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Syllabus / UNICEFF09
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund; http://unicef.org) is a UN Agency that takes on issues affecting the health, well-being, and opportunities of children and youth around the world. Increasingly, this includes creating and managing novel communications tools, from online forums for youth journalism to communications support for youth AIDS activists. Because many of the youth served live in places with poor connectivity (whether because of poverty, state controls, crisis, or displacement) UNICEF also creates and manages field-deployable communications hardware that improve basic access to communications, whether via SMS, internet, or FM radio. (A list of innovative UNICEF communications projects can be found at mepemepe.com.) Design for UNICEF starts with an embrace of the opportunities and constraints of serving a diverse, young, and global population. In particular, the goal of this class to create engaging and useful communications tools for youth, broadly defined as anyone under 30, living in sub-Saharan Africa. These tools should improve the well-being or solve a problem for the users. We will take sub-Saharan Africa as our focus because its geographic and cultural diversity, and its enormously variable infrastructure, mean that solutions that work there are likelier to be portable to the rest of the world than vice-versa. The projects in Design for UNICEF will be imagined, designed, and tested by you, working in groups. The course will proceed in three basic stages: Ideation, Creation, Feedback. Ideation is the process of having an idea, and making it specific enough to be worth criticizing. Creation is about getting an idea to the stage of a prototype or mockup fleshed out enough to invite response from potential users. Feedback is the period of both user testing and presentation of the idea in an effort to improve the idea continuously. A project can serve fundamental functions (e.g. gathering and distribution of information; aggregation of ideas or questions from the field; translation or annotation tools; etc) or it can relate specifically to one of the grand challenges of the class (education; opportunity discovery; social coordination; data aggregation.) Your goal is to come up with an project that is simple enough, compelling enough, and effective enough to merit testing with real users. (The choice of whether or not any of the projects coming out of the class will be worth additional resources will made by members of the UNICEF Innovations team.) Assignments and Grading Work in the class will consist of research and development with your group, and presentation of that material in class and to members of UNICEF. Your grade will reflect both participation in class and work on group projects. Schedule Week 1: Introduction of Class Form and Theme An introduction to the class structure and theme; background on UNICEF and communications design goals and constraints; ad hoc groups formed, and first design challenge posed. Readings: Bhavnani, Asheeta et al.; The Role of Mobile Phones in Sustainable Rural Poverty Reduction; http://bit.ly/yM7A Meadows, Donella: Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System: http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/PDF/DevDotStar_Meadows_Intervene.pdf Week 2: "Practice" Ideas and Questions; UNICEF Presentation Presentation by Erica Kochi of UNICEF staff; ad hoc groups present observations, questions, and design ideas they have prepared during the week. New ad hoc groups formed; second design challenge. Readings: Fabian, Christopher & Erica Kochi: Using Mobile Technology to Unite for Children (Handout) NetSquared: Childhood malnutrition monitoring with SMS: http://www.netsquared.org/projects/child-malnutrition-surveillance-and-famine-response Week 3: "Practice" Ideas; Questions for Summit participants Ad hoc groups make short presentation of ideas they have worked on during the week. Work on goals and constraints from UNICEF presentation. Readings: Technologies in Emerging Economies: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10640716 Frank, Ze: Simple questions to ask when planning a contribution-based project: http://www.zefrank.com/explicit/2009/01/simple_questions_to_ask_when_p.html Week 4: "Practice" Ideas Each group will present two ideas to the class --15 minutes of presentation plus discussion for each idea. Readings: AfriGadget: http://www.afrigadget.com/ Smith, Alex: Mobile Literacy Manifesto: http://bit.ly/qeiu Week 5: First draft Each group will present their idea to the class for review, with 15 mins to present and 15 mins of discussion. Readings: Hargittai, Eszter; The Participation Divide: Content Creation and Sharing in the Digital Age (Handout) Galtung, Johan and Mari Holmboe Ruge: The Structure of Foreign News (Handout) Week 6: Work Week Work period, plus group-by-group meetings with professor. Readings: From Week 6 onwards, readings will be per group. Week 7: First presentation to UNICEF Each group will present their idea to a panel of UNICEF staff and outside reviewers. (15+15 mins format.) Week 8: Post-mortem Discussion of reviewer comments Week 9: Work Week Brief discussion of where each group is, post spring break, followed by discussion on ways of collecting user feedback. Week 10: Groups present Groups present to UNICEF reviewers (15+15 format), followed by plenary discussion. After this class, some form of user feedback from the field is required. The method of soliciting that feedback will be particular to each group. Week 11: User Feedback #1 Each group presents their method of soliciting user feedback, documentation from that feedback, and next steps. Week 12: User Feedback #2 Each group presents changes they made since the previous week, documentation from additional user feedback, and next steps Week 13: Final UNICEF Presentation #1 Two groups present to UNICEF staffers and outside guests, followed by plenary discussion. Week 14: Final UNICEF Presentation #2 Two groups present to UNICEF staffers and outside guests, followed by plenary discussion. |