Wiki - Syllabus | TechniCity

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Wiki - Syllabus | TechniCity

TechniCity
Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University and College of Urban and Public Affairs, Virginia Tech Maymester, 2013 Instructor: Jennifer Evans-Cowley, PhD, AICP (Ohio State University) and Tom Sanchez, PhD (Virginia Tech) Time: May 4-31, 2013 - Anytime each week

OVERVIEW
We are part of the real-time city. The increasing availability of networks, sensors and mobile technologies allows for new approaches to address the challenges that our cities face. The way we understand cities is undergoing sweeping transformation, right along with the analytical tools we use to design our cities and the communication tools we use to engage people. Absorbing, studying and understanding the role of technology from a critical viewpoint allows us to generate creative ideas for improving our cities. This course begins by examining how the technology in our cities is changing. We then jump into how technology is used to engage with the public to support decision-making. Students will then examine tools for analyzing the city. And rounding out the course is an exploration of entrepreneurial urbanism, looking at how creativity can spawn technological innovation. Youll hear from technological innovators and thought leaders about all of these topics.

OBJECTIVES
During this course, students will: Gain familiarity with fundamental urban technology concepts. Increase understanding of how city planners can communicate with the public to enhance cities. Gain hands-on experience with public engagement and analysis tools. Generate/collect useful data to support informed public policy decisions. Describe how key infrastructure technologies shapes cities. Accelerate the transfer of ideas between entrepreneurs and urban change agents. Develop a solid understanding of how technology is shaping your own city. This course offers two levels of accomplishment. To receive a statement of accomplishment students are expected to fully commit to the four weeks of class work and fully participate in all aspects of the course. If you wish to receive a statement of accomplishment with distinction you will need to participate in and complete the "challenge" activities. The challenge activities include a mix of additional lectures, engagement activities, and assignments. Within the course you will see the word "challenge" included in front of each item that is part of the accomplishment with distinction track. Of course students any student can participate in challenge activities regardless of whether you wish to receive a certificate of accomplishment with distinction. Students taking this course for credit at Ohio State

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Wiki - Syllabus | TechniCity

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University must complete the "challenge activities" in order to receive academic credit for this course. For those taking this course for AICP Certification Maintenance credit you must complete a minimum of 15 hours of coursework to fulfill your obligation in order to claim AICP credit.

COURSE FORMAT
The course will be delivered fully online and introduces a variety of technologies, combined with hands-on demonstrations. Course sessions will be delivered via online lectures with many guest speakers participating. Participants will need access to a computer and an internet connection. A major project and peer review will be required. Challenge assignments will also be provided to supplement learning.

PLANNING ACCREDITATION CRITERIA MET

The Planning Accreditation Board has a series of standards by which accredited planning programs are measured. Both Ohio State University and Virginia Tech have accredited planning programs. Below is a list of accreditation criteria that are covered in this course. Purpose and Meaning of Planning: appreciation of why planning is undertaken by communities, cities, regions, and nations, and the impact planning is expected to have. The Future: understanding of the relationships between past, present, and future in planning domains, as well as the potential for methods of design, analysis, and intervention to influence the future. Global Dimensions of Planning: appreciation of interactions, flows of people and materials, cultures, and differing approaches to planning across world regions. Research: tools for assembling and analyzing ideas and information from prior practice and scholarship, and from primary and secondary sources. Written, Oral and Graphic Communication: ability to prepare clear, accurate and compelling text, graphics and maps for use in documents and presentations. Quantitative and Qualitative Methods: data collection, analysis and modeling tools for forecasting, policy analysis, and design of projects and plans.

VIRTUAL SALON
Given the scale of student enrollment, personalized contact with every student will not be possible, but we are designing a number of opportunities for engaging with the instructional team. MindMixer will serve as our primary tool for engagement. You will be participating and sharing your ideas, as well as support others in the course. Check out the Rewards Store to see what you can earn for your participation. Each week we will add new, exciting rewards. Weekly in-person/online salons will be offered at various locations, based on where the instructional team is that week. Students can participate onsite or via Google Hangout.

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Wiki - Syllabus | TechniCity

https://class.coursera.org/techcity-001/wiki/view?page=s...

We will host weekly live tweet sessions We will do our best to respond to messages sent via Twitter (dependent on volume) @EvansCowley or @tomwsanchez. We will also be using the hashtag #technicity. The online discussion forums will be monitored and you are welcome to post questions there, although this is principally for technical questions or questions about your projects.

