Programme Information

Course Descriptions

This handbook is intended to provide students with basic information on the programme content, aims and objectives, teaching and assessment, support and other issues. It indicates what is expected of you, and will help you to make the most of your time on the Programme. It should be read carefully and frequently, and used in conjunction with other material provided by the University and the School, especially the Code of Practice for Taught Postgraduate Programmes (also available on the Web at www.acaffairs.ed.ac.uk/Regulations/CoP/PGT/), the Students Association Postgrad Handbook (also known as the “Postgrad Survival Guide” available via www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/) and the Architecture General Handbook.

Questions or problems should be addressed in the first instance to the Programme Director.
Note: This handbook is published by the School of Arts, Culture and Environment to give information to candidates about the MSc/Diploma programme. This programme handbook does not supersede the University regulations, and the formal requirements for the programme are as set out in the University’s Postgraduate Study Programme (www.drps.ed.ac.uk/10-11/regulations/postgrad.php); a copy of the Degree Programme Table entry for this programme appears in the Appendix of this document. Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this handbook is correct at the start of the session. However, details are subject to change during the course of the year, and will then be notified to students as appropriate. The online version of this handbook will also be updated.

Prof. John Lee

Graduate School
School of Arts, Culture and Environment
Alison House, room G.15
12 Nicolson Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9DF, UK

Phone: +44(0)131 650 2335/4420
Direct line: 50 2335/4420

Email: J[dot]Lee @ed.ac.uk

Web: www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/~john/

The Programme Director is responsible for the smooth running of the Programme, including coordination of teaching and assessment, and programme evaluation. The Programme Director aims to facilitate your orientation and smooth progression through the programme, from initial induction through to transition to the project/dissertation stage, and final completion; and is also available as the first line of pastoral support (see below).

The degree aims to provide a rich cross-disciplinary programme of study for its students to develop skills in the area of computer-aided design, multimedia, networking and other digital technologies applied to design. Its graduates will be conversant with appropriate technologies and with the practices and social contexts in which such technologies are developed and used. The programme will impart practical skills within the framework of a critical and reflective appreciation of the impact and influence of digital technology.

The programme of study assumes all students are at the beginner level in design computing, but are prepared to advance quickly. The programme is designed to allow you to develop according to your skills and interests.

Specifically, the aims of the programme are to:

develop specific knowledge and provide a broadly-based foundation in design technologies
encourage the development of good design in its broadest sense
foster the ability to work co-operatively in groups in the context of design
develop understanding of the potential for new technologies
enable the use of existing computer-aided design techniques in a creative way
provide an analytical and critical framework to enable students to develop fresh thinking in design by building on their undergraduate or industrial experience
assist students in discovering new creative uses of advanced technologies
give students an understanding of the scope and limitations of computer applications in design
encourage the development of business and entrepreneurial skills in working with digital media

The outcomes of the programme fall into several categories, as follows.

Knowledge and understanding

On completing the programme students should be able to

a advise on the applicability of digital technologies in a professional design context

b critically evaluate digital technologies and their applicability to design

c analyse requirements and derive design solutions for presentation and information applications

d demonstrate understanding of the cultural and business context in which digital technologies are developed and promoted

Subject-specific skills

On completing the programme, students should be able to:

a apply techniques of CAD, multimedia, video editing, sound and 3d modelling

b design effective multimedia presentations

c develop a dynamic web site

d program interactive behaviours using a scripting language

e draft a business plan in a design context

f relate technological options to considerations of practice

g develop and respond to critical argument on cultural issues relating to the use of digital technologies

Key skills

On completing the programme students should be able to:

a use information technology creatively in solving problems

b put together presentations and installations using digital media

c assess the value and applicability of developments in digital technology as they emerge

d critically assess the popular and academic literature that accompanies the promotion of digital technologies

e manage time and prioritise work tasks

f follow an independent programme of study through to completion

g present themselves for interview and demonstrate the ability to work in a professional context

h demonstrate that they have a learning and professional development strategy

Note

Our overall objective is not to produce highly skilled technicians or programmers, but to encourage the development of rounded professionals with a wide appreciation of the issues of digital design in the contemporary world. This is a one-year programme, and as such has certain limitations. It may be taken, for example, by designers, computer specialists, social theorists and managers. It aims to inform any of these about the others, to allow them to understand each others’ points of concern, and to work together in teams. It cannot, in most cases, directly convert students from any one of these specialisms into another, e.g. designers into computer specialists, or vice versa. It should, however, equip those who wish to pursue conversion with a solid foundation from which to move forward in the desired direction. Students who begin at an advanced level in any area are encouraged to exploit and share their skills, but cannot expect dedicated tuition to cater to their further development. In assessment, credit is given for advanced performance, but perhaps even more for grappling with, using and benefiting from material outside an area of original specialisation. In assessment, we seek especially to acknowledge sensitive and effective teamworking with fellow students from a diversity of backgrounds, both academic and cultural. We endeavour to offer and support recent and highly-specified versions of the software we use; however, these are never crucial, and we aim to promote a flexibility that includes addressing projects by making appropriate use of whatever tools are available.

The MSc in Design and Digital Media is organised and run within the Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture (ESALA) (http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/edinburgh-college-art/architecture-landscape-architecture). The Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) became part of the University of Edinburgh in August 2011 (http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/edinburgh-college-art/), and ESALA is now part of ECA. ECA includes also the subject areas of Music, Art, Design and History of Art. In the University structure, ECA is formally a School within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/).

The full time programme runs through two semesters and the summer “vacation” period. Work on the supervised dissertation project occupies the whole of the summer “vacation” period. Each semester typically includes 11 weeks of teaching, plus an “examination” period. Official session dates are given at http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/semester-dates/. Note that in this programme we are not committed to avoiding all teaching during those weeks that are nominated as “examination” weeks, since we have no examinations and do not to any great extent share students with programmes in other Schools. The period following the spring vacation will in our case be dedicated to beginning work on the Final Project.

Courses

Semester 1: Introduction and Orientation

ARCH11001 Introduction to Design Media

ARCH11003 Interactive Design Media

ARCH11002 Media and Culture

Semester 2: Practice, Reflection and Action

ARCH11004 Dynamic Web Design

ARCH11005 The Digital Marketplace [or other option*]

ARCH11006 Digital Media Studio Project [or other option*]

Summer period (Vacation): Integration

ARCH11007 Final Project

In each semester, the three courses run concurrently through the whole semester. Each course carries 20 credit points, and the Final Project carries 60. The programme may be taken part-time, in which case four courses (ARCH11001, ARCH11003, ARCH11004 and ARCH11006 [or option]) are taken in the first year, and the two other courses, as well as the Final Project, in the second.

* This course is optional and may be replaced by any 20 credit points offered by the University of Edinburgh, or the Edinburgh College of Art, that meets with the approval of the Programme Director and the Head of Architecture. Note that a substitute for The Digital Marketplace could potentially be composed of the 10-credit version of the Digital Marketplace (ARCH11036) and one other 10-credit course. An approved option in this case would be the course Copyright and Related Rights for the Creative Industries (LAWS11206), offered by the School of Law. A substitute for Digital Media Studio Project could be Advanced Visualization and Animation (CACE11002). A student wishing to consider either of these, or any other any option, should discuss it with the Programme Director, preferably at the start of the year.

Two prizes will be awarded at the end of the session.

The Aart Bijl Student Prize

For outstanding leadership in the learning and welfare of the student body (£200).

Aart Bijl was a pioneer in the development of CAD and AI applications. He led the EdCAAD research group in Architecture from 1968 to 1994.

The John Lansdown Project Prize

For outstanding contribution to the final project (£200).

John Lansdown was a pioneer in multimedia in art and design. He proposed the creation of the MSc in Design and Digital Media in collaboration with Middlesex University in 1997.

The following are times for scheduled workshops and seminars. Tutorial assistance will also be available at various times outwith these hours. Studio facilities are accessible 24 hours, once students have attended a Health and Safety awareness training session.

For Semester 1:

	9-10	10-11	11-12	12-1	1-2	2-3	3-4	4-5
Monday
Tuesday						Introduction to Design Media (lecture/activity)
Wednesday		Tutorial groups (as advised)
Thursday			Media and Culture (lecture)			Interactive Design Media (lecture/activity)
Friday

Courses in both semesters will usually use these same time slots, but are subject to variation, and the whole length of a time slot may not be used. Note in particular that The Digital Marketplace courses (ARCH11005, ARCH11036) will normally run from 4.00pm to 6.00pm in semester 2. The final summer vacation period is necessarily organised very flexibly. See the Programme Calendar for further details, but be aware that changes may be notified at any time as the year progresses, possibly at short notice. Tutorial group meetings will be organised periodically throughout the programme (not necessarily on Wednesdays) and students will be advised as necessary. Full attendance is expected at all sessions, including tutorial groups. Other events include the regular Architecture Postgraduate Seminar Series, in which participation is strongly encouraged. Students are expected to spend a large proportion of the working week in the studio or libraries; it should be assumed that several hours of preparatory reading may be needed for lectures or tutorials associated with the essay-based courses. A general guideline in the University is that full-time students will be putting in at least 40 hours of effort per week across all their courses and during the Final Project period. (1 credit point broadly equates to 10 hours of expected overall student effort.)

Attendance monitoring

Please note that legislation passed recently by the UK Government, relating to Points-Based Immigration, requires all universities to monitor the attendance of their international students.
In the College of Humanities and Social Science, we meet this duty by monitoring the attendance of all our students, as this gives us a positive opportunity to identify and help all students who might be having problems of one kind or another, or who might need more support. The details of how we undertake this will be communicated to students in more detail elsewhere.

Note that any non-attendance by international students may affect your sponsorship status.

The studio for this programme is in the “Atrium” area of the ECA Graduate School in Alison House, Nicolson Square (internal telephone extension 508133).
View Larger Map

MSc lecture/seminars will also take place in other lecture rooms, as listed below. The studio is normally available 24 hours for MSc use, but may on occasion be booked for other purposes, e.g. teaching evening courses, visiting lectures, concerts or screenings.

The ECA Graduate School Office is located in Minto House, 20 Chambers St. (about 2 minutes’ walk away), and is where all forms of administrative support for the programme can be accessed. Please note that the office is open to students only during the hours 1000-1230 and 1430-1630, Monday to Friday.
View Larger Map

Other lecture locations are as follows.

Introduction to Design Media, Tuesday 1400-1450: David Hume tower, Faculty Room South

Interactive Design Media, Thursday 1400-1450: David Hume Tower, Room 4.01

Media and Culture, Thursday 1100-1300: Architecture Lecture Room 1, Minto House, 20 Chambers St.

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The programme is taught by a combination of lecture/seminars, tutorials, practical sessions and studios. However, much of the responsibility for study will be the student’s own and you will be encouraged to form study groups, work together and share expertise. Teaching will be available at various times outwith the timetabled hours of specific sessions. Students will also be expected to meet individually with a member of the programme staff at least once in the first semester.

Each taught course provides advanced tuition in a specialised aspect of the subject. Certain courses are based mainly on lecture/seminars, while others emphasise short creative production projects which develop, exemplify and integrate practical skills in the use of digital media. Each course has a Course Organiser, who is the first recourse for questions about the content, assessment and other specifically course-related issues.

Commonly, project work will be team-based. Projects are required to display evidence of original thinking, independent achievement within a framework of team-working, and creative ability. Collaborative team-based projects will be structured so that the individual contribution of each student in the group can be identified and assessed. The Final Project in particular will, of course, be mostly self-directed work (again perhaps as a team), with periodic supervision meetings.

Although this is a “taught programme”, our emphasis in these courses is more on facilitating learning than on teaching. We aim to provide an environment in which learning can be maximised, and the teaching staff are just one resource among many that students can exploit. Even when not explicitly team-based, learning is to us a highly collaborative activity, and the students themselves are the key resource for each other. We prescribe little; we expect to be challenged and questioned. We are often not expert users of particular software applications; we expect students to explore, exploit the internet and the wider University, seek other sources of expertise, engage with practices of research. We will usually reward experimentation, innovation, creativity and boldness of conception in all courses. Note that in this research-led university, staff are engaged in research projects as well as teaching, which brings benefits to students involved in taught programmes. Research informs teaching, and there may be opportunities directly to engage in research projects during the year and beyond.

In common with general design education practice, the main assessment of design progress is by means of project-work (some of it group project-work), sometimes complemented by a relatively short written report.

Assessment will take into account:

the extent to which a student has contributed original ideas to the projects
the creative ability displayed
the depth and breadth of coursework understanding revealed
the extent to which the intention of the project has been revealed
skills in visual, written and verbal communication of the project ideas

Criteria for the assessment of group work vary, and will sometimes be based on the overall product of a group, sometimes more on individual contribution. Assessment of project work, in particular, may require students to engage with techniques of self assessment and peer assessment. Criteria for assessment are further elaborated in each course description and in the marking scheme. In all cases the limitations and potential of the available resources will be taken into account. The importance of written reports is not to be minimised. There will also be longer assessed essays in certain courses. In this programme, there are no traditional written examination sessions. Note that, in accordance with Appendix 1 of the Code of Practice for Taught Postgraduate Programmes, any form of plagiarism will be treated as a very serious disciplinary issue. See also the University regulations at http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/academic-services/policies-regulations/regulations/assessment, and on plagiarism the useful student guidance offered via the links on the page at http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/academic-services/students/postgraduate-taught/discipline/plagiarism (see especially the link to the document at http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Discipline/StudentGuidanceUGPGT.pdf).

Submission of written work will normally require at least two hard copies, plus a digital version. All other work must be submitted digitally, either on CD-ROM, via Web-CT or by transfer to an appropriate hard diskc, according to instructions from the course organiser. Written copies and CD-ROM discs are to be submitted to the ACE Postgraduate Office.

All submissions will be given a mark which remains provisional until ratified by the Board of Examiners, which meets in May/June to decide on progression to the project stage, and again for final assessment in September/October. The Board of Examiners includes an External Examiner, whose role is to assure standards of assessment and to provide a further source of advice on the Programme. Students may in exceptional circumstances be required to undertake an oral examination. Students are also usually invited to an informal meeting with the External Examiner in May/June (see the Programme Calendar).

The University has a procedure for academic appeals, which can be found in section 10.3 of the Code of Practice for Taught Postgraduate Programmes
(http://www.acaffairs.ed.ac.uk/Regulations/CoP/PGT/).

Project work may only contain visual, sonic and interactive resources that are developed within the class, by you or your colleagues this year. This is in order to (1) help you develop skills in using resources creatively, responsibly and with appropriate acknowledgement, (2) enable you to publish material on the Internet without the risk of violating copyright. So you may not use or adapt external copyrighted, even creative commons or shareware resources, such as photographs, smileys, icons, video or sound or music clips, animated gifs, CD tracks, mp3 clips, etc.

These guidelines are very important. Failure to adhere to them may result in the disciplinary offence of Plagiarism, which is very serious and can lead to your immediately failing the degree, or even summary expulsion from the University. Pay special heed to the warning about plagiarism in the University’s policy statements and guidelines (see URL in the section on Assessment): read these very carefully and make sure that nothing in your work can possibly be construed as plagiarism. Remember that plagiarism can arise if you present the distinctive thoughts or ideas of another person as your own, even if you have changed all of the original words. You must always properly acknowledge the source of anything in your work that is not entirely original.

