Throughout this course, each student will be assigned to a group of 4–5 people and will work on a team project for a specific society-based issue in a smart city. On each day students will work as a team for the following items:
- Day 1: members in a group will discuss and identify their preferences to some specific project topics; by the end of the day each group will be associated with one project topic.
- Days 2 and 3: students will acquire basic technical skills in data science and communication, as a preparation for them to implement their project idea.
- Day 4: students will be guided through a four-stage workshop to make progress in their project:
- problem formulation
- problem analysis
- prototype implementation
- validation and discussion.
- Day 5: each group will lead a 25-minute session for final presentation and Q&A. Students will give feedback and peer evaluation to each group.
Some suggested tools for group work:
- Zoom whiteboard
- miro the visual collaboration platform
Finally, always bear in mind that the main objective of this course project is to identify social-based issues in smart cities and to propose solutions to them. Techniques in data science and communication are the means, not the ends. Think about how to apply those techniques to complete a proof-of-concept system prototype for your project topic, and clearly articulate and defend your case.