VIDEO LECTURES
Each week you will be provided with two+ hours of core video lectures and additional challenge video content. These are provided by your instructors and guest lecturers. The videos are divided into three categories. Context lectures provide an introduction to the key ideas that we will be exploring as a class in each week. Within each Context lecture you will encounter in-video reflection questions. These are used to help you reflect on what you have just heard and consider how it might be relevant in your own city. We invite you to provide your own thoughts and ideas to help you deepen your understanding. Case Study lectures provide examples that build on what you have learned in the Context lectures. We also provide Instruction lectures which provide instructions for example on how to complete an assignment.

READINGS
Throughout the course you will be provided with readings and websites that are associated with the lectures. Next to each video you will find icons related to the lecture video section you are watching. They link to external resources such as readings, websites, files, and additional videos for further learning.

GRADING
Project Proposal and Peer Evaluation of Proposals up to 40 points Final Project and Peer Evaluation of Proposals up to 60 points CHALLENGE Assignments and Peer Evaluation are worth up to 10 points each To receive a statement of accomplishment you must achieve a minimum of 85 points. To receive a statement of accomplishment with distinction you must achieve a minimum of 110 points.

LATE POLICY
Due to the short term of this course we cannot allow for late submission of assignments. Students who miss a deadline can choose to complete additional challenge assignments to earn credit that will makeup for missing any deadline.

ASSIGNMENTS PROJECT PROPOSAL (up to 40 points)

Each student will select a topic with which they plan to research. They should identify a problem in their own city. This should be a one page assignment. Where possible students should include pictures with captions that describe the problem they want to study. This could be anything from traffic congestion, to pedestrian safety, to water quality to really anything. Students are welcome to work alone or you can team up with one more other people in the class.

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On MindMixer we have created a topic for Project Proposals. If people want to work together on a project this is fine, but please note we will not organize any groups. This would need to be self organized if you wish to pursue this. See this project proposal page for all of the details about how to complete this assignment. This project is due by May 14th at 21:00 UTC. This project should take you approximately two hours to complete (more time may be required for you to come up with an idea). You will be copying and pasting your assignment into Coursera or submitting it as a PDF file so keep this in mind as you prepare your assignment.

PEER ASSESSMENT
Peer assessment is the process students providing feedback to other students according to a rubric that has been developed by the instructors. Once the deadline for the the project proposal has passed, you and all the other students will receive five proposals from other students in the class. You will be using a rubric the instructors will provide. You will then self-grade your own assignment based on the rubric, along with the projects others have submitted. Your grade for the project proposal will be viewable, based on the rubric, once you have completed the peer evaluations. The peer evaluation of the project proposal is due by May 17th 21:00 UTC. It is very important you provide constructive feedback so that students can improve on their project. Please be polite, detailed, and fair in your evaluation of others work. You should expect to take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete each peer assessment. You will conduct a similar peer assessment for the final project and for any challenge assignments you decide to undertake.

FINAL PROJECT (up to 60 points)

Each student selected a project that you proposed in the project proposal. For the final project you will be following through on your proposal in your city. See the assignments information tab on the navigation bar for more detail. This project is due by May 26th at 21:00 UTC. This project will take a variable amount of time depending on the individual project. You are expected to spend substantial time creating something that could have value in improving your city. The peer evaluation of the final project is due by May 30th 21:00 UTC. It is very important you provide constructive feedback so that students can improve on their project. Please be polite, detailed, and fair in your evaluation of others work. You should expect to take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete each peer assessment.

ASSIGNMENTS
The Challenge assignments are designed to be fun and encourage you to experiment with different methods for collecting and analyzing information. You can choose to do all of these if you would like or pick those that are of most interest. Please note that each assignment has its own limitations. For example, the tool may not work on every brower or computer. Or due to restrictions in your home country you may not be able to access a website.

CHALLENGE: StreetSeen (up to 10 points)

Each student will be responsible for visiting StreetSeen and creating your own visual survey. Where possible it would be ideal to create a visual preference survey that can be used as part of your course project.

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More details about this assignment can be found in the assignments section found on the navigation toolbar (to be posted by May 11). This project should take you approximately two hours to complete. To receive credit for this assignment you will need to submit a link to your survey and prepare an analysis. This assignment is due by May 20th at 21:00 UTC. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work by May 23rd at 21:00 UTC.

CHALLENGE: Google Streetview Stiching/Hyperlapse Photography (up to 10 points)

This assignment will focus on taking Google Streetview images and Stitching it together to create a video that navigates through your city. This project should take you approximately one hours to complete, possibly longer depending on how you construct the route. To receive credit for this assignment you will need to submit your analysis. More details about this assignment can be found in the assignments section found on the navigation toolbar. This project should take you approximately one hour to complete, possibly longer depending on the extent of the city you are trying to create the stitching for. This assignment is due by May 20th at 21:00 UTC. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work by May 23rd at 21:00 UTC.