Follow the reference and footnote conventions outlined in Russell (1992), or the APA style guide (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_apa.html). Reference ALL material used from other sources, especially direct quotes. Include the page number of the source of the quote in your reference wherever possible. Give clear URLs for all materials accessed from the Web. Do not include material copied directly from any source (e.g. a web page or a book) unless it is essential for you to comment on it; and then always make sure you enclose it in quotation marks, or in some other conventional way (e.g. as an indented block) clearly identify it as a quotation, and give the source accurately and as precisely as possible. If you are following the structure of someone else’s argument and not your own then you need to reference this fact (e.g. Following Vidler’s (1992) argument on the uncanny we see first that…). Also indicate where you are following someone else’s use of a reference to a text you have not read. For example if Vidler makes an interesting reference to Freud, and you have not read the Freud text, then reference Vidler as the source, not Freud (e.g. According to Vidler (1992), Freud uses the uncanny to…). Provide references for illustrations if you have any. You may also find the classic Elements of Style (Strunk, 1916) useful, if not quaint. Use the UK English spelling checker on your wordprocessor. The grammar checker can also be useful. Diagrams and images must also be attributed, even when digitally manipulated.

Use of the WWW for research is encouraged, but it is inappropriate to copy and paste ANY text (or image etc.) from the web without indicating its status as a quotation and without full attribution to author and URL, since this would count as plagiarism.

Note that inappropriate use of web material can often be detected by the examiners undertaking spot checks on key words and phrases using web search engines and other tools, including specialised plagiarism detection software. Note that making superficial changes to copied material to disguise its origins also constitutes plagiarism and is not allowed. Do not ever take even part of a sentence from somewhere, change a few words, and then include it in your text without attribution as if it were your own: this is plagiarism and will be treated as such if detected.

As work by MSc students is often published on the Internet, issues of copyright are also a major concern. This applies as much, or more, to project work as to essays. It is imperative that all source material external to the course is referenced, and where necessary permission to reproduce is obtained. Students are requested generally not to use visual or sound resources (e.g. images, music, movie clips) from other sources (including the WWW, CDs, DVDs, MP3 sources, etc.), even where these are public-domain libraries, except for critical commentary as permitted under copyright law. There are important educational reasons why we encourage the use of resources generated from within the courses, and copyright is also a crucial consideration in any kind of professional design practice. For information on copyright law in the UK, see
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-about.htm

References

Russell, Terence M. 1992. Essays, Reports and Dissertations: Guidance Notes on the Preparation and Presentation of Written Work, Architecture, University of Edinburgh. [Available in the Architecture Library.]
Strunk, William (1918). Elements of Style, Geneva, N.Y.: Press of W.P. Humphrey. [Available on line at www.bartleby.com/141/index.html.]

All courses and projects will be marked on the University of Edinburgh’s common postgraduate marking scheme, as laid out in the Code of Practice, interpreted as in the section Marking Scheme in this handbook.
Students must achieve an average of at least 50% over their six final course marks for the first two semesters’ work before being eligible to proceed to the Final Project. At most one course may have a mark below 50%. At least 50% must also be achieved in the Final Project to qualify for the award of MSc.
Students who pass courses at diploma level only (40%), or pass at MSc level but do not wish to proceed to the Final Project, are eligible for the award of the Diploma in Design and Digital Media. The Diploma is awarded on coursework alone.
The MSc degree may be awarded with Distinction if, normally: the Final Project achieves an “A” mark (70% or more) and the credit-weighted average of the taught component is no less than 69%. The award of Distinction is at the discretion of the Board of Examiners.

The marking scale is in accordance with the University’s Extended Common Marking Scheme, see
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/registry/exams/common-marking-scheme for full details.

Extended Common Marking Scheme

A1 90-100 An excellent performance, satisfactory for a distinction.
A2 80-89 An excellent performance, satisfactory for a distinction.
A3 70-79 An excellent performance, satisfactory for a distinction.
B 60-69 A very good performance
C 50-59 A good performance, satisfactory for a masters degree.
D 40-49* A satisfactory performance for the diploma, but inadequate for a masters degree.
E 30-39 Marginal fail **
F 20-29 Clear fail **
G 10-19 Bad fail **
H 0-9 Bad fail **

*Assessment of the dissertation component: A mark of 47-49 may be used to denote the possibility that by minor revision the work may be upgraded to masters standard.
**Assessment of the dissertation component: In those programmes where a diploma may be awarded for the taught component only, a failed dissertation may be put aside and the diploma awarded. (MSc Design and Digital Media is such a programme.)

The standard of work required to achieve these grades is as laid out below.

Note that you may be used to a different marking system in your previous institution, especially if this was overseas. Here we expect to use the full range of marks, and marks in the 70% to 100% range are not as common here as in some systems. Standards are checked by the external examination process, and staff are involved in external examining in programmes in other universities, which ensures parity with other UK institutions.

A1 (90+) Excellent

Requirements are as for A2, but with all or almost all aspects of the work being of exemplary standard. Normal expectations will have been substantially exceeded and there will be clear evidence of originality. Work at this level may be considered to be publishable in a scholarly or academic conference, or similar context.

The Structure may be weak, showing little understanding of the question and no understanding of its wider implications. It may tend towards random presentation of facts and opinions. The Language and Expression may present a significant number of basic errors in spelling and grammar and may have deficiencies in the scholarly apparatus. It may fail to present any evidence of coherent, independent thought. The Range of Knowledge may be inadequate, with major errors, and of doubtful relevance to the question.
In general, the work may be poor in most, if not all areas. It may also, or alternatively, be incomplete.

F (25-34) Clear Fail

Design Work

The work is not of sufficient quality or at a level of completeness that it could be redeemed to a D without re-starting the project.

Written work

The work may be seriously deficient in most, if not all areas. It may also, or alternatively, be incomplete.

G/H (below 25) Bad Fail

The work, of whatever kind, is extremely poor, incomplete or absent. It is deficient in most or all significant respects.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your work is submitted on time. If there is a legitimate reason for not being able to meet the specified deadline, approach your course organiser for an extension.

Do this as soon as you become aware that you might have a problem. University policy is that work submitted after the specified (or re-negotiated) date will be deemed to be a late submission and will be subject to a deduction of FIVE MARKS PER DAY overdue. After five working days a mark of 0% will be recorded. (This policy applies throughout the University.)

Note that late submission of the final MSc dissertation (final project) is particularly serious and could result in failure of the dissertation component, implying failure of the MSc degree.

Application of penalties for lateness is at the discretion of the Board of Examiners. Legitimate reasons for lateness must generally be supported by medical certification or other appropriate documentary evidence. All such evidence should be submitted for Special Circumstances consideration before the relevant meeting of the Board of Examiners.

Your scheduling of all your work must take into account the vagaries of software and hardware: no kind of equipment failure, lost material, theft of laptops, etc. will normally be taken as a legitimate reason for lateness or non-submission.

Final course submissions will be marked and returned within two months of the submission date. Interim submissions may be marked more quickly, with feedback and discussion during tutorial meetings. (Notes given as feedback at any stage are not necessarily complete and do not generally reference all of the assessment criteria. Compliance with any suggestions in interim feedback is no guarantee of a good mark in a later assessment.)

When you join the University you will be given a University of Edinburgh (UoE) email account and address which will be used for a variety of essential communications. You must access and manage this account regularly as the University will send you vital information from time to time, for example on exam arrangements or changed class times or locations, and will assume that you have opened and acted on these communications. Failure to do so will not be an acceptable excuse or ground for appeal.

If you already have a web-based e-mail account and think that you are unlikely to check your UoE e-mail account, it is your responsibility to set up a forward on the UoE account to ensure that all official University communications are received. There are on-screen instructions if you wish to do so: please see www.students.ucs.ed.ac.uk/helpdesk/student/system/show.cfm?documentID=967

You can locate your email by logging into EASE. www.ease.ed.ac.uk

The following staff contribute to the programme:

John Lee	Programme Director and Deputy Director of the Human Communication Research Centre (School of Informatics)	Alison House, Graduate School Extension 502335 HCRC: Informatics Forum, rm 4.28 Extension 504420
Richard Coyne	Academic Director Professor of Architectural Computing and Head of School of ACE	Minto House, ACE School Office, Chambers Street Extension 502332
Martin Parker	MSc specialist lecturer; Programme Director of MSc in Sound Design	Alison House Extension 502333
Jules Rawlinson	MSc specialist tutor	Alison House Upper level, Atrium
Michael Clouser	Specialist tutor and course leader for The Digital Marketplace	Informatics Appleton Tower Extension 504436
Ian Gunn	Computer administrator	Maltings 4.12 Extension 508020
Geoff Lee	Computing officer	Maltings 4.12 Extension 502341
Catherine Carmichael Kirsten Phimister	MSc Secretaries (ACE Graduate School office)	Minto House, Graduate School Extension 502305
Alice Crossland	Librarian	Architecture Library Extension 502310
Other staff may participate in specialised teaching and supervising as appropriate; it is impractical to list them here.

Academic Support

Students on this programme are also supported by Architecture services, including technical support and the Architecture Library, which holds stock for this programme. In addition, the University is well provided with specialist support services through the Main Library, Computing Services, etc. These may be approached directly or through the Programme Director. Study skills, English language tuition, and many other general forms of support for students’ academic development are also available.

Pastoral Support

Students should feel free to bring problems of any kind (academic, medical, personal, religious, etc.) to the attention of the Programme Director. It is the student’s responsibility to do so immediately where the problem may affect their academic performance. The Programme Director will discuss and, where relevant, suggest solutions for any problems, and may ask other members of staff to help where appropriate. For problems that are essentially non-academic the student can if necessary be referred to counselling or other specialist support. These and other services, such as The Advice Place (run by EUSA, Bristo Square, extension 516060, www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/), may also be approached directly if preferred.

See also sources of specialist support listed in Appendix IV of the Code of Practice for Taught Postgraduate Programmes (http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Codes/CoPTaughtPGProgrammes.pdf).

Students should elect one of the class as Class Representative, who will be invited to join the Architecture Staff-Student Liaison meetings. Additionally, all students are invited to give full and free comments and opinions on all aspects of the programme, both to the Programme Director and to other members of staff, at any time. Note, however, that course organisers may not in all cases be able to provide immediate or written responses to comments.

The quality of teaching on all University programmes is regularly monitored both externally and internally. Student feedback is an important part of this process. Even more importantly, student feedback and evaluation is a very highly valued input to curriculum and programme review. For Design and Digital Media, we provide online assessment forms for each course, which students are asked to complete and submit. These augment, but do not replace, the less formal processes of raising issues or making comments directly to teaching staff. We strongly encourage all comments, it being assumed that students will be at all times constructive, even if sometimes critical, in their feedback. Students are also encouraged to complete the annual University questionnaire for taught postgraduate students, details of which will be made available in May/June.

Complaints should be brought up in the first instance with the Programme Director or the Head of the ACE Graduate School. Where necessary, other University procedures will apply, such as taking the matter to the College Postgraduate Dean and Secretary. Full details are given in The Student Handbook, available from the Registry and The Advice Place.

Students should be aware that additional costs may arise in connection with any activities that involve travel, e.g. site visits, media purchase (such as memory cards, blank CDs, DVDs, DV tapes etc.) and possibly in relation to summer projects.

University regulations and other important information for all students: www.drps.ed.ac.uk/08-09/regulations/important.php

Course Descriptions

Advanced Visualization and Animation CACE11002
Course Description

This is a project-based course enabling students to investigate 2D and 3D animation, character animation, storyboarding and narrative. The approach is experimental, looking beyond high-profile animation as seen in contemporary entertainment media, and provides an opportunity to explore innovative techniques and new contexts of application, including in interaction design.

The course will provide an opportunity to further develop skills acquired in Introduction to Design Media ARCH11001, and students enrolled in this course will already have had experience in using Blender or a similar digital modelling and animation package. You will attend the introductory classes in Digital Media Studio Project ARCH11006, as well as other relevant lectures in that course.

Learning Outcomes

able to produce a complete digital animation of short duration and of showreel quality
ability to conceptualize and direct an animation project
ability to work as a team member on an animation project
understanding of creative processes in relation to digital animation and visualization
understanding of the tools and techniques of advanced digital visualization and animation
ability to assess and explore the capabilities of the medium in a range of professional contexts

The course encourages self-directed study in several areas

storyboarding and narrative
2D and 3D animation techniques
character animation
dynamic simulation, physics engines
animated environments
motion capture
applications of animation
post production and compositing
the future of digital animation and advanced visualization

Assessment

Week 2: Storyboard for discussion at tutorial
Week 4: Mockup animation 30%
After Easter vacation: Final animation with portfolio 70%

Criteria for assessment

Work will be assessed on the basis of

Creativity and narrative quality of the final animation
Demonstrated competence with animation media
Precision and competence in presentation

References

Withrow, Stephen. 2009. Secrets of Digital Animation: A Master Class in Innovative Tools and Techniques. Hove, UK: RotoVision.
Lamarre, Thomas. Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation.
Brinkmann, Ron. 2008. The Art and Science of Digital Compositing. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.
Ablan, Dan. 2007. Digital Photography for 3D Imaging and Animation. New York: Wiley.
Dovey, Jon, and Helen Kennedy. 2006. Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media. New York: Open University Press.

Media and Culture ARCH11002
Media and Culture Expanded Bibliography

Expanded bibliography

Digital Media and Play

Bateman, Chris, and Richard Boon. 2006. 21st Century Game Design. Hingham, Mass.: Charles River Media.

Caillois, Roger. 1961. Man, Play, and Games. New York, NY: The Free Press of Glencoe.

Childressa, Marcus D., and Ray Braswellb. 2006. Using massively multiplayer online role-playing games for online Learning. Distance Education, (27) 2, 187-196.

Coyne, Richard. 2003. Mindless repetition: learning from computer games. Design Studies, (24)199-212.

Crawford, Chris. 1982. Electronic Book: The Art of Computer Game Design. Vancouver: Washington State University. [5 February 2005] http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

Dovey, Jon, and Helen Kennedy. 2006. Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media. New York: Open University Press.

King, Lucien (ed.). 2002. Game On: The History and Culture of Video Games. London: Laurence King.

Koster, R. 2005? Theory of Fun for Game Design. Paraglyph Press.

Lewis, Ben. 2006. Measuring Player Perceptions of Advertising in Online Games. Louisiana: The Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University.

Oliver, Julian Holland. 2002. The similar eye: proxy life and public space in the MMORPG. In F. Mäyrä (ed.), Proceedings of Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference, : 171-184. Tampere: Tampere University Press.

Rabin (ed), Steve. 2005. Introduction to Game Development. Hingham, Mass.: Charles River Media.

Winnicott, D. W. 1991. Playing and Reality. London: Routledge. First published in 1971.

Theories of Design

Alexander, Christopher. 1988. A city is not a tree. In J. Thackara (ed.), Design After Modernism: 67-84. London: Thames and Hudson.

Bolter, J. David, and Diane Gromala. 2003. Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Buchanan, Richard. 1995. Wicked problems in design thinking. In V. Margolin, and R. Buchanan (eds.), The Idea of Design: 3-20. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Chalmers, Matthew. 2003. Seamful design and ubicomp infrastructure. Proceedings of Ubicomp 2003 Workshop At the Crossroads: The Interaction of HCI and Systems Issues in UbiComp. Seattle, WA: www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~matthew/papers/ubicomp2003HCISystems.pdf.

Coyne, Richard, and Adrian Snodgrass. 1991. Is designing mysterious? Challenging the dual knowledge thesis. Design Studies, (12) 3, 124-131.

