Animation and Interactive Content

Contents and objectives. The title Animation and Interactive Content is used here as a moniker for a course on rich Web experiences. Animation in its basic form, i.e. the illusion of movement through a rapid display of images, was the beginning of a lively Web being composed of more than illustrated text alone. Nowadays, animation technologies like Flash and Silverlight are subtly incorporated in a whole range of experiential applications, which do not necessarily show many moving objects. Animation techniques (in the broad sense of the word) provide smooth transitions, tweens, high quality multimedia, complex mouse-over effects, interactive graphics, and a reliable display in a Web browser. For this purpose, animation and interaction go almost always together.

In this way, the term animation has come to cover a broad field of techniques and research lines in computer science, social sciences and arts. Therefore, some demarcation is needed. This course will focus on animation and interactive content, thus emphasizing animation in combination with conveying information, visualization, story telling, user experience and usability. Starting with classic cartoon animation it fans out to a variety of related domains, like virtual worlds, advertisement, rich media, cultural heritage and museums. The main objective is a thorough overview by means of reading publications and integrating knowledge in papers of good quality.

This course does not include any programming and presents a view from the information science perspective. This implies, that it is not about the technical aspects of animations: algorithms and animation software or actually making animations (skills and practice). It does not cover animation issues in computer science research, as the animation of human movement, facial expressions or the movement of crowds. There is an other course which meets these interests much better.

Procedures. A team of mostly two people will work on a paper together with a PowerPoint slides to be presented at the end of the course (a draft has to be ready earlier, see schedule). At the weekly seminar each team will report on its progress and discuss problems with the other participants. The precise size of a team may vary according to the size of the class and other circumstances. The paper should be of good quality as if it were to be submitted to a conference and, following this principle, it must be laid out carefully -- a template will be provided. The authors of a paper are expected to find some additional literature themselves in addition to what is listed in the schedule, and to use it adequately. Papers should be distributed by e-mail to all participants on time.

Participants will act as (professional) reviewers when the papers are presented. After the presentation of the paper and slides everyone will be asked to fill out a questionnaire thus putting his/her review in writing. The authors of the paper will make a self evaluation using the questions and comments made during the discussion.

Note:

1. Attending the weekly seminar is obligatory. Absence for serious reasons (e.g. illness) is only allowed two times (including week 1). If you are absent more than two times, the grading of this part will be never higher than 5, which means that the final mark will be not higher than 5 as well (see grading). This rule does not apply to exceptional situations. In case of long-lasting illness etc. you should discuss your situation with the teacher and the education manager.
2. If you have subscribed to this course, you have to be present at the introductory seminar or contact the teacher beforehand and confirm your participation explicitly. No show and no message in week 1 means that your name is automatically removed from the list!
3. The minimum number of participants is 10 and the maximum 20. If the number of subscription is higher, new subscribers will be put on a waiting list. After the seminar of the first week you will be notified if you can still participate.
4. After the first week you can not join anymore.

Grading.

1. There is no final exam.
2. The grading is based on (A) the paper plus presentation and slides and (B) the reviews. Each week you will get feedback on the review you made the week before, together with a global assessment (OK / Could be better / not OK). At the end, all your reviews will be assessed.
   Final mark = 0.8 * A + 0.2 * B.
3. Both A and B must be 6 or higher.
4. Only if you have fully participated as described above you will be entitled to an additional test in case your final mark is more than 4 and less than 6. This will have the form of an other paper about a new subject with a new set of reading material.