Presentation 1 // SI 658 Information Architecture

last revised: January 8, 2008

Assignment

Students will team-up (teams of 3) to present a book report (30 mins duration - pass/fail). This assignment will determine 20% of your course grade.

Requirements

• Each team member must have a "speaking part" in the presentation, although it's up to you how to divide things up.
• 30 minutes is all you get (exclusive of class discussion after you've finished presenting)
• Book reports are not meant to exhaustively describe every aspect of the text that's been assigned - rather, what you should focus on is:
  • Who's the author and where are they located in their discipline or in "the industry"
  • What are some of the key elements of their argument or observation
  • What's the critical response to this work - who's agreeing or disagreeing with the book's premise and what's the jist of the critique (if any)
  • Why would an information architect care about this work - what's the IA-specific takeaway?
    
    
• New for 2008: apply the teachings or principles in the book to the redesign of the information architecture of one page or feature of any site on the public web.
  

Crazy and Inflexible Policy Regarding Presentation 1 Schedule

Signups for the various books and slots happens in a "land rush" sort of way, and if class members cannot sort themselves into groups in an orderly fashion, the instructor will make arbitrary decisions to fill any gaps in the schedule.

Books and topics are carefully mapped to the lecture content for each class session. Extensions for this assignment will only be granted in cases where the team needing an extension negotiates a "trade" with another group for their timeslot and topic. If your partner bails on you, you become responsible for presenting their content on their behalf(!).