Coyne, Richard, Hoon Park, and Dorian Wiszniewski. 2000. Design devices: what they reveal and conceal. Kritische Berichte: Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften, (3)55-69.

Coyne, Richard, Hoon Park, and Dorian Wiszniewski. 2002. Design devices: digital drawing and the pursuit of difference. Design Studies, (23) 3, 263-286.

Coyne, Richard. 2005. Wicked problems revisited. Design Studies, (26) 1, 5-17.

Coyne, Richard. 2008. The net effect: Design, the rhizome, and complex philosophy. Futures, (40)552-561.

Cross, Nigel. 2001. Can a machine design? Design Issues, (17) 4, 44-50.

Ehn, Pelle. 1988. Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts. Stockholm: Arbetslivscentrum.

Isaacs, Ellen, and Alan Walendowski. 2002. Designing from Both Sides of the Screen: How Designers and Engineers Can Collaborate to Build Cooperative Technology. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders.

Kalay, Yehuda E. 2004. Architecture’s New Media: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design. London: MIT Press.

Leach, Neil, and RIBA Future Studies. 2002. Designing for a Digital World. Chichester: Wiley-Academic.

Malnar, Joy Monice, and Frank Vodvarka. 2004. Sensory Design. University of Minnesota Press.

Norman, Donald A. 2002. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.

Norman, Donald A. 2004. Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.

Preece, Jenny, Yvonne Rogers, and Helen Sharp. 2002. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Rank, Stephen, Carl O’Coill, Cornelia Boldyreff, and Mark Doughty. 2004. Software, architecture, and participatory design. Proc. WISER’04: eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/28/21/f18-rank.pdf. Newport Beach, CA: ACM.

Rogers, Yvonne, Jenny Preece, and Helen Sharp. 2007. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley.

Sonnenschein, David. 2001. Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.

Thackara, John. 2002. The design challenge of pervasive computing. Doors of Perception, (7) flow.doorsofperception.com/jt_intro.html,

Thackara, John. 2005. In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Computers and Society

Casalegno, Federico. 2004. Thought on the convergence of digital media, memory, and social and urban spaces. Space and Culture, (7) 313-326,

Coyne, Richard, John Lee, and Martin Parker. 2005. Permeable portals: designing congenial web sites for the e-society. Tangentium, (2) 1, http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~polaw/tangentium/jan05/index.html.

Filmer, Paul. 2003. Songtime: sound culture, rhythm and sociality. In M. Bull, and L. Back (eds.), The Auditory Culture Reader: 91-112. Oxford: Berg.

Galloway, Anne, and Matt Ward. 2006. Locative media as socialising and spatializing practice: learning from archaeology. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, (14) 3,

Griffiths, Mark. 2003. Sex on the Internet: Issues, concerns, and implications. In J. Turow, and A. L. Kavanaugh (eds.), The Wired Homestead: An MIT Press Sourcebook on the Internet and the Family: 261-281. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.

Hillier, Bill. 2002. A theory of the city as object: or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space Urban Design International (7)153-179.

Hughes, T. P.. , in , ed. , Cambrideg, Mass.: MIT Press, . 1990. The evolution of large technological systems. In W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes, and T. J. Pinch (eds.), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology: 51-82. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-network-theory Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ling, R. 2004. The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.

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Meyrowitz, Joshua. 1985. No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Mitchell, William, J. 1995. City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

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Scharl, Arnold. 2007. Towards the geospatial web: Media platforms for managing geotagged knowledge repositories. In A. Scharl, and K. Tochtermann (eds.), The Geospatial Web: How Geo-Browsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society: 3-14. London: Springer.

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Voice and Text

Adcock, Craig. 1992. Marcel Duchamp’s gap music: operations in the space between art and noise. In D. Kahn, and G. Whitehead (eds.), Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde: 105-138. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Barthes, Roland. 1977. The grain of the voice. Image, Music, Text: 179-189. London: Fontana.

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Bolter, Jay David. 1994. Topographic writing: Hypertext and the electronic writing space. In P. Delany, and G. P. Landow (eds.), Hypermedia and Literary Studies: 105-118. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bregman, Albert S. 1990. Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Bull, Michael. 2000. Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.

Bull, Michael. 2004. Thinking about sound, proximity and distance in Western experience: the case of Odyssius’s walkman. In V. Erlmann (ed.), Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity: 173-190. Oxford: Berg.

Bull, Michael. 2005. The intimate sounds of urban experience: An auditory epistemology of everyday mobility. In K. Nyíri (ed.), A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication: 169-178. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Bull, Michael. 2007. Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience. Abingdon: Routledge.

Burrows, David. 1990. Sound, Speech, and Music. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Chion, Michel. 1994. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Trans. C. Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press.

Coyne, Richard, and Martin Parker. 2005. Sounding Off: The Place of Voice in Ubiquitous Digital Media. In K. Nyíri (ed.), Proc. Seeing, Understanding, Learning in the Mobile Age, Budapest, April 28–30: 129-134

Coyne, Richard, and Martin Parker. 2006. Voices out of place: Voice, non-place and ubiquitous digital communications. In K. Nyíri (ed.), Mobile Understanding: The Epistemology of Ubiquitous Communication: 171-182. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Coyne, Richard, and Martin Parker. 2009. Voice and space: The agency of the acousmêtre in spatial design. In P. Turner, S. Turner, and E. Davenport (eds.), Exploration of Space, Technology and Spatiality: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 102-112. Hershey PA: Information Science Reference.

Coyne, Richard, Raymond Lucas, Jia Li, Martin Parker, and John Lee. 2007. Co-operation and complicity: Voices, robots, and tricksters in the digital marketplace. International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC), (5) 1, 161-175.

Derrida, Jacques. 1982. Signature event context. Margins of Philosophy: 307-330. Chicago: University of Chicago press.

Doane, Mary Ann. 1985. The voice in the cinema: The articulation of body and space. In E. Weis, and J. Belton (eds.), Film Sound: Theory and Practice: 162-176. New York: Columbia University Press.

Filmer, Paul. 2003. Songtime: sound culture, rhythm and sociality. In M. Bull, and L. Back (eds.), The Auditory Culture Reader: 91-112. Oxford: Berg.

Goodman, Steve. 2009. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Grueneisen, Peter. 2003. Soundspace: Architecture for Sound and Vision. Princeton NJ: Princeton Architectural Press.

Havelock, E.A. 1986. The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press.

How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Howard, Deborah, and Laura Moretti. 2009. Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Music, Acoustics. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan, and Amy C. Kimmheab. 2003. After hypertext: Other ideas. New Ideas in Psychology, (16)141-157.

Karandinou, Anastasia, Christina Achtypi, and Stylianos Giamarelos (eds). 2008. Athens by Sound. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Landow, George P. 1994. Hypertext as collage-writing. In P. Delany, and G. P. Landow (eds.), Hypermedia and Literary Studies: 150-170. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Landow, George P., and Paul Delany. 1994. Hypertext, hypermedia and literary studies: the state of the art. In P. Delany, and G. P. Landow (eds.), Hypermedia and Literary Studies: 3-50. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

McCaffery, Steve. 1997. From phonic to sonic: The emergence of the audio poem. In A. Morris (ed.), Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies: 149-168. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

McLuhan, Marshall. 1968. The Medium is the Massage (long playing record). CS 9501, CL2701: Columbia Records.

Morris, Adalaide. 1997. Sound technologies and the modernist epic: H.D. on the air. In A. Morris (ed.), Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies: 32-55. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Murch, Walter. 2003. Touch of Silence. In L. Sider, D. Freeman, and J. Sider (eds) (eds.), Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001: 83-102. London: Wallflower Press.

Naguib, Marc, and R. Haven Wiley. 2001. Estimating the distance to a source of sound: mechanisms and adaptations for long-range communication. Animal Behaviour, (62) 5, 825-837.

Nass, Clifford, and Scott Brave. 2007. Wired for Speech

Parker, Martin. 2008. A response to ‘Athens by Sound’. In A. Karandinou, C. Achtypi, and S. Giamarelos (eds.), Athens by Sound: 32-34. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Richards, K Malcolm. 2008. Derrida Reframed: A Guide for the Arts Student. London: IB Tauris.

Roads, Curtis. 2001. Microsound. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Roden, Steve, and Brandon Labelle (ed). 1999. Site of Sound: of Architecture and the Ear. Los Angeles: Smart Art Press.

Serres, Michel. 2007. The Parasite. Trans. L. R. Schehr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Sider, Larry, Diane Freeman, and Jerry Sider (eds). 2003. Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001. London: Wallflower Press.

Smith, Bruce. 2004. Listening to the wild blue yonder: the challenges of acoustic ecology. In V. Erlmann (ed.), Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity: 21-41. Oxford: Berg.

Sonnenschein, David. 2001. Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.

Sterne, Jonathan. 2005. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Tapia, Alejandro. 2003. Graphic design in the digital era: the rhetoric of hypertext. Design Issues, (19) 1, 5-24.

Thompson, Emily. 2004. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Toop, David. 1995. Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds. London: Serpent’s Tail. [with Martin Parker]

Vovolis, Thanos. 2003. The voice and the mask in ancient Greek tragedy. In L. Sider, D. Freeman, and J. Sider (eds.), Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001: 73-82. London: Wallflower Press.

Weis, Elizabeth, and John Belton (eds). 1985. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Zizek, Slavoj. 1996. “I hear you with my eyes”; or, the invisible master. In R. Saleci, and S. Zizek (eds.), Gaze and Voice as Love Objects: 90-126. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Digital Media and the Body

Crang, Mike, Phil Crang, and May Jon. 1999. Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Space and Relations. London: Routledge.

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Palumbo, Maria Luisa. 2000. New Wombs: Electronic Bodies and Architectural Disorders. Basel: Birkhäuser.

Pfeifer, Rolf, and Josh C. Bongard. 2006. How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: A New View of Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Theories of Metaphor

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Coyne, Richard, Adrian Snodgrass, and David Martin. 1994. Metaphors in the Design Studio. JAE (Journal of Architectural Education), (48) 2, 113-125.

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Palladino, P., and Young T. 2003. Fight Club and the World Trade Center: On metaphor, scale, and the spatio-temporal (dis)location of violence. Cultural Values, (7) 2, 195-218.

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VR and Techno-Utopias

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The Digital Marketplace ARCH11005
The Digital Marketplace: course schedule

Session	Date	Topic	Venue	Assignments Due
1	Tuesday 18 January 2011 16.00-18.00	Introduction to the Digital Marketplace and Entrepreneurial Ventures Lecturer: Michael Clouser	Appleton Tower (AT) room 2.12
2	Tuesday 25 January 2011 16.00-18.00	The Internet and Electronic Marketplaces Lecturer: Michael Clouser	AT 2.12
3	Wednesday 26 January 2011 19.00-21.00	Writing a Business Plan + Drafting a Presentation Lecturer: Michael Clouser	AT 2.12
4	Tuesday 01 February 2011 16.00-18.00	Human Resource Strategy Lecturer: Michael Clouser	AT 2.12
5	Tuesday 08 February 2011 16.00-18.00	Business Models in Electronic Distributed Media Lecturer: Michael Clouser	AT 2.12
6	Monday 21 February 2011 19.00-21.00	Selling Lecturer: Michael Clouser	AT 2.12
7	Tuesday 22 February 2011 14.00-18.00* *special 4 hour session	Presentation and Pitching Guest Lecturer: Bill Joos	Venue TBA
8	Monday 28 February 2011 19.00-21.00 Optional Session	Accounting and Finance Guest Lecturer: Michael Clouser	AT 2.12
9	Tuesday 01 March 2011 16.00-18.00	Intellectual Property for the Digital Marketplace Entrepreneur Guest Lecturer: Candice Donnelley, Solicitor, Pinsent Masons LLP - Edinburgh 2^nd Half: Emily Walters, founder EW Multimedia - Edinburgh	AT 2.12
10	Tuesday 08 March 2011 14.00-18.00 *NB 4-hour session	Bootstrapping the Venture: Financing the Venture & Marketing Strategy Guest Lecturer: Trevor Loy, Founder, Flywheel Ventures	AT 2.12
Deliverable 1 For 20 point version of DM only	Friday 04 March 2011 Before 16.00			Evaluation of a System: Due by 16.00 to Alison House Graduate Office
Deliverable 2 For both 10 and 20 point versions of DM	Monday 18 April 2011 Before 16.00			Business Plan, Presentation, and Executive Summary: Due by 16:00 to Alison House Graduate Office
Pitching Day				TBD - May or June 2010

THE DIGITAL MARKETPLACE

SPRING 2011

Tutorial: A two hour tutorial is required attendance, and will cover two areas: Writing a business plan + Drafting a presentation. This will be held on Wednesday 26th January from 19.00-21.00.
Office hours are every Monday between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm in room 8.11, Appleton Tower. The first session will be Monday, January 24th 2011, and the last will be Monday, March 21st, 2011.

*Teams size will be limited to 3 members each.

Events:

The Entrepreneurship Club at the University of Edinburgh has a full schedule of Events commencing in January of 2010. See the event schedule here.

Informatics Ventures has events on as well. You can see the event list here.

Launch.ed.ac.uk serves students at the University of Edinburgh. You can find the event list here.

The Digital Marketplace

Spring 2011

SHORT DESCRIPTION

In this course students will conduct a case-study, evaluating against commercial criteria a commercially-oriented web site chosen in consultation with teaching staff. The study centres on what is required for the development and commercial exploitation of a system and how this relates to its design. The study then moves to the development of a business plan and presentation, informed by the evaluation exercise, to commercialise a digital design idea which will preferably be one developed by the student (e.g. the prototype site developed in P00177), otherwise one chosen in consultation with teaching staff. This is set against the general context of business practice: entrepreneurialism, intellectual property, company creation, raising of funding, market assessment, product development, marketing, etc.; as well as relevant aspects of the contemporary cultural and philosophical study of such practices. The course will be based on study of online resources, guest speakers, with discussion in lecture/seminars, and will be relatively self-directed.

“The highlight of the course will be a presentation to a panel of experts who will provide feedback on the business plan and presentation.”

This course is developed and presented by the School of Informatics, with support from Scottish Enterprise and the European Union. Visiting speakers will play a prominent role.

SUMMARY OF OUTCOMES

At the end of this course students will be able to:

* Evaluate business opportunities and challenges in growing ICT markets

* Conduct background research in order to identify emerging opportunities

* Identify and analyze competition using Porter’s five forces model

* Formulate strategies for starting and growing a new venture

* Analyze complex environments and operations in startup business cases

* Identify the characteristics of a solid business plan to investors

* Model financial statements, including five year projections, for a business plan

* Write a credible formal business plan, executive summary, and slide presentation

* Evaluate and apply human resource management strategies

* Describe the marketplace and processes for early stage financing of high risk ventures

* Understand the use of various mechanisms of finance: equity, debt, leasing, bootstrapping, grants

* Understand the benefits of programmes offered through organizations such as the University of Edinburgh, Scottish Enterprise, other local institutions that assist startup entrepreneurs and SMEs

DELIVERABLES

1) Evaluation of a System (50%): Due to ‘Alison House’ Office by 16.00 on Friday the 4^th of March, 20111. (Students opting to take the 20 credit version of the course only must submit by this date).

* 50% of mark for 20 credit version

2) Business Plan, Presentation & Pitch: Due to ‘Alison House’ Office by 16.00 on Monday, 18 April, 2011, (Students opting to take both the 10 and 20 credit versions of the course must submit by this date).

