating the creation of novel, excellent, complete games. The Studio aims to increase the Institute's reputation in the production of original games, both through commercial success and participation in competitions and festivals. The Studio will help participants conceptualize, design, develop, and release original games by providing space, materials, and industry advisement.

Team: Ian Bogost, School of Literature, Media & Communication; Blair MacIntyre, School of Interactive Computing

Computational Social Science Workshop and Hackathon with Emory

The emerging cross-disciplinary field of computational social science is transforming both research and industry by combining computational methods with social science theory and research. GVU has a unique capability to shape this emerging discipline, building on the center's tradition of interdisciplinary research. To add a strong social science foundation, GVU will team with researchers at Emory University to offer two community-building activities for Computational Social Science in 2013-2014. In the fall, we will offer a Research Workshop featuring distinguished visiting speakers and presentations from GVU and Emory faculty; in the spring, we will reconvene for a freewheeling Hackathon that brings students and faculty together to form interdisciplinary research teams working on projects of mutual interest.

Team: Jacob Eisenstein, School of Interactive Computing, Eric Gilbert, School of Interactive Computing + collaborators at Emory University

FIDO - Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations

Working dogs, whether assistance, medical, or military dogs, have important information to impart to their human handlers. However, communication between human and canine partners is currently limited. Handlers give verbal or hand signal commands, and dogs respond with trained behaviors such as alerting with a paw or nose touch, or barking. Improving dog-to-handler communication could literally save lives. A medical alert dog could directly summon aid. If a hearing dog could tell his handler specifically whether the source of the sound was the phone ringing or the fire alarm, the handler could make better decisions about how to respond. Military dogs could mark bomb locations and even indicate the type of bomb found, then move to safety, rather than the current practice of lying next to the bomb and barking until the handler arrives, putting both dog and handler at risk. Silent handler-to-dog communication could be critical as well, as voice and hand signals make dog handlers targets for snipers. Improving communication through technology could have profound implications for working dog teams in many domains. We plan to leverage Georgia Tech's extensive experience in wearable computing to enable communication with animals. We have created the Inter-species Interaction Lab to establish Georgia Tech as a pioneer in the little-explored space of Animal-Computer Interaction, studying communication with animals mediated by technology.

Team: Melody Moore Jackson, School of Interactive Computing, Thad Starner, School of Interactive Computing, Clint Zeagler, School of Industrial Design

Games@GaTech

Games @ Gatech is an institute-wide initiative to leverage Georgia Tech's leadership role in video games research and education by aggregating and incubating interdisciplinary games research and academic activities across the campus. This goal of this initiative is twofold: First, to bring together diverse games activities and foster greater internal awareness, research collaboration, and funding access among entities and individuals with the institute; second, to help create a single, more focused Georgia Tech "brand" to the outside world that improves public awareness of the institute's collective strengths in game-related research. Games @ Gatech will help create a more unified research community, advancing interdisciplinary research, and facilitating better exposure to funding opportunities, tech transfer and industry partnerships.

Team: Celia Pearce, School of Literature, Media & Communication; Mark Riedl, School of Interactive Computing

Sonic Generator and the National Orchestra of Lorraine

Sonic Generator, the high-tech contemporary music ensemble in residence at Georgia Tech, joins forces with members of L'Orchestre National de Lorraine and their conductor Jacques Mercier to present concerts at the Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech (November 3rd, 2013) and at L'Arsenal in Metz (February 15, 2014). The performances will feature innovative French and American contemporary music including Steve Reich's City Life, a new commission from Daniel Wohl, and music by GT professor Jason Freeman. These concerts will help celebrate the fifth edition of France-Atlanta and the twenty-fifth anniversary of L'Arsenal and initiate new conversations about the role of the arts at Georgia Tech's Lorraine campus.

Jason Freeman, School of Music.edu/plugins/shows/index.php?id=556

Simulating Activities of Daily Living: Dressing Clothes (Supported by GVU, IPaT, and RIM)

Dressing clothing is considered as one of the Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) for an individual to maintain a functional life independently. Unlike other ADLs, such as feeding and mobility, dressing is unique to human society and is one of the most important milestones of self-care development for a child. An average child takes 24 months to develop sufficient coordination and manipulation skills to put on loose clothing. It will take another year or two before she will be able to get dressed all by herself. This is mainly due to the combined difficulty in coordinating different body parts and manipulating soft and deformable objects (clothes). This project aims to recreate this unique human behavior through physical simulation and eventually enables assistive robots to dress real humans. In particular, we are interested in designing motor control algorithms for dressing upper and lower body for oneself and others. Beyond robotic applications, we expect to expand the current biomechanical knowledge in human coordination control mechanism, to advance the control algorithms for high-dimensional, nonlinear systems in control theory, and to enhance the state-or-art simulation techniques for manipulating deformable objects.