CHALLENGE: Scraping Social Media Data (up to 10 points)

Web and social media data scraping refers to the process of extracting the content and metadata of user submitted activities. This includes information about the author, time, date, location, and content of Twitter tweets, Facebook posts, FourSquare checkins and other social media sources. In this assignment you will identify a data source and then scrape a minimum of 100 observations or individual pieces of information that will be suitable for analysis. More details about this assignment can be found in the assignments section found on the navigation toolbar. This project should take you approximately one hour to complete, longer if you have the skills to undertake a foursquare or jiepang analysis. To receive credit for this assignment you will need to submit the social media that you have scraped. This assignment is due by May 20th at 21:00 UTC. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work by May 23rd at 21:00 UTC.

CHALLENGE: Social Media Analysis (up to 10 points)

This assignment will focus on taking the raw data scraped scraping social media data assignment and performing one of several types of analysis. Descriptive analyses can be performed to explore the range of tweet topics and survey responses. Maps can be created for spatial or geographic analyses. Network analyses can be used to describe the connections between Twitter users or Facebook friends. Sentiment analysis can be used to interpret the nature of Twitter, Facebook, and survey data content. Quantitative and/or qualitative analysis methods can be used for this assignment. In some cases statistical analysis will be possible and not in others. More details about this assignment can be found in the assignments section found on the navigation toolbar. This project should take you approximately three hours to complete, possibly longer depending on the analysis. To receive credit for this assignment you will need to submit your analysis. This assignment is due by May 24th at 21:00 UTC. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work by May 29th at 21:00 UTC.

CHALLENGE: How To Video (up to 10 points)

This assignment will focus on sharing skills you have. Select a FREE tool that you think would be helpful to students in this course. Record a step by step how to video showing students exactly how to use the tool. This can be any

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kind of tool you might think of that would be helpful to people interested in improving their city. More details about this assignment can be found in the assignments section found on the navigation toolbar. This project will take a variable amount of time depending on the tool the student develops and their knowledge of video creation. To receive credit for this assignment you will need to submit your video. This assignment is due by May 24th at 21:00 UTC. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work. You will then be asked to evaluate three other students work by May 29th at 21:00 UTC.

INTEGRITY
Plagiarism is passing off as ones own ideas, words, writings etc., which belong to another. You are committing plagiarism if you copy the work of another person and turn it in as your own even if you should have the permission of that person. It is critical that you appropriately cite the work of others. The coursera honor code addresses plagiarism. This course is about using your own creativity to generate unique individual projects. Honor the spirit of this course!

CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1: Infrastructure for the Real Time City: Youll learn how sensors and networks are transforming our cities. Week 2: Engaging the Real Time City: Through social networking and crowdsourcing platforms youll learn how to engage in city building. Week 3: Analyzing the Real Time City: From sentiment analysis to mashups, youll experiment with analyzing data. Week 4: Entrepreneurial Urbanism: Youll explore how open data initiatives, hack-a-thons, and urban prototyping festivals are creatively innovating our cities.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Which materials are required for course completion? What's the difference between Core materials and Challenge materials?
To help you make your way through this course, we have created and collected many resources that will be freely available to you during the duration of this course. We have divided the course materials intoCoreandChallenge** resources. All of the core resources are essential to your gaining a basic grasp on technology and its influence on cities. Watching a Core video or demonstration, for example, provides critical information and may include activities that you need to complete. Resources identified as Challenge are optional materials that can enrich your understanding of critical concepts, terms, or practices from the course. You can find a list of Challenge activities for each week in the weekly walkthroughs, available on the left-hand Navigation Bar through "Week X Walkthrough". Students seeking a Statement of Completion with Distinction should complete the Challenge activities. Students enrolled for credit at Ohio State University, must complete all Challenge activities. Students enrolled for AICP Certification Maintenance credit must complete a minimum of 15 hours worth of efforts, which can be achieved through a mix of videos, readings, engagement, and assignments.

Why do I keep seeing the abbreviation UTC, and what does it mean?
Since our course participants access this site from all around the world, we have chosen to list assignment due times in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). To calculate the difference between UTC and your local time zone, try

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this web site.

Why are the course videos produced at various screen resolutions and different backgrounds?
TechniCity is an experiment. As such we have invited a diverse group of guest speakers. We have experimented with a number of different lecture capture techniques. Some result in spectacular results and others meet a minimum quality threshold using free and low cost capture methods. We hope that you will find all of these to be accessible and promote learning.

If you have additional questions, please ask them in the Discussion Forums for this class.

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