Business Plan: Maximum of 30 pages

Executive Summary: Maximum of 1 page

Slide Presentation: 10 - 15 pages

* 50% of mark for 20 credit version

* 100% of mark for 10 credit version

TUTORIAL

A two hour tutorial is required attendance, and will cover two areas:

1) Writing-up your business plan

2) Drafting a presentation

CONTACT

Michael Clouser

Lecturer

Postal Address:

School of Informatics

University of Edinburgh

811 Appleton Tower

11 Crichton Street

Edinburgh, EH8 9LE

Scotland , UK

Telephone: +44 (0) 131 650 4436

Mobile: +44 (0) 79 323 525 13

Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 3474

E-mail: Michael.Clouser@gmail.com

John Lee

Academic Supervisor

Postal Address:

School of Arts, Culture and Environment

University of Edinburgh

Alison House

12 Nicholson Square

Edinburgh

EH8 9DF

Scotland , UK

Telephone: +44 (0) 131 650 2335

Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 4587

E-mail: j.lee@ed.ac.uk

———————–

(AUD) Digital Design Media ARCH11023
Course Description

Semester 1, 20 credits. Course organiser: Richard Coyne

Synopsis

This course introduces the techniques that are used in digital design: three dimensional modelling, simple computer animation, image rendering, and the preparation of material suitable for publishing on the World Wide Web. The emphasis is on design. Students advance through a series of lectures, demonstrations, practical project work, exercises and critique in a group context.

Learning Outcomes

Ability to:

use applications for modelling, image manipulation, and basic animation
prepare web content
work in a collaborative context of group review and critique
engage in a creative task within tightly constrained bounds and to present the outcome to conform to precise specifications
interpret and apply a set of requirements pertaining to a design task.

Assessment

Two assessed submissions, each worth 50%. Component 1: Three-dimensional computer model. Component 2: Rendered three-dimensional models with complex animation. Note that there will be subcomponents to these submissions.

Criteria for assessment

Work will be assessed on the basis of

Demonstrated competence with modelling and image manipulation tools
Skills in creatively deploying allocated resources, whatever their capabilities
Precision and competence in presentation
Ability to meet the requirements of the project brief and deal creatively with its open-ended aspects
Design quality of the work in terms of meeting functional requirements, legibility, clarity, and appropriate use of media

Account will be taken of the risks taken and degree to which the design deviates from standard solutions

Please note that assessment will take account of tradeoffs between the above criteria, particularly taking account of the diverse backgrounds of students in the class. You are encouraged to seek feedback during the development of your work, but please note that adhering to feedback does not guarantee a high assessment of the completed work. Note also that the assessment of the work is not necessarily commensurate with the amount of time spent on the project work. The issues of design and its evaluation will be further canvassed in Media and Culture.

Teaching Method

Work in this course is project-based. So the project and its tasks provide the focus, with skills being taught in targeted lecture/seminars as needed to progress the work. In general there will be one scheduled lecture followed by a practical session per week to discuss the work, but tutors will be available outside these times as well. You will be expected to work in proximity to other students in the class and benefit from each other’s developing expertise. The main software system used (Blender) has highly advanced modelling and animation capabilities, beyond that needed for the project work. The software will be introduced at a basic level through lectures and tutorials. We will make use of online teaching resources, and students are encouraged to use these to proceed to advanced level as private study. Blender is released under a GNU Public License as Free Software. There will be opportunities to develop further skills in any of the software in other courses, and into the Final Project during the summer.

Principal Software

3d Modelling and animation: Blender

also available: Sketchup, Maya, Form•Z

image processing:  Adobe PhotoShop

video processing: Final Cut (Pro and Express)

Project Brief: Steam Media Engine

The year is 2020. As predicted, electricity and radio waves have taken second place to a revival of light, wind, water vapour, kinetic energy and biomechanical processes as safe, inexpensive energy sources and communications media. It looks as though the Victorian visionaries such as Charles Babbage (1791-1871), Jules Verne (1828-1905), and H. G. Wells (1866-1946) were on to something.

Designers, inventors and developers are now re-purposing and customizing their products in response to the scarcity of resources, the build up of decades of obsolete equipment, and society’s reaction against the uniformity of mass production.

Steamware Ltd have commissioned you to adapt an item of scrap as a device for projecting 2D pictures, videos and sounds onto any suitable screen-like surface. You have been given an item of scrappage carefully selected and ready for repurposing as a desktop media projector.

Move 1: Screen apparatus

Crit 1 submission date: 24 September 2010
Crit 2 submission date: 1 October 2010

Your first task is to design and build (as a computer model in Blender) a general-purpose screen suitable for receiving images from any such projector. Design the screen as a flat or slightly curved surface, with a supporting frame, able to display a rectangular image 40.96 cm x 30.72. The whole apparatus is to be lightweight and portable, made from cylindrical straight sections of tubing joined by cubic connectors, and able to stand on a table. You can copy or adapt your design from the sketch found in the archives of Steamware’s founding inventor Dr Punkmeister:

Punkmeister's sketch

Complete in PNG format:

1 digital image of your screen apparatus at 640 x 480 px.
1 thumbnail of the same image cropped at 64 x 64 px. White background.

The Crit submissions should be dropped into ACE Extras > Shared Folders > DDM > _BLENDER_CRIT_01 (and _02) directory. Your submission should be prefixed with your name_secondnameinitial_crit01.png e.g. jules_r_crit01.png (jpg format is also acceptable)

Move 2: Projector

Submission date: 22 October 2010

Design and model your projector. It will have the basic form of your item of scrappage, but with an activate-deactivate mechanism and a source for the projector beam. As your device likely operates with kinetic energy flows, fluids, and luminous organic energy sources then its activation-deactivation will involve the movement of levers, ratchets, springs, valves or other conspicuous parts. In fact the year 2020 sees a decline in the modernist desire for seamless and invisible devices and processes: “If it steams it’s got seams”, as the adage goes. Your projector should resemble or include your scrap item, but it is up to you how much detail you include through simplification and abstraction. All projectors require at least one valve to be included in the device. A small number of valves are available from course tutors on short loan for modelling. Remember time and resource constraints, and the more surfaces you model the slower it will be to render.

Position the projector in front of your screen. Point the camera that generates the image away from the screen so that we can’t see its active surface. Generate an image of the ensemble with your device in its deactivated mode.

Move 3: Animation

Submission date: 26 November 2010

You will be allocated a class member to forward your image A to and you will receive an image in turn from someone else (your image B).

Map the image you have been given (image B) onto the projection screen. Create an animation progressing from your image A to a final frame where we are looking at the screen and see image B full on. In the process show the projector activating. (Don’t show any humans in this. The projector should activate itself.) You can also choose to animate your screen. Submit in Quicktime format, H.264 codec, 640 x 480px: a 30 second animation of the projector and screen activating. The animation should be exactly 30 seconds long. It is important for you to be able to ‘edit’ your work into it’s most engaging and comprehensive form. Bear in mind the average TV advert is 30s long when it is first shown, then edited down to an even shorter spot. Do not include any titles on your animation.

Submit MOVES 1, 2 and 3 to the electronic drop box.

The images from the whole design team will be combined in the appropriate sequence to produce a longer animation.

Resources

Use the following key words to access images, sounds and ideas from Infrar.ed, Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, Second Life, public image repositories, and social media: steam engine, steampunk, valve, London Science Museum, Bletchley Park, Myst (computer game), Captain Nimo, Doctor Who, Jules Verne, H.G, Wells, Charles Babbage, Lady Lovelace, Enigma Machine, Heath Robinson, Analytical Machine, Difference Engine, Turing Machine, repurpose, peak oil, Ardman, Captain Nemo. Post useful links on the WIP messageboard, Copyright law is even stricter in 2020, and though you may look to external sources for inspiration you may not incorporate image and sound files other than those provided through Infrar.ed. Sources must always be acknowledged in reports, meta tags in databases, or even on the artefacts themselves if possible.

Media and Culture ARCH11002
Course Description

Semester 1, 20 credits. Course organiser: Richard Coyne. Taken in year two part-time.

Synopsis

This is an introduction to the issues that surround the emergence of digital design. Tutorials and lecture sessions cover topics that enable students to discuss the impact of digital technology from its immediate practical application to the long term redefinition of the design professions, as well as practices of musical composition. The development of a broad social and psychological understanding of the nature and role of information, metaphor and interaction will also form an important component of the course.

Key texts by thinkers who have contributed new ideas and generated fresh debate about living and working with digital media will be studied, which will provide the basis for focused discussions about how digital design and composition is developing or could develop. Sessions will therefore be devoted to the major concepts and theoretical approaches which have a bearing on the digital practice, canvassing issues such as technological determinism, utopianism, technoromanticism, concepts of language, typology, space, the body, and the interactions between the senses. The course will also incorporate lectures on the practical, social, and cultural ramifications of digital media, and integrate the concerns of visual and aural cultures.

The use of blogs and online social media are encouraged to develop your thinking during the course (eg http://3thos.wordpress.com). You will also attend a series of group tutorials at which you will be expected to make a short presentation.

Learning Outcomes

• A forward-thinking, global approach to design and the impact of technology.
• A more developed overview of the key philosophical ideas that have informed understanding of digital media.
• The ability to discuss project work in terms of recent theoretical ideas.
• The ability to be critical of digital technology and aware of its strengths and limitations.
• A re-conceptualisation of the student’s own working method/aspirations.

Assessment

3500 word essay on a theme drawn from the course. Topic to be discussed with teachers and decided by week 3. Abstract (1-2 pages) submitted week 4 for critique and feedback, unassessed. Final essay submitted week 11 (90% of marks). Group presentation at tutorials (10%). Submit 3 paper copies of the abstract and essay to the general office and upload to electronic drop box on the xenakis, the submissions server.

Criteria for Assessment

Written work will be assessed on the basis of
• Clarity of argument and structure
• Extent to which an argument is being presented, rather than just a review of the literature
• Evidence of an original synthesis from sources, rather than a series of disjointed summaries
• Appropriate use of sources. Where personal opinion and observation is being expressed, is it presented in the context of the literature on the subject?
• Extent to which the essay deploys primary sources rather than secondary references. Has the author actually read the works cited?
• Where web sources are used, are these adequately cited, used critically, and backed up with peer-review?
• Evidence that the author is able to discriminate between populist literature on the subject and serious scholarship, where the former is used
• Appropriate use of scholarly referencing conventions
• Evidence of having read widely on the subject

The same evaluation criteria apply to the abstract as to the final essay, though we expect the abstract to be less well developed than the essay. Assessment will take into account facility in English, where English is not your first language. Please note that you will be asked to upload written work through WebCT, and it may be run through a program that detects plagiarism. Copying more than a few words from any source, a book, article or from the web, unless it is in quotation marks (or blocked or otherwise clearly demarcated as quoted material) and referenced, constitutes plagiarism. The University subscribes to Turnitin www.turnitin.com/. In the event that assessors detect plagiarism you will be given an opportunity to discuss this with them, and clear up any misunderstandings that can lead to “accidental plagiarism.”

The presentation will be evaluated on your demonstrated knowledge of key sources in the literature, and the skill with which you are able to present an argument. Presentations will be video recorded for internal sharing and a record to verify assessment.

For University policies on plagiarism see
www.lib.ed.ac.uk/howto/infoskills_plagiarism.shtml

and the Assessment section in this Handbook.

Media and Culture ARCH11002
Lecture Topics

Each topic is addressed in the context of a set reading.
Discussion will also relate to particular passages in Richard Coyne’s books, listed below for each topic as DT, TR, CL, or IA, where:

DT = Coyne, Richard. 1995. Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: From Method to Metaphor. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
TR = Coyne, Richard. 1999. Technoromanticism: Digital Narrative, Holism, and the Romance of the Real. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
CL = Coyne, Richard. 2005. Cornucopia Limited: Design and Dissent on the Internet. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
IA = Snodgrass, Adrian, and Richard Coyne. 2006. Interpretation in Architecture: Design as a Way of Thinking. London: Routledge.
TP = Coyne, Richard. 2010. The Tuning of Place: Sociable Spaces and Pervasive Digital Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Note that extracts from these publications may be accessed through Google Books and other online sources. Additional reading lists will be supplied. You are advised to draw on the references in the further reading lists for the essay.

Lecture Schedule
1. Digital Play (23 Sep) Richard Coyne
2. Creativity (30 Sep) Richard Coyne
3. Voice and Text (7 Oct) Richard Coyne
4. Mainstream Music Demarginalised (14 Oct) Michael Edwards
5. Digital Media and the Body (21 Oct) Richard Coyne
6. Theories of Metaphor (28 Oct) Richard Coyne
7. VR and Technoutopias (4 Nov) Richard Coyne
8. Digital Society (11 Nov) John Lee
9. AI and Creativity (18 Nov) John Lee
10. Critical Theories of IT (25 Nov) Richard Coyne
11. Cinema Cafe (2 Dec) Richard Coyne and tutors

1. Digital Play

The popularity of computer games provides a vivid demonstration of how play can inform human computer interaction. Play also provides an account of the design process. To design is to engage in an absorbing game of to-and-fro dialogue. Play also informs understandings in philosophy and language. The idea of the language game is central to Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. This lecture introduces the wealth of thinking on the theme of play and the game, touching on Freudian, neo-Marxist, surrealist and hermeneutical concepts of the game, and how they inform thinking about digital media.
Reading:

Stallabras, Julian. 1993. Just Gaming: Allegory and Economy in Computer Games, New Left Review 198 (March/April): 83-106.
TR pp.157-160; DT pp.179-200; CL Ch 3; TP pp195-196
Wittgenstein, 1953. Philosophical Investigations, Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell. §69-§71 and pp. 33e-34e.

2. Creativity

Networked digital media introduce concepts of collaborative creativity, hacking, media mashups, and the democratization of innovation, putting old questions about creativity in a new light. We consider the range of theories about creativity and design, including the antagonism between those who see creativity as following a method (presented by the design methods school) and those who see creation as a mysterious activity reliant on concepts of individual genius. We consider what is at stake in each of these views, and what are the alternatives. Schön’s concept of “reflection in action” provides an alternative, which leads us into discussions of hermeneutical, social and surrealist concepts of creativity.
Reading:

Schön, D. A. 1987. Educating the Reflective Practitioner, Presentation to the 1987 Meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
DT pp.219-228; IA Ch 1; TP pp.3-9

Further reading:

Alexander, Christopher. 1964. Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Goodman, Nelson. 1968. Languages of Art, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Jones, J. Christopher 1970. Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures, Wiley, London.
Kay, Alan. 1990. User interface: a personal view, in The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, B. Laurel (ed.) 191-207, Reading Massachusetts: Addison Wesley.
Lawson, Bryan. 1994. Design in Mind, Oxford: Butterworth Architecture.
Laurel, B. (ed.) 1990. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, Addison Wesley, Reading Massachusetts.
Nelson, T.H. 1990. The right way to think about software design, in The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, B. Laurel (ed.) Addison Wesley, Reading Massachusetts, pp.235-243.
Norman, D.A. 1988. The Psychology of Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York.
Schön, D. A. and Wiggins, G. 1992. Kinds of seeing and their functions in designing. Design Studies 13, 2. pp.135-156.
Turkle, S. 1984. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Simon and Schuster, New York.

3. Voice and Text

This lecture examines the roles of the human voice and of text as communicative media, and the differences between them. Voice pertains to sound and text to vision. These categories therefore map onto debates within language theory about the conflicts between speaking your thoughts out loud and writing things down. They also relate to concepts of hypertext. The lecture therefore provides an introduction to language theories and their relevance to visual media and sound design.

