Labs/ConceptSeries/StudentOutreach/AICuza
Contents
About A.I. Cuza University
The Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași is the oldest higher education institution in Romania. Since 1860, the university has been carrying on a tradition of excellence and innovation in the fields of education and research. With over 38.000 students and 800 academic staff, the university enjoys high prestige at national and international level and cooperates with over 250 universities world-wide.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi became the first student-centered university in Romania, once the Bologna Process was implemented. Research at our university is top level. For the third year in a row, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University was placed first in the national research ranking compiled on the basis of Shanghai criteria. Striving for excellence, the university takes unique initiatives to stimulate research quality, to encourage dynamic and creative education and to involve its best students in academic life. Read more about Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi
Faculty of Computer Science
Encouraging excellency in study and research, the Faculty of Computer Science provides a high-level education in Computer Science, as well as a flexible and stimulative scientific environment. Faculty of Computer Science is one of the 15th faculties of the A. I. Cuza University of Iasi.
The faculty offers specialization in Computer Science, 3 year Bachelor of Science studies (in English and Romanian languages). At the Master of Science level, currently there are available five MSc programs (taught in English language only): Software Engineering, Distributed Computing, Computational Optimization, Information Security, and Computational Linguistics — details.
Read more about the Faculty of Computer Science.
Course: Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) course (available since 2000) provides a comprehensible vision of the user interface design aspects and the user-computer interaction types. During the semester (16 weeks long), the students are involved in designing ergonomic and attractive interfaces for specific types of users, applications, platforms, and devices, including Web and mobile ones.
Currently, at the HCI discipline are enrolled 70 students (Master on Software Engineering and Master of Computational Linguistics).
Among the topics already discussed, we can mention: human factor, design models and methodologies, information architecture, interaction design patterns, model-based user interaction, and emotion-oriented systems — also, browse the available lectures and additional resources.
The list of HCI projects is focused on several topics of interest proposed by Mozilla within Student Outreach initiative.
This year, the evaluation procedure consists of:
- midterm assessment (from the primary design to wireframing & storytelling) of the proposed practical project — already completed;
- final assessment (from prototype to concrete implementation) — to be presented at the end of the semester.
- lab activity — student's involvement during the laboratory, plus contribution and/or participation to the HCI-related events — e.g., workshops, conferences, contests, other major public projects.
The HCI course team:
- Dr. Sabin-Corneliu Buraga — an Associate Professor at UAIC having a wide research and teaching experience in Web Technologies and related fields, including human-computer interaction and social and semantic Web. He achieved a PhD in Information Sciences (Cum Laude) and he (co)authored more than 80 papers (published by IEEE Press, Springer, AAAI Press, IOS Press, Elsevier, etc.) and 11 books, having more than 50 citations. He served many times as a member of research grants, program committees or/and organizing committees of different (inter)national scientific events, summer schools or student contests. He was involved in mentoring several student teams. He has also 7 years experience in the academic management (as Chancellor and Vice-Dean).
- Ecaterina Moraru (née Valica) — currently Interaction Designer at XWiki, honored with "Best in Class" by Mozilla Labs for the Design Challenge, Spring 2009. Also, Ecaterina is the author of a very useful collection of interaction design patterns.
- Stefan Negru — a PhD student having research interests in HCI, affective computing, physical computing, and organic computing.
Among currently enrolled students, a "VIP" could be distinguished: Alecsandru Grigoriu who participated to the 4 editions of Mozilla Labs Design series, since he was an undergraduate student — watch his demos. Also, he is a member of the teaching team of Web Technologies discipline.
2011 Course Structure
2011 Project Teams
After midterm evaluation, from 21 delivered projects several interesting proposals could be mentioned:
- Patient Eye Tracking Interface by Adriana Florea, Emanuela Boros, Alexandru Metzak, Alexandru Ginsca
Proposal: Due to the large number of patients with various motor and speech impediments or paralysis, the medical staff has developed a system that helps them communicate with these kinds of patients. The system is based on the movement of a patient's eyes and eyelids. For example, the medical staff wants to determine where the pain is on a patient's body. The patients using eye or eyelid movement can answer a series of questions addressed by the medical staff. The medical staff needs a team of developers to propose an implementation of this system on a mobile device: tablet or smartphone.
- Blind Beethoven by Marina Cufliuc, Cristian Dragusanu, Andreea Iuga and Petronela Stan
Proposal: In a parallel universe, Ludwig van Beethoven is born in an era where ubiquitous computing is highly developed. Over time, he lost his sight, but he can still compose and play the piano and also recognize several musical scores. However, he will enjoy to use a device to help him to compose music, including to manage different versions of a certain musical work, and/or navigate on the Web (e.g., for example, to share his musical preferences with Franz Schubert or Goethe on Last.fm). Propose a working prototype for an application to be deployed on at least 2 different devices that helps Beethoven.
- Social Trivia by Mihai Sterpu, Dumitru Emciuc, Cristian Ursache, Cristina Tanase
Proposal: Imagine a series of serious games which test the user knowledge regarding the Web history and evolution, starting with 1990. Propose a multilingual trivia system based on services provided by a social Web platform such as Facebook or Twitter.
- My Web Browser by Roxana Boicu, Dorin Solomon, Anda Turcanu, Alexandra Mihu
Proposal: Provide an innovative solution for a better interaction between very busy people and their favorite browser. Consider factors like user profile (demographics, social status, background knowledge, preferences, mood,...), current agenda, environment, and other significant aspects.
- Social Web Interaction by Andreea Stanciu, Ioana Schiopu, Alecsandru Grigoriu, Ioana Lazar
Proposal: Imagine an innovative solution concerning the interaction with an actual social Web application (e.g., a social network platform like Facebook, a resource sharing Web system such as Delicious, Digg, Slideshare, Vimeo, etc.) by using new devices. For example, the users could employ Kinect or Wiimote devices and/or could use smartphones and tablets.