Karen Liu, School of Interactive Computing

Date:
2014-03-06 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)
Speakers:

Rebecca Burnett and Karen Head

Title:

"Promises and Practices: Creating and Implementing a Composition MOOC"

Abstract:

Composition MOOCs-which offer participants opportunities to critique and compose written, oral, and visual artifacts-present particular challenges, some of which are distinct to courses in humanities. During their session, Burnett and Head will comment about the benefits and challenges in their project related to curriculum, pedagogy, and technology in the development and implementation of their MOOC. One of the challenges is figuring out ways to incorporate what we know to be best practices in humanities pedagogy into MOOCs. In addition, their experience indicates that faculty need to consider factors such as participant demographics, costs, available support systems, concepts such as classroom and collaboration, the role of culture, issues of security, the role of gender, course repeatability, and intellectually credible assessment.

Bios:

Speaker 1:

Rebecca E. Burnett (PhD Carnegie Mellon University) is Director of Writing and Communication at Georgia Tech. She holds an Endowed Professorship in Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Media, and Communication. Burnett has diverse research interests: risk communication, conflict in collaboration, assessment of multimodal artifacts, digital pedagogies, visual literacies, technical communication, and communication practices of women students in science and engineering. Her interest in international communication has led to work and travel in countries including Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, and more than a dozen others. Collaboration is her oldest research interest; for more than 20 years, she has investigated ways in which teams and groups handle various kinds of productive and unproductive conflict. In 2012-13, she was part of the GT team awarded a Gates Foundation Grant to develop one of the first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) focused on college writing, and she has given several presentations about the experience. She is author of one of the country's most widely used technical communication textbooks. Burnett has a long history as a communication consultant for businesses, industries, and government agencies and as an adviser about curriculum and professional development for educational systems. She has also developed extensive documentation for proprietary processes in industry. As an expert witness in products liability cases, she deals with the adequacy of text, visuals, and information design, particularly in instructions, manuals, and warnings.

Speaker 2:

Karen Head (PhD University of Nebraska) is Director of the Communication Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. Since 2006, she has been a Visiting Scholar at Technische Universität-Dortmund, Germany, where she serves as the primary consultant for their academic center. Her research areas focus on writing and communication theory and pedagogical practice, especially in the following areas: implementation and development of writing centers, writing program administration, communication ecologies, technical communication, business communication, multidisciplinary communication, and creative writing (especially as it applies to extended risk-taking in subsequent communication projects). In 2012-13, she was part of the GT team awarded a Gates Foundation Grant to develop one of the first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) focused on college writing, and she has published several articles about the experience. She has also published three books of poetry (Sassing, My Paris Year, and Shadow Boxes) and exhibited several acclaimed digital poetry projects. An award winning teacher, Head's courses center on analyzing, critiquing, evaluating, and creating a variety of texts that demonstrate an understanding of audience and adaptation of multimodal rhetorical strategies and tools. In 2013, she won Georgia Tech's CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Award.

(No video)

Date:
2014-02-27 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker:

(Multiple Speakers)

Title:

SIGSCE 2014 Preview Talks

Abstract:

Come hear about the latest research in computer science education at Georgia Tech to be presented at the 2014 SIGSCE conference.

They Can’t Find Us: The Search for Informal CS Education (Betsy DiSalvo, Cecili Reid and Parisa Khanipour Roshan)

The great number of free software and classes that are offered online for CS learning suggest that young people with technical means should be able to access tools for learning computer science (CS). These types of informal learning experiences are important in increasing motivation, community and belonging around a given topic. Experience with informal learning in CS - often introduced by parents - is associated with those who choose to pursue computer science. This study focuses on the experience of parents who do not have the privilege of education and technical experience when searching for learning opportunities for their children. The findings demonstrate that issues of access to CS education go beyond technical means, and include ability to conduct suitable searches and identify appropriate computational learning tools.