Reading: Bush, Vannevar. 1945. As we may think, The Atlantic Monthly, July.
TR pp.120-134; TP .pp.9-13, ch 11

Further reading:

Augoyard, Jean-François, and Henry Torgue. 2005. Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds. Trans. A. McCartney, and D. Paquette. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Bolter, J. David, and Richard A. Grusin. 1999. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Chion, Michel. 1999. The Voice in Cinema. Trans. C. Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press. First published in French in 1982.
Connor, Steven. 2004. Edison’s teeth: touching hearing. In V. Erlmann (ed.), Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity: 153-172. Oxford: Berg.
Coyne, Richard. 2007. Creativity and sound: the agony of the senses. In T. Rickards (ed.), Companion to Creativity: 25-35. Routledge: London.
Coyne, Richard, and Martin Parker. 2008. Voice and space: The agency of the acousmêtre in spatial design. In P. Turner, S. Turner, and E. Davenport (eds.), Exploration of Space, Technology and Spatiality: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: 100-110: Idea Press.
Hawkes, T. 1977. Structuralism and Semiotics, Methuen, London.
Heim, M. 1987. Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Kahn, Douglas, and Gregory Whitehead (eds). 1992. Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
LaBelle, Brandon. 2006. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. New York: Continuum.
Landow, George P. 1994. Hypertext as collage-writing. In P. Delany, and G. P. Landow (eds.), Hypermedia and Literary Studies: 150-170. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ong, Walter J. 2002. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge.
Schafer, R. Murray. 1993. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny. First published in 1977.
Shannon, Claud and Weaver, Mayiam. 1971. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press.

4. Mainstream Music deMarginalised

There is a tendency amongst visual artists and digital media practitioners to see the line of western musical development over the last century or so as spanning from Wagner through Mahler and Jazz to Rock/Pop. How much this is aesthetically — as opposed to media — informed is open to debate. There is a concurrent non-commercial repertoire that runs from Mahler through Schönberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Lachenmann, etc. That this follows the line of “mainstream,” “high culture” music history is interesting in the face of its marginalisation by the marketing-heavy pop music industry. With an emphasis on listening, the aesthetics, techniques, and sonic structure of these often overlooked musical worlds will be presented and considered. The lecture also provides an overview of trends in contemporary music and art.
Reading:

Lachenmann, Helmut. 1980. The Beautiful in Music Today. Tempo 135, December 1980. pp.20-24.

5. Digital Media and the Body

Much has been said about the cyborg, the peculiar human-machine hybrid that each of us is becoming, prefigured by your grandmother with a hearing aid. But the computer holds various relations with the body, starting with the ancient goal of disembodiment: release of the soul to the worlds of ideas, re-promoted in the enthusiasm for ecstasis through cyberspace. The body is also implicated in the metaphors through which we understand computing, from the implicit handedness of binary logic, to the conception of the computer interface. But the computer also relates to the body through concepts of posture and comportment: putative cyberspace presents the body in various postures and positions that are revealing: the cybernaut in heroic posture or flying. We show what writers such as Foucault have to say about bodily discipline and institutions, and what this suggests for an analysis of the computer and the body. The lecture develops an argument that attempts to displace romantic concepts of emotion with those of bodily attitude.
Reading:

Dourish, Paul. 2001. Seeking a foundation for context-aware computing. Online article http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/embodied/essay.pdf
TR pp. 63-68, 185-188, 248-249, 272-277; IA pp. 71-82, 183-202

Further reading:

Clark, Andy. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Classen, Constance. 1993. Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures. London: Routledge.
Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Gray, Chris H. (ed.) 1995. The Cyborg Handbook, New York: Routledge.
Haraway, Donna J. 1995. Cyborgs and symbionts: living together in the new world order, in Chris H. Gray (ed.) The Cyborg Handbook, xi-xx, New York: Routledge.
Howes (ed), David. 2005. Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader. Oxford: Berg.
Kahn, Douglas. 2001. Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Sobchack, Vivian. 1995. Beating the meat/surviving the text, or how to get out of this century alive, in Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, ed. Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows, 205-214, London: Sage.
Stone, Allucquére Rosanne. 1995. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Wiener, Norbert. 1950. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

6. Theories of Metaphor

Effective computer systems are those built on a good metaphor according to some systems designers. But what is a metaphor? In this seminar we explore the idea of the literal and the figurative in language studies and in our day-to-day dealings with the world. According to Lakoff and Johnson there are metaphors that we live by, which is to say we structure our world metaphorically. What does this mean for design? We consider how technologies and media provide metaphors that can inform our designing. In the process we consider some of the major metaphors of the computer, vision, sound and of design.
Reading:

V. S Ramachandran and E. M Hubbard, “Synaesthesia–a window into perception, thought and language,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8, no. 12 (2001): 3–34. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2001/00000008/00000012/1244
DT pp.249-270; TP pp.61-65.

Further reading:

Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Reddy, Michael. 1979. The conduit metaphor—a case of frame conflict in our language about language, in Ortony, Andrew (ed.) Metaphor and Thought. 284-324. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7. VR and Techno-Utopias

The computer world seems driven by nineteenth century concepts of progress. The future features large in IT commentary. We examine the chief characteristics of digital utopias: their origins in romanticism, the revolutionary rhetoric of early socialism, the ambiguous relationship of the computer with a nostalgia for arts and crafts, the perennial return to the reconstructions of the Medieval, and the flirtation with unreason and irrationalism. We also examine the dystopian visions of the computer age. Do we have to accede to utopian or dystopian futures? What is the future anyway?
Reading:

Benedikt, Michael. 1991. Cyberspace: First Steps, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
TR pp.19-45.

Further reading:

Calvino, Italo 1972. Invisible Cities, trans. Mayiam Weaver, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Coyne, Richard. 2007. Thinking through virtual reality: Place, non-place, and situated cognition in technological society. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, Special Issue: Real and Virtual Places (scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v10n3/), (10) 3, 26-38.
Coyne, Richard, Mark Wright, James Stewart, and Henrik Ekeus. 2009. Virtual flagships and sociable media. In A. Kent, and R. Brown (eds.), Flagship Marketing: Concepts and Places: 46-62. London: Routledge.
Eco, Umberto. 1986. Travels in Hyperreality, trans Mayiam Weaver, San Diego, Cal.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Gibson, William. 1993. Neuromancer, London: Harper Collins.
Guest, Tim. 2007. Second Lives: A Journey Through Virtual Worlds. London: Hutchinson.
Heim, Michael. 1993. The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1962. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Mitchell, William J. 1995. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Moravec, Hans. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rheingold, Howard. 1993. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley.
Virilio, Paul. 1995. Red alert in cyberspace, Radical Philosophy, 74: 2-4.

8. Digital Society

This seminar provides an opportunity to consider the reflections of social theorists on the nature of information technology. Computers are just a part of complex technological systems that involve various institutions and practices. So buying a computer is a particular mode of participation in a complex web of commerce, marketing, education, language, and politics. The computer fits within a web of interrelated equipment (the phone system, technologies of publication and supply), which is similarly connected to organisations, bureaucracies and social groupings. For social theorists, much of the rhetoric and enthusiasm for computing can be accounted for in terms of narrative. We are actively engaged in the construction of narratives of the self, and narratives are a social construction.
Reading:

Hiltz, Starr Roxanne and Murray Turoff. 1994. The Network Nation: Human Communication via Computer, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (First published in 1978.) (Selections)
TR pp.2-9, 31-33, 41-45, 246-247.

Further reading:

Carey, James W. 1989. Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, London: Routledge.
Castells, Manuel. 1989. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Castells, Manuel. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.
Droege, Peter. (ed.) 1997. Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution,Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Dunlop, C. and R. Kling. (eds) 1991. Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices, Boston, Mass.: Academic Press.
Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Lyotard, Jean-François. 1986. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Plant, Sadie. 1998. Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture, London: Fourth Estate.
Poster, Mark. 1992. The Mode of Information. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Rheingold, Howard. 2002. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books
Roszak, Theodore 1986. The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computer and the True Art of Thinking, Lutterworth Press, Cambridge.

9. AI and Creativity

The computer once held great hope for designers in suggesting that routine design tasks could be automated through artificial intelligence software. We explore some of the major techniques and expectations, including rule-based expert systems, automated propositional logic, connectionism (neural networks), the concept of emergent systems, and systems that claim access to situated action. In the process we consider some of the major arguments against AI, including those of Searle and Dreyfus.
Reading:

Turing, Allan M. 1995. Computing machinery and intelligence. In Computers and Thought. Edward A. Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman eds. 11-35. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
DT pp.17-31, 219-228; TP pp.207-211.

Further reading:

Boden, Margaret 1977. Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man, Harvester Press, Brighton, Sussex.
Clark, Andy. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Coyne, Richard, Michael Rosenman, Anthony Radford, M Balachandran, and John Gero. 1990. Knowledge-Based Design Systems. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Dreyfus, Hubert L. 1992. What Computer Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (first published in 1972 as What Computers Can’t Do).
Langton, C.G. 1988. Artificial life, in Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, 6 Artificial Life, C. Langton (ed.) Addison Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts.
Minsky, Marvin. 1985. The Society of Mind, New York: Simon and Schuster.
Searle, John, R. 1987. Minds, brains and programs. In Artificial Intelligence: The Case Against. ed. Rainer Born. 18-40. Beckenham, Kent, UK: Croom Helm.
Suchman, Lucille Alice 1987. Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

10. Critical Theories of Digital Media

Many claim that computer systems are pernicious. They are spread everywhere; at the same time they promote and mask various forms of injustice — the hegemony of the capitalist system. We examine the origins and trajectories of this anti-technological rhetoric, as well as the ironical strand it takes through the pens of Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Paul Varilio. We also allude to the roles of sensation, media, and noise in critical theories.
Reading:

Baudrillard, Jean (1988) Simulacra and Simulations, in Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, pp.166-184.
DT pp.68-86; TR pp.134-142; CL Ch 2.

Further reading:

Attali, Jacques. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Barthes, Roland. 1973. Mythologies. trans. Annette Lavers. London: Paladin.
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, in Illumination, New York : Schocken Books, 217-251 (first published in the 1920s).
Sokal, Alan and Jean Bricmont. 1998. Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers’ Abuse of Science, London: Profile.
Stallabrass, Julian. 1995. Empowering technology: the exploration of cyberspace, New Left Review, May/June: 211: 3-32.

11. Cinema Café

We can thank Plato for bifurcating cultural experience into the intellectually sophisticated and abstract on the one hand, and the world of sensual, visceral, mass entertainment on the other. Digital media is one of the latest means in contemporary commercial culture to shock, excite, and amaze through spectacle and effect. We examine, through examples, some of these digital effects, consider what else they might communicate other than visceral experience, and see if there are any lessons in technique, method and ethos for digital media design.

IT practice

(This is a background theme, with no scheduled lecture, but is a possible source for essay topics. It relates, of course, to many of the issues to be addressed in the second semester.)
What is the impact of the computer in the everyday world of a design office? We examine how this question is not entirely well posed. Technological equipment can be seen as revealing aspects of our practices as well as changing them. So the computer can show the architectural firm as a custodian of databases, or a multimedia company, dealing in images and the management of expectations. Concepts of the computer as a thing able to reveal in this way borrow substantially from Heidegger’s philosophy. We show the import and influence of Heidegger’s pragmatic thinking in the world of IT, from reflections on language to an emphasis on situation and context.
Reading:

Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores. 1986. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Reading: Mass.: Addison Wesley.
DT pp.48-51, 187-200; TR pp.145-160, 245-246; IA pp.205-240.

Media and Culture ARCH11002
Essay Topics

Note on the abstract

The “abstract” is supposed to outline the argument you intend to develop in the final essay. This has two purposes: (a) to show that you have coherent ideas, have gained a reasonable grasp of what literature will be relevant, and are planning a suitable strategy for developing an academically respectable discussion; (b) to get feedback from tutors on points of these kinds that could be improved. The abstract should therefore be substantial enough to provide a basis for such judgements — perhaps two pages. It should clearly and cogently set out the topic you propose to address (which need not be one from this Handbook), show the framework of the discussion you expect to develop, and indicate roughly how you intend to fill this out. It should clearly and correctly cite key references that you intend to use, indicating their likely role in your discussion, and also mentioning whether you feel there is significant further work to be done in locating relevant references.
The final essay will be judged independently of the abstract, so there can be a degree of shifting of your ideas or focus between the two, but the advantages of staying in most cases as close to the abstract as possible should be obvious.

Essay topics

The following are possible topics for the course essay. In each case refer to at least 3 of the texts in the lists of readings or further readings.

Discuss “hypertext” in the light of theories of language.
Compare and contrast two different theories of design and how each might impinge on the way we design information technology systems.
What is metaphor and how is it brought into play in the design of computer systems?
Summarise major arguments for and against automated design.
Discuss computer simulation and virtual reality in the light of Baudrillard’s essay “Simulacra and Simulation.”
What is a cyborg? Contrast the way the body is depicted in the cyborg literature with at least one other conception (eg classical neo-platonism, cartesianism, empiricism, Freud, or Foucault).
In what ways is the popular literature on cyberspace and cyberculture utopian?
What lessons about computer systems design have computer theorists such as Winograd, Flores, Dreyfus and others drawn from the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger.
Discuss information technology as social construction.
What is technological determinism? Contrast this with at least one other view of information technology.
What issues are raised by information technology about equality of opportunity and access?
Truth and lies: what is a documentary? What makes it different to other media forms? Examine its means of establishing authority in the light of critical texts on the theme.
Describe several prominent models or metaphors of space and how these are sustained or challenged by the growth in networked communications.
Is design a serious business? Provide arguments for and/or against the proposition that play is ubiquitous in human affairs, and therefore in design.
Discuss the impact of wireless radio as a medium for changing the way people think and create.
Trace changes in the way the voice has been used since the advent of electronic communications. How is the voice presented in contemporary sound design?
Discuss the impact of serialism on contemporary music making and sound design.
What is synesthesia, understood clinically and artistically? What are its implications for creating digital media works?
Discuss the various arguments that delineate visual and aural cultures. How do you think these distinctions impact on your work as a visual and/or aural media specialist?
Discuss how sound is being deployed in architecture and spatial design in ways that go beyond the traditional concerns with concert hall acoustics, sound isolation, and noise abatement.
How is sound used to define and/or describe space? Discuss in relation to built spaces and representations of spaces in film, artworks, computer games and/or broadcast media.
How do personal stereos, mobile phones and other ubiquitous devices influence our experience of the sonic or visual environment?