Measuring Demographics and Performance in Computer Science Education at a Nationwide Scale Using AP CS Data (Barbara Ericson and Mark Guzdial)

How do you take the pulse of a whole country's CS education at once? The advanced placement test in computer science is one nationwide, standardized data source. In this paper, we characterize who is taking the AP CS Level A exam (answer: shockingly male and white or Asian), how much it's changed in a sample of six states, and what influences exam-taking numbers.

Project Rise Up 4 CS: Increasing the Number of Black Students who Pass Advanced Placement CS A (Barbara Ericson, Shelly Engelman, Tom McKlin, Ja'Quan Taylor)

This paper describes Project Rise Up 4 CS, an attempt to increase the number of Black students in Georgia that pass the Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science (CS) A exam. In 2012 Black students had the lowest pass rates on the AP CS A exam both in Georgia and nationally. Project Rise Up 4 CS provided Black students with role models, hands-on learning, competitions, a financial incentive, and webinars on AP CS A content.

Engaging Underrepresented Groups in High School Introductory Computing through Computational Remixing with EarSketch (Jason Freeman, Brian Magerko, Tom McKlin, Mike Reilly, Justin Permar, Cameron Summers, Eric Fruchter)

In this paper, we describe a pilot study of EarSketch, a computational remixing approach to introductory computer science, in a formal academic computing course at the high school level. EarSketch, an integrated curriculum, Python API, digital audio workstation (DAW), audio loop library, and social sharing site, seeks to broaden participation in computing, particularly by traditionally underrepresented groups, through a thickly authentic learning environment that has personal and industry relevance in both computational and artistic domains. The pilot results show statistically significant gains in computing attitudes across multiple constructs, with particularly strong results for female and minority participants.

Bio:

DiSalvo is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Interactive Computing where she leads the Culture and Technology Lab (CAT Lab). Her previous work includes the Glitch Game Testers, a successful program that leveraged young African American males passion for video games into an ongoing interest in computing.

Barbara Ericson is the Director of Computing Outreach for the College of Computing. Mark Guzdial is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing. They are both PI's on the NSF Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) alliance that seeks to improve and broaden computing education at the state level, by working with individual states. Together, they won the 2010 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Award for Outstanding Contributions in Education. Shelly Engelman and Tom McKlin were both employees of the Findings Group which handles evaluation for a number of computer science education projects. Ja'Quan Taylor is an undergraduate student in computer science at Georgia Tech who led webinars and hands-on help sessions for Project Rise Up 4 CS.

Jason Freeman is an Associate Professor in the School of Music. Brian Magerko is an Associate Professor in the Digital Media program. Together, they lead the EarSketch project, with a large group of collaborators that include this paper’s co-authors: Tom McKlin (evaluator, SageFox), Mike Reilly (computer science teacher in Gwinnett County Public Schools), Justin Permar (PhD student in HCC), Cameron Summers (MS student in music technology), and Eric Fruchter (MS student in computer science).

Date:
2014-02-20 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker:

Deborah Thomas

Title:

Serious Games = Serious Opportunity

Abstract:

Serious Games is a fairly new industry that is taking hold and providing job opportunities to computational studies experts, training professionals, UX designers, communications and media professionals and game developers. But there is a lot more to serious games than what meets the eye.

Games can be regarded as providing a credible, purposeful and compelling lexicon for learning. Furthermore, they can provide players with engaging challenges that require skill development in order to achieve the game and learning objective.

This presentation will provide a brief overview of the industry and the Taxonomy of Serious Games. It will highlight a few categories such as games for training, games for health and games for change.

Creating serious games can be rewarding and challenging. The challenge can also be the reward. It is very difficult to create a good serious game because the learning outcome must be tied to a game mechanic in a meaningful way, which is the hard part. There is ample opportunity for new entrants to make a mark in this exciting field. It is wide open and exciting.

Bio:

Deborah Thomas is owner of SillyMonkey, LLC, a game-based learning business. Early in her career she was a public education teacher at one of the worst performing middle schools in the country, she drove her students' SAT scores up 30 percent by using innovative educational techniques she created. She applied that same passion for helping people retain learning objectives through games as a trainer/designer /manager for Fortune 500 companies including the Coca-Cola Company. Now, she provides services for clientele of beverage, manufacturing, energy, pharmaceutical, sales, customer service and finance companies.