Additional sound design texts

Arnheim, R., Radio, trans. M. Ludwig and H. Read, London: Faber & Faber, 1936.
Augoyard, J.-F. and H. Torgue, Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds, trans. A. McCartney and D. Paquette, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
Auner, J., A Schoenberg Reader: Documents of a Life, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
Bregman, A.S., Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.
Bull, Michael. 2000. Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.
Chion, M., Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, trans. C. Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Chion, M., The Voice in Cinema, trans. C. Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Classen, Constance. 1993. Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures. London: Routledge.
Connor, S., Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Cott, J., Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer, London: Picador, 1974.
Coyne, Richard, and Martin Parker. 2006. Voices out of place: Voice, non-place and ubiquitous digital communications. In K. Nyíri (ed.), Mobile Understanding: The Epistemology of Ubiquitous Communication: 171-182. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.
Havelock, E.A., The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Howes (ed), David. 2005. Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader. Oxford: Berg.
Hunt, H., ‘Synaesthesia, metaphor and consciousness: A cognitive-developmental perspective’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12: 12, 2005, 26-45.
Kahn, D. and G. Whitehead (eds), Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Kahn, D., Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Krims (ed), A., Music/Ideology: Resisting the Aesthetic, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: G+B Arts International, 1998.
LaBelle, B., Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, New York: Continuum, 2006.
Leroi-Gourhan, A., Gesture and Speech, trans. A. Bostock Berger, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993.
Lyotard, J.-F., ‘A few words to sing’, in A. Krims (ed.), Music/Ideology: Resisting the Aesthetic, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: G+B Arts International, 1998, 15-36.
Martin (ed), E., Architecture as a Translation of Music, New York: Princeton Architectural press, 1994.
Matossian, N., Xenakis, London: Kahn and Averill, 1986.
Miller, C.T. and A.A. Ghazanfar, ‘Meaningful acoustic units in nonhuman primate vocal behavior’, in M. Bekoff, C. Allen and G.M. Burghardt (eds), The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002, 265-273.
Morris (ed), A., Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Naguib, M. and R.H. Wiley, ‘Estimating the distance to a source of sound: mechanisms and adaptations for long-range communication’, Animal Behaviour, 62: 5, 2001, 825-837.
Novak, M., ‘Computation and composition’, in E. Martin (ed.), Architecture as a Translation of Music, New York: Princeton Architectural press, 1994, 64-67.
Ong, W.J., Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London: Routledge, 2002.
Roden, Steve, and Brandon Labelle (ed). 1999. Site of Sound: of Architecture and the Ear. Los Angeles: Smart Art Press.
Rousseau, J.J., Essay on the Origin of Languages, trans. J.H. Moran and A. Gode, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Schafer, R. Murray. 1993. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny. First published in 1977.
Sterne, Jonathan. 2005. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Thompson, Emily. 2004. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Weis, Elizabeth, and John Belton (eds). 1985. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press.

Digital Media Studio Project ARCH11006
Course Description

Course organiser for 2009
Martin Parker (MP)

FOR THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION OF THIS INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT

sd.caad.ed.ac.uk/dmsp/09-10/

Note that this information may not be entirely up to date until Semester 2, 2009-10, especially information about projects, supervisors and the class schedule, including any invited speakers.

Synopsis

Students work as a group on a collaborative, extended project that brings together their various design skills in the context of a selection of exploratory project briefs. The course will be conducted as a studio with iterative development, group discussion, design development, presentations, criticism, and feedback. Tuition will be provided in the use of computer tools and devices where applicable.

Aims

The digital media studio project presents students with a challenge not encountered on the course so far. As is the case with commercial and creative projects, project briefs are deliberately open ended, non-specific and as a result, the project may seem to start from a state of chaos. This creates a need to impose order, organisation and imagination, which we expect to emerge from the student body rather than staff. Students will form groups that will work to address each brief as an individual project. Each group faces the challenge of finding a way of working together, perhaps following the model of a theatre company with roles and responsibilities assigned to each member of the group, and decided by the group as a whole; production manager, director, producer, actor, technical manager etc. The main aims of the project are to provide opportunities to prepare experimental work for public exhibition/display and for the cohort to find practical, creative solutions to problems imposed by real limitations of technology, time and personnel, meanwhile exploring a wealth of new technology and its application to digital design.

Learning Outcomes

• Consolidation of the use of digital design tools and techniques in the context of a design project.
• Appreciation of the collaborative and integrative nature of design projects that involve digital media, and further development of appropriate group working skills.
• An awareness of and some capability in working with digital media beyond the constraints of the desktop, particularly through software and hardware that supports digital installations.
• Consideration of modes of presentation appropriate to external and large-scale presentation formats.
• Skills in responding to and progressing a theoretical position about some aspect of the project context.
• Managing a small budget

Practical Outputs

The design of a multimedia interactive or other artefact using digital sound media. Further contribution to a portfolio of work showing the student’s capability with sound and digital design media and familiarity with the issues of presentation in various media formats. Awareness of the methods and constraints of working towards a public exhibition or showcase of digital design/sound work. An interactive exhibition/installation, documentary, research project or other collaboration as defined by the project brief.

Project Supervisors

[NB: These are 2009 supervisors and projects; details for 2010 will not be the same.]
Vangelis Lympouridis (VL) Hardware hacking, soldering, speckled computing
David Murray-Rust (DMR) Interactive table project
Sean Williams (SW) Botanic Gardens Documentary
Henrik Ekeus (HE) Headphone Mini-Theatre, Branded Faces
Lin Zhang (LZ) Supercollider and sound synthesis
Mike Greer (MG) Blender project, Make net.art
Owen Green (OG) Emergent Sonorities
Parag Mital (PM) The IntelliFace

Note on the role of the project supervisor.

The project supervisor is there to help you develop your project and provide some overall guidance from an independent perspective. Project supervisors have expertise in the areas you are investigating and in many cases, this area may be central to their own research or current projects. However, their time is limited and you should take care not to use up credits with the supervisor on small tasks that you can solve independently with a little more thought. We suggest arranging meetings with the supervisor when you have a specific thing you want to show to get a second opinion on, or when your group can not make a decision on the next best step. It is good to make arrangements to meet the supervisor well in advance so the group has a deadline to work towards. Time is easily squandered on the DMSP and your group will need to foster a sense of motivation, drive and focus. While the supervisor can help you with this, it is not their responsibility to lead the group, this should come from within.

Guest Speakers

Russell McEwan – Film maker, editor and final cut pro
Chris Hand - interface hacking and sensor workshop
Heike Sperling and Marcus Schmickler - Designer and Computer-based performance duo.

Schedule for whole class (subject to slight change as semester goes on)

Location: Alison House Atrium (also subject to change, please check emails about this)
Time and Date: Thursday mornings 11:10 –13:00 First hour is lecture based and is followed by more talking, or group meeting or other related activity

Week 1 : Digital Media Studio Project welcome pack (MG+JL plus Project supervisors)
Week 2 : Digital Video Editing, introduction to Final Cut Pro and using DV cameras (Russel McEwan)
Week 3 : Hacking Hardware, breaking and making (Vangelis Lympouridis and Chris Hand)
PLUS Friday 30th Jan, 1pm until late, Hardware Hacking workshop with Chris Hand
Sign up for 15-20 people for this workshop
Week 4 : Exhibition Reports given by DMSP class
Week 5 : Installation Art Overview or Guest Instalaltion Artist
Week 6 : DMSP - Special Software, Jitter _01
Week 7 : Video Editing and Final Cut Pro; Russell McEwan TBC
Week 8 : Heike Sperling and Marcus Schmickler presentation
Week 9 : DMSP - Special Software, Jitter_02
Week 10 : Preview morning
Week 11 : Demonstration week

You will get into the habit of a weekly production meeting. A production meeting is usually chaired by the producer or project manager and is the meeting where all participants discuss issues relating to the project.

Submissions:

Beta project presentation 40% – presentation week and documentation collection
Project write-up and documentation 60%

Documentation is prepared by the group
(i.e. Group designed documentation of the project and project itself and critical reflections by individual writers, 750 words maximum). The submission will be marked with 60% of the marks going on group work (quality of documentation) and 40% on the individual writing.

Criteria for Assessment

Marks will be awarded on the basis of demonstrated:
• ability in assimilating a broad knowledge of new technologies (that have unrealised potential) in a design context
• quality of design in terms of innovative use of the technology, taking account of usability, and presentation
• professionalism of submissions, presentations, contribution to the acquisition and sharing of knowledge and manner of dealing with the uncertain aspects of the project brief
• ability to respond creatively to client needs and feedback
• level of participation in the project.

Project Briefs

A range of project briefs are available. Those taking this course form small groups ranging in size from 2 to 5 people. Projects range from creating a documentary, performing real-time Foley editing to designing an interactive installation. A member of staff will supervise each project with groups benefiting from further input by visiting lecturers and other external experts.

NOTE: You are asked to choose your top three projects and to have made a decision about this by the end of the day on Tuesday 20th January. You need to elect for your top three choices by putting 1 (top), 2 or 3 in the table on the door of the atrium.

There will be a three-stage output evaluated on design and presentation quality and demonstrated skills in using digital media technology. Work will be assessed as a group and as individual submissions.

Design and Digital Media: Final Project ARCH11007
Course Description

Vacation period; 60 credits. Course organiser: John Lee

Synopsis

This is the main project, the equivalent of the Master’s Dissertation in other programmes, which may be pursued as a group or individual exercise. Work should commence after the end of teaching in semester 2 and continue to the submission date of [TBA: mid-late August 2010]. It aims to:

allow students to demonstrate how they have integrated knowledge and skills achieved in the MSc;
develop particular applications of sound design;
employ investigative methods of creative problem-solving;
encourage and develop the practice of group working.

Learning Outcomes

A detailed project bringing together many elements of the programme. A thorough understanding of the way in which a working digital project progresses from start to completion. An appreciation of the role of information technology in current design.
Assessment
Virtually the whole of this course will be devoted to a major project. There is a preference for students to work in groups: teams will consist of a maximum of five members. There is also scope for individual projects, which may in some cases have more the character of a research-based dissertation.

To ensure that it is feasible within the given time and resource constraints, the scope and nature of each project must be agreed by the prospective supervisor before commencement, and the roles, duties and contribution of each member of the team will have to be clearly identifiable. The agreement will take the form of signing-off by the Program Director of a two- to three-page briefing document based on the form of which a specimen appears at the end of this section. Each student will be assigned an individual supervisor, who will monitor progress and offer advice and support, but students are expected to take full responsibility for their own work. Planning and scheduling of the work is crucial, and the Programme Calendar offers only the barest outline. The fact that the project is worth 60 credit points gives some indication of the amount of time and effort it is expected to demand in comparison to the taught courses; approx. 600 hours overall – this should not be underestimated. It is very important not to postpone major parts of the work, especially the writing, until near the end of the available time period.

There will be an unassessed public presentation/critique at an interim stage, and assessment of the project will be by independent double marking of the submitted material and written component (guideline minimum length 6000 words, see also below). This component will be expected to:

show a knowledge of the relevant literature;
be critical and reflective;
exhibit a good standard of presentation, organisation and academic style;
coherently integrate accounts of the motivation, methodology and execution of the project;
clearly identify the contribution of the individual student to any joint outcome.

Students must submit a draft of their written dissertation at the time of the interim crit session (see the Programme Calendar). For the final submission, all project materials (including dissertation text and e.g. photographic or video documentation of anything that does not exist in digital form) must be submitted digitally on a clearly-marked DVD-ROM , accompanying two copies of the hard copy dissertation, of which at least one copy should be suitably bound. Submitted material should be thoroughly checked in advance for correct operation on MSc Studio machines, validity of links between files, and other things that may differ after copying to the DVD-ROM.

Further guidance notes

Late submissions may be disqualified. This could mean that you automatically fail the dissertation component, and so graduate only with the Diploma. Only major, e.g. medical, problems (fully documented) can be considered as excuses, and these must be notified to the Programme Director at the earliest possible opportunity. Therefore, even an incomplete submission is better than a late submission. See the University regulations (www.drps.ed.ac.uk/09-10/regulations/postgrad.php).
The objective of the project (apart from learning!) is to produce material that can be assessed and material that can serve as “portfolio” content, e.g. a DVD that can be shown to prospective employers. The first objective means we have to be able to tell clearly what was done, and who did what in a group.
The five bullet points for the written work above are all important and should be considered carefully. The text should not be mainly about some subject that is only tangential to the project, and it should not contain large amounts of historical or other material that is not closely bound into a discussion of the motivation, methodology and/or execution of the project. It should be an integral part of the project, and therefore not left until a late stage or treated as an afterthought.
The length of the text is not rigid; the 6000 words suggested should be seen as a minimum. In a group project, there could be a common text as well as e.g. shorter, individual reflections on it. If the design aspect of a project is relatively limited, or the project is mainly research-based, the text will need to be longer and more substantial (perhaps 10,000 words, or even more). The length and form of the text should be determined by the nature of the material, but having careful thought for the role it has to play in assessment. It should be well written, with properly organised and formatted references, etc., following the guidelines for essays that appear elsewhere in this document (and especially avoiding any possible suggestion of plagiarism). Your writing, whatever the nature of the project, should adhere to appropriate academic conventions in terms of style, but also and especially the use of references etc. Do always give a reference (including a page number if possible and web address if necessary) for anything you quote directly, or paraphrase in any way, from any source, however briefly. Make sure that you keep track of all such sources for material that you are drawing on. Various citation conventions are used in different academic disciplines, and will generally be acceptable to us providing they are used consistently. Consult the Librarian for various style guides that are available; check with your supervisor if in any doubt (about this or anything else).
Make sure you keep in touch with supervisory staff as work progresses, especially if any kind of problem arises. Identify as early as possible any risks or threats to progress, and make sure they are addressed. This is your responsibility, not the supervisor’s.
Problems with equipment or software will not count as an excuse for late submission! You should anticipate problems, and allow for problems that you have not anticipated. Major problems should be brought to the attention of staff without delay. Make sure anything that requires equipment is done in good time. Make sure you always make back-up copies of work, and once you have something that functions try to develop from a copy of it, so that you don’t undo any progress.
There must be 2 printed copies of the text, one of which must be bound in a fashion suitable for it to be kept in the Architecture Library, and 2 copies of the DVD(s). Please include in the binding a pocket for the DVD to be kept with it. Note that there are regulations about format and binding in the University Academic Calendar : we allow for these to be relaxed if necessary in the interests of creative presentation, but anything unusual must be agreed in advance. A spiral binding is acceptable, as long as the covers (as well as the spiral) are reasonably robust, i.e. not just a sheet of thin plastic but thicker, more rigid plastic, or thin board. No kind of loose-leaf binder is acceptable. Do please include a title page as specified in the regulations, i.e. with the following:

Title of thesis
Author’s name
Master of Science (Design and Digital Media)
School of Arts, Culture and Environment
The University of Edinburgh
2010

The point of the draft text submitted at the time of the interim crit is to allow a little time for feedback and final polishing. The bound copy (and also the DVD) we will expect to keep for the Architecture Library. Group submissions should have composite DVDs, which should include all work, written and otherwise. The point about testing functionality and completeness of the DVD material is very important. The written submission(s) must make clear who is responsible for what aspects of the work. There can be a joint document with individual components: in this case, each student should submit a bound volume containing the joint document along with their own individual component.
Include in the text an explicit description and listing of what is on the DVD. It is a requirement that the DVD will work on a Macintosh machine running Mac OS X 10.4 (Windows XP compatibility is optional although desirable). State minimum requirements for the system needed to run your software. If this exceeds a typical studio machine you should give a full justification of why this is necessary.
You can have almost anything on the DVD, e.g. screenshots, video segments, simulations, links to web sites, code and scripts, … There should be a single “entry point” to the DVD, e.g. an HTML document, Director or Flash presentation, which describes and links to, or clearly identifies, all the components of your presentation as a coherent whole. You should include everything digital that you have created as part of your project (even as maybe an “appendix”, or miscellany folder), and some kind of digital record (e.g. photographs, video, sound recordings, etc.) of anything that was not digital. If you have compiled code, or e.g. a Projector, Shockwave or Flash movie, include all source files. If a live web site is part of your project, include the URL, but also as far as possible a working version of the site itself, and certainly all of the material, code, etc. on the site.
Do make sure that you test your DVD. Make sure you have time for this: do not leave writing the DVD to the last minute. Marks are likely to be deducted for material that fails to work due to simple errors such as the following. Check especially for any files that are missing, or any files that are in the wrong place so that your application can’t find them. Be aware that things which work well on your machine may turn out to have problems once written to a disk and run on a different machine. This is a problem that easily arises where linked files are used. Always try to make sure files are linked relatively — so that they are all copied within one folder on your machine, and then the whole of this folder is put onto the DVD. That should avoid the problem, but don’t assume that it has done. Test, and test again! Test your DVD on a different machine from the one you made it on, if possible one not even on the same network.