Deborah was honored to receive the 2011 Best Fun and Serious Game Award Europe, 2009 ASTD Dugan Laird Award, 2009 ASTD Atlanta E-Learning Excellence, 2009 finalist National Association of Women Owned Business. Deborah is president of the Atlanta Chapter of Georgia Game Developers Assocation, a Former President of the North American Simulation & Gaming Association and Vice President of Professional Development for the Atlanta American Society of Training and Development. President of Georgia Game and Development Association Atlanta 2008-2012

Date:
2014-02-13 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)Speaker: Peter Swire

Title: "The President's NSA Review Group: The Technology Issues"

Abstract:

Professor Peter Swire of the Scheller College of Business served on President Obama's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, which published its report in December to widespread public attention. The President has adopted many of the group's 46 proposals, and others remain under consideration. This talk will describe the process for drafting the report. It will discuss the major recommendations, with a particular focus on information technology issues including encryption, zero-day attacks, and the role of offense and defense in cybersecurity. It will also discuss issues related to Internet governance in light of the intense public debate about how to use modern communications networks for diverse activities including surveillance, military operations, e-commerce, and the daily communications of individual users. The talk will feature an extensive period for Q&A about these topic issues of surveillance, democracy, and technology.

Bio:

Peter Swire joined the Scheller faculty in the fall term of 2013 as the Nancy J. and Lawrence P. Huang Professor, in the Law and Ethics Program. At Georgia Tech, he has appointments by courtesy with the College of Computing and School of Public Policy. Previously, Swire was the C. William O'Neill Professor of Law at the Ohio State University. Swire has been a leading privacy and cyberlaw scholar, government leader, and practitioner since the rise of the Internet in the 1990's. In 2013, he served as one of five members of President Obama's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology. Prior to that, he was co-chair of the global Do Not Track process for the World Wide Web Consortium. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and the Future of Privacy Forum, and a Policy Fellow with the Center for Democracy and Technology. Under President Clinton, Swire was the Chief Counselor for Privacy, in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. He is the only person to date to have U.S. government-wide responsibility for privacy policy. In that role, his activities included being White House coordinator for the HIPAA medical privacy rules, chairing a White House task force on how to update wiretap laws for the Internet age, and helping negotiate the U.S.-E.U. Safe Harbor agreement for trans-border data flows. Under President Obama, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Swire is author of four books and numerous scholarly papers. He has testified often before the Congress, and been quoted regularly in the press. Swire has served on privacy and security advisory boards for companies including Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, and for eight years was a consultant with the global law firm of Morrison & Foerster, LLP. Swire graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and the Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

(No video available)

Date:
2014-02-10 10:00:00

Location:
Technology Square Research Building, 85 5th St NW, Atlanta, GA 30308, TSRB Conference Room

GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar: Interactivity@GT
Interactivity, presented by the GVU Center, is the annual showcase of projects by graduate students in Georgia Tech's M.S. Human-Computer Interaction and Digital Media programs.

Students demonstrate their technical, creative, and presentational talents with live demos of their projects. Register now to attend one of the best opportunities for students and industry visitors to interact and seek internships or post-graduation employment.

All together, the event includes an info session, rapid student presentations, and the main demo and poster session. Registration and attendance are free, and complimentary parking is provided for company representatives.

(No video)

Date:
2014-02-06 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker:

Martin Ericsson

Title:

Dreams Made Flesh: Aesthetics of Participation in Contemporary Story Architecture and Games Design

Abstract:

This talk looks at the creative relationship between an author and her (more or less active) audience in different forms of human culture. Through a series of cases on the border between audience and participation driven culture (all written and co-produced by the lecturer, Martin explores a developing and aesthetic of co-creation that differs radically from the traditional auteur-driven models we habitually use to assess quality or impact of artistic work. Especially applicable to player-driven computer games, the method relies on teaching and trusting your audience and the creation of inspiring “participation agreements”. Case-studies include Emmy Award-winning television transmedia work “The Truth About Marika”, experiences from the computer games industry as well as insight into the avant-garde Nordic Live Action Roleplaying Game scene. Here, participation aesthetics has become the foundation for a movement of dramatic improvisation defying common preconceptions about Role-Playing Games and the culture surrounding them.