The Digital Marketplace ARCH11005
Course Description

Semester 2, 20 credits. Course organiser: John Lee. Optional

Synopsis

This course is developed and presented by the Edinburgh-Stanford Link group within the School of Informatics, with support from Scottish Enterprise. Visiting speakers will play a prominent role. See the course schedule page for further details, which may augment or supersede those given here.

Learning Outcomes

Appraisal of the main issues involved in setting up a commerce system.
A commercial evaluation of a web-site and associated business.
Ability to evaluate a design in a practice and commercial context.
Understanding of the issues of digital design in a business context.
Understanding of the general issues involved in setting up an enterprise, including the acquisition of resources.
Ability to formulate and evaluate a professional business plan.
Ability to present an innovative venture and persuade an audience of its viability.

Assessment

A commercial evaluation study of an existing system (50%).
Business plan, slide presentation and one-page executive summary (50%).

Criteria for Assessment

Informed use of commercial evaluation criteria.
Demonstrated understanding of business contexts and methods.
Consideration of the bearing of design issues on business outcomes.
Quality, professionalism and presentation of the business plan.

Dynamic Web Design ARCH11004
Course Description

Semester 2, 20 credits. Course organiser: John Lee

Synopsis

This course introduces the challenges of setting up a web site integrating interaction with databases, web services and other technologies that are common to many creative, as well as commercial, applications. The lessons learnt will hold good in e-commerce and many other areas of digital design practice. The course is directed particularly to the technical aspects of design for the web; a parallel treatment of social and legal issues involved in the commercial practice of digital design and e-commerce is developed in P00178/P02328, The Digital Marketplace. We focus on the topic of web-site design because of its centrality: contemporary digital design practitioners will normally exploit the web for communication and presentation, whatever their primary focus. Practical activity will centre around what would be required for the development of the system designed, with some emphasis on its usability for the target audience.

Learning Outcomes

Appraisal of the main issues involved in setting up a sophisticated web-based system.
Appraisal of tools, techniques and issues in deploying online databases and data-related services.
Skills in authoring interactive web sites.
Understanding of iterative design and its relationship with evaluation.
Ability to translate adventurous design ideas into a plausible product.

Assessment

Web database Alpha prototype (50%) 2. Web database Beta prototype (50%)
Criteria for Assessment

Degree of innovation and creativity in the design proposal.
Consideration given to usability issues and use of evaluation in design.
Consideration given to viability (commercial or otherwise, as appropriate) of the design.
Creative deviation from standard solutions.
Technical competence in the use of the tools.

The Digital Marketplace ARCH11005
Project Brief

Commercial evaluation study. This task is to examine the business context of the system in question. You will need to look at user needs, requirements, aspirations and expectations for the design of the system; the marketability of any products involved; the general business environment into which the system will be commercialized; the feasibility and viability of the financial framework; likely availability of venture capital; other possible sources of funding; etc. This study examines the background against which a specific business plan will be developed. Written work (approx. 2000-word submissions) will be assessed on the basis of the thoroughness of the analysis, the insights gained, the professionalism of the conduct of any interviews/surveys and the write up. (50%)
Business plan, executive summary and slide presentation. Work such as creating the prototype in course P00177 will have done no more than introduce the complexities involved in developing a fully functional interactive system. Clearly such development can be a major team exercise, involving programmers, software engineers, graphic designers, and marketing experts. You are however well placed to articulate what would be required to take such a prototype to the next stage, as a robust online system. Using any insights gained from the previous tasks, and following the numerous business plan guides available on the web and elsewhere, construct a business plan for the further development of your chosen system. The purpose of the business plan may be to raise venture capital for a new company that will begin life with the design and development of the proposed system, or in some other relevant way, such as bootstrapping, to pursue the commercialisation of the system, taking into account the issues raised in the evaluation study. The work will be assessed on the basis of the professionalism, coherence, authenticity and persuasiveness of the documentation. (50%)

The Digital Marketplace ARCH11005
Bibliography

Barnatt C. 1995. CyberBusiness, Mindsets for a Wired Age, Wiley, Chichester.
Charles C. and Brown K. 1996. Multimedia Marketing for Design Firms, Wiley, New York
Cunningham, Peter and Friedrich Fröschl, 1999. Electronic Business Revolution: Opportunities and Challenges in the 21st Century, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Deans, C. and Jurison, J. (eds) 1996. Information Technology in a Global Business Environment: Readings and Cases, Boyd and Fraser, Danvers, MA.
Dorf, Richard C. and Thomas H Byers (2005). Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise. McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Ferguson, C. (1999) High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars. Times Books.
Forester, T. (ed.) 1989. Computers in the Human Context: Information, Technology, Productivity and People, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gates, Bill 1996. The Road Ahead, London: Penguin.
Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Hess, Ken 2001. Bootstrap: lessons learned from building a successful company from scratch. S-Curve Press.
Komisar, R. (2001) The Monk and the Riddle. Harvard Business School Press.
Mitchell, Mayiam. J. 1999. E-topia, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Moore, Geoffrey (2002). Crossing the Chasm. Harper Business.
Mullins, J. (2003) The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before Writing a Business Plan. FT Prentice Hall.
Nesheim, J. (2000). High Tech Start Up, Revised and Updated: The Complete Handbook For Creating Successful New High Tech Companies. Free Press.
Sanders K. 1996. Digital Architect: A Common-Sense Guide to Using Computer Technology in Design Practice, Wiley, New York.
Sproull, L. and Kiesler, S. 1991. Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Sterne J. 1995. World Wide Web Marketing: Integrating the Internet into your Marketing Strategy, Wiley, New York.
Sutton, R (2001). Weird Ideas that Work. Free Press.
Timmons, J. (2003). New Venture Creation - Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Other references and resources can be found on the website at
- The Digital Marketplace ARCH11005
The Digital Marketplace (10) ARCH11036
Semester 2, 10 credits. Course organiser: John Lee. Optional. This course is a 10-point version of ARCH11005 The Digital Marketplace

Synopsis

In this course students will study what is required for the development and commercial exploitation of a web-based system and how this relates to its design. They then move to the development of a business plan and presentation to commercialise a digital design idea which will preferably be one developed by the student (e.g. the prototype site developed in P00177), otherwise one chosen in consultation with teaching staff. This is set against the general context of business practice: entrepreneurialism, intellectual property, company creation, raising of funding, market assessment, product development, marketing, etc.; as well as relevant aspects of the contemporary cultural and philosophical study of such practices. The course will be based on study of online resources, guest speakers, with discussion in lecture/seminars, and will be relatively self-directed. The highlight of the course will be a presentation to a panel of experts who will provide feedback on the business plan and presentation.

This course is developed and presented by the Edinburgh-Stanford Link group within the School of Informatics, with support from Scottish Enterprise. Visiting speakers will play a prominent role. See the course schedule for further details, which may augment or supersede those given here.

Learning Outcomes
- Appraisal of the main issues involved in setting up a commerce system.
- Ability to evaluate informally a design in a practice and commercial context.
- Understanding of the issues of digital design in a business context.
- Understanding of the general issues involved in setting up an enterprise, including the acquisition of resources.
- Ability to formulate and evaluate a professional business plan.
- Ability to present an innovative venture and persuade an audience of its viability.
Assessment
1. Business plan, slide presentation and one-page executive summary (100%).
Criteria for Assessment
- Demonstrated understanding of business contexts and methods.
- Consideration of the bearing of design issues on business outcomes.
- Quality, professionalism and presentation of the business plan.
For further details see description of P00178 The Digital Marketplace, including the course schedule.

Design and Digital Media: Final Project ARCH11007
Agreement Form

MSc in Design and Digital Media

Summer project agreement form 2010

This form is for defining your summer project, giving essential information for you and your supervisor(s), and to act as a record for Quality Assurance purposes. The form should be completed and agreed after discussion with the supervisor, but preferably before work on the project starts. Note that variation from the details given here is allowed during the course of the project, but should also be agreed and documented as it arises. In the case of a group project, only one form is needed per group, but it must state clearly the roles of each group member, with a view to how these will be assessed. Remember that the deadline date for submission is [TBA: mid-late August 2010]: this date is set by the University, is non-negotiable, and no extensions can be allowed. Before that, we will have interim presentations to the group for critique and feedback on Thursday 29th July 2010, or as advised, possibly overrunning also to the following day.

A principal supervisor should have agreed the details given here, and should be named as main contact, though more than one member of staff may be involved overall.

This document should be completed electronically and submitted as PDF (or it may, with appropriate warning, be made available as an online form), giving as much information as needed in each category. Before completing this form, you should read carefully and thoroughly the section about the project in the Programme Handbook. Monitoring of compliance with project requirements may be done by the College Office, and be out of the hands of the examiners and course administrators. Please note also the following College warning: The regulations state that students should remain in Edinburgh for the duration of their studies. Leave of absence is not normally given for masters students. It is the students’ responsibility to keep in touch with their supervisors. Absence from Edinburgh cannot be cited as a reason for poor performance in an appeal.

Name(s) of student(s)

Title of project

Outline of project idea

Describe briefly the motivation, background, aims and overall intention of the project (up to 500 words).

Schedule of tasks

Breakdown of the required work into components such as: literature research, design, specification, implementation, writing up, etc. Include dates, and identify any dependencies between tasks.

Resources required

All resources, whether or not these already exist, e.g. access to computers and software, additional equipment, books, presentation space, etc., identifying sources (e.g. department, library, self) where known.

Outcomes expected

Describe designs, programs, documents, presentations, exhibitions, etc.

Roles of participants

For groups: describe the role of each group member, and indicate how it can be assessed. (Remember that independent reports will be required, which must identify the individual contributions.)

Principal supervisor

Secondary supervisor(s) or other involved individuals (internal or external, etc.)

Date of this agreement

Digital Media Studio Project ARCH11006
Bibliography

(2002). CTRL [space] : rhetorics of surveillance from bentham to big brother. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Barthes, R. and S. Heath (1977). Image, music, text. [London], Fotana.

Bhangal, S., K. Besley, et al. (2006). Foundation Flash 8. [Berkeley, Calif.]

New York, Friends of ED ;

Distributed to the book trade by Springer-Verlag.

Cope, D. and D. R. Hofstadter (2001). Virtual music : computer synthesis of musical style. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press,.

Cox, C. and D. Warner (2004). Audio culture : readings in modern music. New York, Continuum.

Dack, J. (1994). Schaeffer and Radiophonic Art.

Day, S. (1998). Two Full Ears, listening to improvised music. Chelmsford, UK, Soundworld Publishers.

De Oliveira, N., N. Oxley, et al. (1994). Installation art. [Washington, D.C.], Smithsonian Institution Press.

Elst, P., T. Yard, et al. (2006). Object-oriented ActionScript for Flash 8. Berkeley, Calif.

New York, Friends of ED ;

Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag.

Emmerson, S. (1986). The Language of electroacoustic music. New York, Harwood Academic Publishers.

Emmerson, S. (2000). Music, electronic media, and culture. Aldershot ; Burlington, USA, Ashgate.

Enendu, L. O. M. and O. Okome (1994). The sight of sound : sound in the media and theatre. Ibadan, Kraft Books.

Green, L., J. Bernstein, et al. (1986). Beyond image : Boyle Family, Hayward Gallery, London, 1 November 1986-25 January 1987. London, Arts Council of Great Britain.

Hegarty, P. (2007). Noise/music : a history. New York, Continuum.

Institute of Contemporary Arts (London England). (1971). Electric theatre : 25 artists working with light, sound and space. London, ICA.

Irving, D. K. and P. W. Rea (2006). Producing and directing the short film and video. Amsterdam ; Boston, Elsevier.

Jukes, P. and T. Watkins (1990). A Shout in the street : an excursion into the modern city. London ; Boston, Faber and Faber.

Kahn, D. and G. Whitehead (1992). Wireless imagination : sound, radio, and the avant-garde. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

LaBelle, B. (2006). Background noise : perspectives on sound art. New York, Continuum International.

Leppert, R. D. (1993). The sight of sound : music, representation, and the history of the body. Berkeley, University of California Press.

Licht, A. (2007). Sound art : beyond music, between categories. New York, NY, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

Lidwell, W., K. Holden, et al. (2003). Universal principles of design. Gloucester, Mass., Rockport.

Lucier, A. (1980). Music on a long thin wire. New York, N.Y., Lovely Music/Vital Records,.

Lucier, A. (1981). I am sitting in a room. New York, N.Y., Lovely Music,.

Lucier, A. (1994). Clocker. New York, N.Y., Lovely Music,.

Lucier, A., R. Armstrong, et al. (1983). Still and moving lines of silence in families of hyperbolas. Part 2, numbers 1-4. New York, N.Y., Lovely Music,.

Lucier, A., G. Gronemeyer, et al. (1995). Reflections : interviews, scores, writings = Reflexionen : Interviews, Notationen, Texte. Kèoln, MusikTexte.

Lucier, A. and A. Lucier The Duke of York, per voce e sintetizzatori. Bird and person dyning, per esecutore con microfoni, amplificatori, altoparlanti e oggetto sonoro. [n.p.], Cramps Records CRSLP 6111. p1976.

Lucier, A., A. Lucier, et al. (2002). Vespers and other early works. New York, NY, New World Records,.

Lucier, A., A. Lucier, et al. (1988). Sferics

Sound on paper ; Music for pure waves, bass drums and acoustic pendulums. New York, N.Y., Lovely Music,.

Lucier, A., A. Lucier, et al. (1982). Music for solo performer. New York, N.Y., Lovely Music,.

Lucier, A. and W. Winant (1985). Still and moving lines of silence in families of hyperbolas. Part 2, numbers 5-8. New York, NY, Lovely Music,.

Mandelbrot, B. B. and R. L. Hudson (2004). The (mis)behavior of markets : a fractal view of risk, ruin, and reward. New York, Published by Basic Books.

Manovich, L. (2002). The language of new media. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

Moock, C. (2001). ActionScript : the definitive guide. Sebastopol, CA, O’Reilly.

Pekkilèa, E., D. Neumeyer, et al. (2006). Music, meaning and media. Imatra

Helsinki, International Semiotics Institute ;

Semiotic Society of Finland ; University of Helsinki.

Plastic, T. (2004). Tokyo Plastic V2.

Rees, A. L. (1999). A history of experimental film and video : from canonical avant-garde to contemporary British practice. London, BFI Publishing.

Richter, H. and D. Britt (1997). Dada, art and anti-art. New York, N.Y., Thames and Hudson.

Rumsey, F. (2001). Spatial audio. Oxford ; Boston, Focal Press.

SlimDevices.com (2005). Slim Devices Homepage http://www.slimdevices.com/.

Sonnenschein, D. (2001). Sound design : the expressive power of music, voice, and sound effects in cinema. Studio City, CA, Michael Wiese Productions.