Bio:

Martin Ericsson is a lifelong interaction and participation writer with an academic background in drama and games studies. He has produced and written more than thirty pieces of participatory art and entertainment ranging from collaborations with Hollywood screenwriters like Tim Kring and Joss Whedon to decadent live-action stagings of Shakespearian tragedy and interstellar warfare. Ericsson works as a freelance lecturer, interactive author and occasional model.

Date: 2014-01-23 11:30:00

Location: TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker: Matt Sanders

Title: "From Living Labs to Convergence Innovation'

Abstract:
In this talk I will give a brief overview of IPaT's living labs and some RNOC projects where we have opportunities for students and faculty to leverage and contribute resources. This will include: the GT Journey Initiative, Midtown Buzz, the Aware Home, the I3L Health IT testbed, Magic Window, GT mobile, and the Argon based Campus Tour among others. I will then present the categories and timeline for the Spring Convergence Innovation Competition, which is open to all Georgia Tech students and offers an exceptional opportunity for GVU students to extend their research and class projects for the purposes of commercialization or industry engagement. The Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) is an annual event produced by GT-RNOC and the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). This unique competition is open to all Georgia Tech students and is run throughout the Fall and Spring semesters. Each year the categories in the CIC are defined by our Industry partners who provide mentorship, judging, and category specific resources which are often available exclusively to CIC competitors. While the competition is not tied to any specific course, competitors are often able to take advantage of class partnerships where lecture and lab content, guest lectures, and projects are aligned with competition categories. CIC Competitors are supported by GT-RNOC research assistants who provide technical support and shepherd teams through the competition process. The overarching goal of the CIC is to create innovative and viable products and experiences including a strong user experience and a business case. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype, which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms. CIC winners go on to commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience.

Bio: 
Matt Sanders is the Director of Research Operations at IPaT. Matt works with Georgia Tech students and researchers, along with industry partners in the creation of innovative mobile and converged applications and services. He is also the Associate Director, and co-founder, of the Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center (GT-RNOC), a unique research center supporting industry and student engagement through research and operational projects; and the wireless services manager for Georgia Tech in the Office of Information Technology. Matt is a principal in the annual Convergence Innovation Competition, now in its ninth year, which provides industry sponsors an opportunity to engage students in wide ranging categories including Connected Home, Connected Communities, Connected Transportation, and Connected Work using a wide variety of platforms and resources available in our living labs. Through the GT Journey initiative, Matt is also responsible for GT mobile, an HTML5 based portal for mobile, desktop, kiosks, and Glass; where any member of the campus community can access campus IT services and contribute content, meta-data, and the applications themselves.

Date:
2014-01-16 11:30:00

Location:
TSRB 132 (Ball Room)

Speaker:

Gregory Abowd

Title: "Ubicomp and Health"

Abstract:
Ubiquitous computing is often understood as the third generation of computing. It is mainstream and permeates our everyday lives. Mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies have and will continue to have a dramatic impact on many application areas in our everyday lives. In this talk, I will explore a particular domain, health, and how ubicomp research can impact, and in turn be impacted by a focus on health. There is an interesting continuum of applications research in health, ranging from straightforward use of existing commercial technologies to the innovative development of new technologies and computing techniques. Through a number of examples from our research at Georgia Tech, I will explore some of the opportunities, and challenges, of doing health-oriented research (and by extension any kind of applications-oriented research) as a ubicomp researcher. I will also speculate on what the coming fourth generation of computing might bring and how it might impact applications research.

Bio:
Gregory D. Abowd is a Regents' and Distinguished Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech where he co-leads the Ubicomp Research Group with colleagues Drs. Rosa Arriaga and Agata Rozga. His research interests concern how the advanced information technologies of ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp) impact our everyday lives when they are seamlessly integrated into our living spaces. Dr. Abowd's work has involved schools (Classroom 2000) and homes (The Aware Home), with a recent focus on health and particularly autism. Dr. Abowd received the degree of B.S. in Honors Mathematics in 1986 from the University of Notre Dame. He then attended the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, earning the degrees of M.Sc. (1987) and D.Phil. (1991) in Computation from the Programming Research Group in the Computing Laboratory. From 1989-1992 he was a Research Associate/Postdoc with the Human-Computer Interaction Group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York in England. From 1992-1994, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Software Engineering Institute and the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He has been a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology since 1994. He is an ACM Fellow, a member of the CHI Academy and recipient of the SIGCHI Social Impact Award and ACM Eugene Lawler Humanitarian Award.