Subotnick, M., C. Roads, et al. (2003). Morton Subotnick interview.

Thompson, H. S. (1995). Better than sex : confessions of a political junkie. New York, Ballantine Books.

Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning information. Cheshire, Conn. (P.O. Box 430, Cheshire 06410), Graphics Press.

Wands, B. (2006). Art of the digital age. London, Thames & Hudson.

Winkler, T. (1998). Composing interactive music : techniques and ideas using Max. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

Yates, F. A. (1966). The art of memory. Chicago,, University of Chicago Press.

Young, R. (2002). Under-Currents the hidden wiring of modern music. London, Continuum.

Links

Blair, Gerard. Groups that work,
www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html
Big Dog’s Leadership Page www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadtem2.html
Open Doors www.doorsopendays.org.uk/
Sources about wireless connectivity: www.bluetooth.com/

LINKS to digital art sites and installations:

Chris Hand’s Blog: mungbean.org/blog/
Chris Hand’s homepag: www.mungbean.net
Create your own Steady Cam for very little money: www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/
Immersive 3d Hack using wiiRemote:
www.engadget.com/2007/12/21/diy-head-tracker-takes-wiimote-hacking-to-dizzying-new-heights/
Other Johnny Lee projects using the wiiRemote:
www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/
Sarah Angliss, Sound artist using robotics www.spacedog.biz/
3DV systems, Company developing 3d image tracking software (a lot of this is doable in Jitter by the way) www.3dvsystems.com/gallery/gallery.html
www.jeffrey-shaw.net/html_main/show_work.php3?record_id=83 - the legible city
www.stelarc.va.com.au/index.html - worry about this guy
www.0100101110101101.org/ - look into Nike Platz
www.artcom.de - look up floating numbers
www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/ - create graffiti for a war computer game
www.opensorcery.net/lara2.html - does lara croft wear fake polyglons?
tmema.org/messa/messa.html - performance with real-time visuals
www.flong.com/remark/index.html - voices transferred to visuals
www.wearcam.org/ - wearable computing
www.impermanenceagent.com/agent/ - digital narratives
www.cityarts.com/lmno/index.html - John Kilmer’s 3D projection surfaces

Dynamic Web Design ARCH11004
Project Brief

Project Brief

You are to develop a prototype web site that offers some interactive service or activity to an identifiable constituency of users. The site may be intended to provide a resource base for designers, an information source for the public or specialists in some area, a system for selling digital or other products, a business service, a way to create and foster an online community or forum, etc. The site should incorporate the following capabilities: a database of resources (any or all of: sound, images, movies, text, models, programs, etc.), an interactive interface, streaming sound and/or video. The site may also enable you to present a professional web presence in order to: gain work (commissions); promote good design in its various facets; and provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of a live project, such as an installation design. It is possible, but not required, that the web site is put forward as a commercial proposition, ie that your project assumes an income stream. Possible income sources include: revenue from advertising and registration, and the sale of digital goods (MP3 files, desktop patterns, computer games, mobile phone ring tones and opening screens, gift services, electronic greeting cards, text documents, software, applets, advice, access to a directory service, online tutorials and teaching materials). The site could be for the brokerage of products and services by others. The site will be underpinned by one or more web databases, which should enable data to be added to and deleted online, and a simple search mechanism. Other data sources, such as APIs of external providers, may also be used. You will work in a group: each group member will create an independently identifiable component or aspect. You are to pursue an iterative design methodology, to the extent that you will develop an Alpha prototype which will be subjected to a simple usability evaluation, leading to principled reworking and a Beta prototype. The Beta prototype will of course still be less than a fully-functioning commercial system.

Templates will be provided to enable you to assemble various components of the resource base. You will have access to a series of databases with standard fields to take text, numbers, and URLs; and a toolbox of APIs. The databases will be used for storing information on resources, products, registrants, members, transactions, etc. You will design web-based forms and displays for entering, extracting and displaying these data. The system is to be robust enough for demonstration purposes, and conform to appropriate usability considerations.

During this alpha and beta development phase your project is to function as a completely open system, ie, no registration or password shall be required to view the site content, or for site management. You can speculate on what kind of security might be appropriate for your site, and what levels of access might be provided, but do not develop that aspect of your project for the alpha and beta stage. There are several reasons for placing this constraint on your project work for this course:

• your colleagues and teachers need to be able to rapidly explore the full functionality of your system without being constrained by registration, logins and/or passwords;

• the world-readability of web-based software presents interesting challenges and opportunities that are obscured by registration. Consider user-centred security protocols and soft-security measures if needed. How important is it to secure your site in any case?

What are the risks?;

• there are interesting techniques for customising the user’s environment, through the use of session variables and cookies that it is good to learn about;

• the preservation of open access, open source and creative commons, are key in the Internet gift society.

Interactive Design Media ARCH11003
Course Description

Semester 1, 20 credits. Course organiser: John Lee

Synopsis

This course develops advanced techniques that are used in digital design, particularly the development of interactive material for publishing on the World Wide Web. The emphasis is on design. Students advance through a series of lectures, demonstrations, practical project work, exercises and critique in a group context.

Learning Outcomes

Ability to:

use applications for interactive multimedia
design an interactive multimedia system, involving simple scripting
design web pages, social network media and their content
work in a collaborative context of group review and critique
engage in a creative task within tightly constrained bounds and to present the outcome to conform to precise specifications
interpret and apply a set of requirements pertaining to a design task

Assessment

Project 1: Web site (40%); Project 2: Interactive design (60%)

Criteria for Assessment

Work will be assessed on the basis of:

Demonstrated competence with web design and interactive tools
Skills in creatively deploying allocated resources, whatever their capabilities
Precision and competence in presentation
Ability to meet the requirements of the project brief and deal creatively with its open-ended aspects
Design quality of the work in terms of meeting functional requirements, legibility, usability, interactivity, and appropriate use of media

Account will be taken of the risks taken and degree to which the design deviates from standard solutions.

Principal Software

Web Authoring: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Flash CS3
Image Editing: Photoshop CS3
Video Editing: iMovie, Final Cut Pro

Project Brief

These submissions dovetail with the moves developed in Introduction to Design Media (P00174). Students who are not undertaking that course will be supplied with the necessary resources.

Move A. cfpma media site

Submission date: 29 October 2010

The global organization cfpma (Carbon Friendly Proto Modern Alliance) wants a website that provides a platform for promoting its own activities and that of various designers, artists and producers in the areas of film, performance, and digital media. cfpma requires a website for showcasing still images, video and sonic outputs.
You are to provide a simple website that displays or links to flash or QT videos. Using CSS style sheets create two versions of your website
1. suitable for viewing in the browser of a desktop/laptop computer
2. cfpma-mobile: suitable for viewing on a mobile smartphone platform (480×320 px at 163 ppi)
You can deploy some of the symbolism and iconography developed in the course P00174. Video sources will include those developed in that course. Use HTML routines for embedding video on your web page.

Move B. cfpma interactive

Submission date: 10 December 2010

You are to develop an online interactive that incorporates or reacts against some aspect of a digital future in an era of scarce resources. The interactive can be educational, satirical, serious and/or game-like (ludic). It could be suitable for displaying in the cfpma virtual museum, and could help explain the operations of some artefact, such as a pump, Difference Engine, camera, or the steam media projector of P00174.

As the cfpma is interested in proto-modern moving image technologies it has stipulated that the interactive incorporates a moving image (video) component. Somewhere in your interactive you need to incorporate a QT or AVI file or series of files. The video/s can be the focus of your interactive, or they can advance the interaction in some way.

The interactive can deploy abstraction, reference to maps, navigation, spatiality, geometry, optics, sonics, kinetics, and make reference to machine processes. However, in keeping with its ideology of respect for environment and cultures and its admiration of proto-modern technologies, cfpma insists on some further severe constraints to the design of your interactive, i.e. on the branding, form, and content of your product. Your design must not reproduce existing traditional or digital games, or themes from literature or film. Further, there should be no text other than numbers in the interactive: any data you wish to display should be represented visually or numerically. Finally, the cfpma will not allow representations of animals, insects (including butterflies), marine life, people, robots, dolls, aliens, magical beings, monsters, vampires, deities, spirits, anthropomorphic objects, or other characters. There are to be no representations that draw on ethnic stereotyping or are ethnically specific, such as images or sounds of bagpipes, indigenous folk characters, cartoon characters or mythologies. Nor will they accept the depiction, realistic or abstract, of the hardware of war, criminality or terror. Flowers and other organic matter are also forbidden unless presented in scientific detail.

It is satisfactory for the interactive to exist as a single web page. The interactive should be a demonstrator, and it should be obvious to the consumer/user/player when the limits of the interactive’s functionality have been reached. Use only resources from this class. Use each other’s images, sounds, and models. Inform the author if you are using their work. Acknowledge all authors in a text document or HTML page linked from the interactive.
Submit link to WIP page, and all files to the electronic drop box.

Move C. Portfolio

Keep a personal web site linked to work that you have developed throughout the year, and previous work. (Not to be examined.)

Bibliography

Barrett E. 1995. Contextual Media: Multimedia and Interpretation, MIT, Cambridge.
Bateman, C and Boon, R. 2006. 21st Century Game Design. Charles River media.
Carey, Patrick. 2006. New Perspectives on HTML, XHTML and Dynamic HTML. (3rd edition.) Thomson Course Technology.
Cotterell M. and Hughes B. 1995. Software Project Management, Thompson Press, London.
Chapman, N. and Chapman, J. 2004. Digital Multimedia. Wiley.
Gesing T. and Scheider J. 1997. JavaScript for the World Wide Web, Peachpit, Berkeley.
Isaacs, Ellen and Walendowski, Alan. 2002. Designing from Both Sides of the Screen: How Designers and Engineers Can Collaborate to Build Cooperative Technology, New Riders, Indianapolis.
Jones P.H. 1998. Handbook of Team Design, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Kay, Alan. 1990. User interface: a personal view, in The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, B. Laurel (ed.) 191-207, Reading Massachusetts: Addison Wesley.
LeMay L. and Perkins C.L. 1996. Teach Yourself Java, Hayden, New York.
Lopez, Luis A. 2006. New Perspectives on Macromedia Flash 8 - Comprehensive. Thomson Course Technology.
McComb G. 1996. JavaScript Sourcebook, Wiley, New York.
Mitchell W.J. 1992. The Reconfigured Eye, MIT, Cambridge.
Olsen, Gary 1997. Getting Started in Multimedia Design, Cincinnati, Ohio: North Light Books.
Pfaffenberger B. 1996. Publish it on the Web, Academic, Boston.
Poole, Steven. 2000. Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames, London: Fourth Estate.
Rabin, Steve. 2005. Introduction to Game Development. Charles River Media.
Robertson, Lesley Anne. 2004. Simple Program Design: a step-by-step approach. Thomson Course Technology.
Shuman, Jim. 2006. Macromedia Flash 8 - Revealed. Thomson Course Technology.
Sommerville, Ian. 2001. Software Engineering, Addison-Wesley, Harlow, England.
Tannenbaum, Robert S. 1998. Theoretical Foundations of Multimedia, New York: Computer Science Press.
Tufte, Edward R. 1983. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire Connecticut.
Tufte, Edward R. 1990. Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire Connecticut.
Tufte, Edward R. 1997. Visual Explanations, Graphics Press, Cheshire Connecticut

Other resources

Various Addison-Wesley/Peachtree/ZD Press type publications on particular techniques
Software manuals.

Web sites on the authors and themes mentioned in the introduction to this project.

Introduction to Design Media ARCH11001
Course Description

Semester 1, 20 credits. Course organiser: Richard Coyne

Synopsis

Learning Outcomes

Ability to:

use applications for modelling, image manipulation, and basic animation
prepare web content
work in a collaborative context of group review and critique
engage in a creative task within tightly constrained bounds and to present the outcome to conform to precise specifications
interpret and apply a set of requirements pertaining to a design task.

Assessment

Criteria for assessment

Work will be assessed on the basis of

Demonstrated competence with modelling and image manipulation tools
Skills in creatively deploying allocated resources, whatever their capabilities
Precision and competence in presentation
Ability to meet the requirements of the project brief and deal creatively with its open-ended aspects
Design quality of the work in terms of meeting functional requirements, legibility, clarity, and appropriate use of media

Account will be taken of the risks taken and degree to which the design deviates from standard solutions

Teaching Method

Principal Software

3d Modelling and animation: Blender

also available: Sketchup, Maya, Form•Z

image processing:  Adobe PhotoShop

video processing: Final Cut (Pro and Express)

Project Brief: Steam Media Engine

Move 1: Screen apparatus

Crit 1 submission date: 24 September 2010
Crit 2 submission date: 1 October 2010

Punkmeister's sketch

Complete in PNG format:

1 digital image of your screen apparatus at 640 x 480 px.
1 thumbnail of the same image cropped at 64 x 64 px. White background.

Move 2: Projector

Submission date: 22 October 2010

Move 3: Animation

Submission date: 26 November 2010

You will be allocated a class member to forward your image A to and you will receive an image in turn from someone else (your image B).

Submit MOVES 1, 2 and 3 to the electronic drop box.

The images from the whole design team will be combined in the appropriate sequence to produce a longer animation.

Resources

Introduction to Design Media ARCH11001
Course bibliography

Hess, R. 2007. The Essential Blender: Guide to 3D Creation with the Open Source Suite Blender, No Starch Press.
Brito, A. 2008. Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery, Packt Publishing.
Mullen, T. 2007. Introducing Character Animation with Blender, Sybex.
Mullen T. 2008. Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D, Sybex.
Barrett E. 1995. Contextual Media: Multimedia and Interpretation, MIT, Cambridge.
Cotterell M. and Hughes B. 1995. Software Project Management, Thompson Press, London.
Chapman, N. and Chapman, J. 2004. Digital Multimedia. Wiley.
Isaacs, Ellen and Walendowski, Alan. 2002. Designing from Both Sides of the Screen: How Designers and Engineers Can Collaborate to Build Cooperative Technology, New Riders, Indianapolis.
Jones P.H. 1998. Handbook of Team Design, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Lansdown, John and Simon Schofield. 1995. Expressive rendering: a review of nonphotorealistic techniques, IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, 15 (3): 29-37.
Mitchell W.J. 1992. The Reconfigured Eye, MIT, Cambridge.
Olsen, Gary (1997). Getting Started in Multimedia Design, Cincinnati, Ohio: North Light Books.
Rymaszewski, M., Au, W.J., Wallace, M., Winters, C., Ondrejka, C., and Batstone-Cunningham, B. 2007.
Second Life: The Official Guide, Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.
Tannenbaum, Robert S. (1998). Theoretical Foundations of Multimedia, new York: Computer Science Press.

Other resources:

Sketchup website: http://sketchup.google.com/
Blender website: http://blender.org
Blender Atrists forum: http://blenderartists.org/forum/
Blender DVD’s available for purchase or download (CC licenced): Creature Factory & The Mancandy FAQ
http://lynda.com/

NYT	Course	S	L	CT
1	Introduction to Design Media	A	11	20
	Media and Culture	A	11	20
	Interactive Design Media	A	11	20
	Dynamic Web Design	A	11	20
	The Digital Marketplace #	A	11	20
	Digital Media Studio Project #	A	11	20
	Design and Digital Media Final Project	A	11	60

Design and Digital Media Handbook 2010-11

Programme information and course descriptions

Contents

Programme Information