Course Information (Syllabus)

Course Resources

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• Website: https://classes.cs.uchicago.edu/archive/2025/spring/20630-1/
• Canvas: https://canvas.uchicago.edu/courses/63124
• Office hours:
  • Timmy: Tuesdays: 2:00pm - 3:00pm (CSIL 1)
  • Sarah: Wednesdays 12:30pm - 1:30pm (CSIL 1)
  • Lauren: by appointment (llwright@uchicago.edu)

Course Description

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Robots are increasingly common in our everyday spaces: tutoring elementary students, assisting human workers in manufacturing contexts, providing museum tours, interacting with families within their homes, and helping to care for the elderly. One critical factor to the success of these robots is their ability to effectively interact with people: human-robot interactions.

This course focuses on the core concepts and cutting-edge research in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI), covering topics that include: nonverbal robot behavior, verbal robot behavior, social dynamics, norms & ethics, collaboration & learning, group interactions, applications, and future challenges of HRI. In class meetings, students lead discussions about cutting-edge peer-reviewed research HRI publications. In weekly labs, students engage in hands-on activities to learn the essential skills of human-robot interaction research, including experiment design, robot programming, and data analysis techniques. Students also participate in a quarter-long collaborative research project, where they pursue an HRI research question that involves conducting their own human-subjects research study where they recruit human subjects to interact with a robot.

The prerequisite for this course is completion of either CMSC 14200 or CMSC 15400. This course is considered within the CS curriculum areas of both Robotics and Human Computer Interaction and counts towards the Human Computer Interaction BS specialization.

Learning Objectives

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1. You will obtain a broad understanding and exposure to cutting-edge research in the field of Human-Robot Interaction through course readings and participating in discussions of those readings.
2. You will cultivate analytical and critical thinking skills when evaluating research in HRI through leading class discussions, making analytical comments on the readings, and writing peer-reviews.
3. You will practice and gain experience in the skills needed to conduct HRI research (e.g., robot programming, designing experiments, analyzing data) through the course labs.
4. You will gain a comprehensive and hands-on HRI research experience through the course project where you will design and execute an HRI study from scratch.

Course Communication

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• Course website: We will use the schedule page of the course website to organize course readings and the project page of the course website for everything regarding the project including project deliverables.
• hypothes.is: We will use hypothes.is annotations for analytical comments on the course readings as well as any paper-centered discussion (e.g., questions about the readings).
• Canvas: We will use Canvas to submit peer-reviews and project deliverables as well as post grades.
• Google Drive: We use Google Drive for discussion lead slide submissions (in this Google Drive folder).

CMSC 20630 vs. CMSC 30630

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The experience of students taking CMSC 30630 will be the same as that of students taking CMSC 20630, with the exception of the following differences:

• Students in CMSC 30630 will write an independent literature review as an intermediate deliverable of their course project.
• Students in CMSC 30630 will write 3 peer reviews instead of 2 peer reviews in comparison with students in CMSC 20630.
• Students in CMSC 30630 may be asked to take on 1 additional discussion leadership role than students in CMSC 20630 (depending on enrollment numbers).

Grading

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• 50% project (final project grading rubric)
• 25% class discussion deliverables:
  • 9% analytical comments on the readings
  • 8% discussion leadership
  • 8% peer-reviews of readings
• 15% lab deliverables
• 10% attendance/participation

This course counts as a human-computer interactions elective for PhD students. For undergraduates, this course is within the CS curriculum areas of both Robotics and Human Computer Interaction and counts towards the Human Computer Interaction BS specialization.

Flexibility

The course grading is flexible to the following exceptions without penalty:

• 2 late analytical comments (no more than 2 weeks late)
• 1 missed class discussions where you are not the discussion lead (please notify me in advance when possible)

If you get sick, please spend your time focusing on your recovery. Reach out to me once you are able and we will figure out how best to handle your absence and assignment grading.

Beyond this, if your circumstances require additional flexibility, please reach out to me.

Project & Lab Deliverables

For grading details on the project and lab deliverables, please refer to the project page and the pages detailing each lab.

Analytical Comments and Questions on the Readings

For each class meeting, we will discuss one academic research paper. In order to get the most out of class discussions, you are required to submit at least one analytical comment on each research paper by 12:00pm (noon) CST the day of class. You will make these analytical comments using the Google Chrome plugin hypothes.is and making your annotations visible within the group "CMSC20630 Spring 2025". Your analytical comment should be a minimum of 2-3 sentences in length and should showcase critical thinking about the paper, for example, your analytical comment could:

• Highlight strengths or weaknesses with aspects of the methodology, assumptions, analyses, or design of the work; providing evidence for the strength/weakness
• Suggest a fruitful avenue for future research by detailing an experimental study design or computational method that would continue the investigations proposed in the paper
• Discuss possible implications of the findings of this paper in other application domains
• Reference another academic paper that provides an interesting perspective on the assigned paper, explaining the connection between the two and the implications for the assigned paper's conclusions
• Expose a possible confounding factor that could provide an alternative explanation for the authors' observations
• Propose an alternative study design that would more effectively answer the authors' research questions

You may make more than one analytical comment if you wish. Additionally, if you have any questions about the content of the paper please also ask them using a hypothes.is annotation. Please feel free to also answer each others' questions and follow up on other people's comments. These hypothes.is annotations are designed to store all communications and student perspectives about the research paper in one place before the class discussion.

Additionally, if we are hosting a guest speaker in class, who will be presenting their work (that we will also have read before their presentation), you are required to submit at least one question related to the research paper by 12:00pm (noon) CST the day of class. Just like the analytical comments, you will submit your question using hypothes.is.

Attendance/Participation

This class is designed to facilitate active and critical discussions about cutting-edge work in the field of human-robot interaction and build the skills needed to conduct HRI research. Your attendance and participation in class meetings and labs is essential to get the most out of this class. Specifically you will be assessed on the following two factors:

• Class and lab attendance: You are expected to arrive on time for class and be present for all class meetings. If you arrive more than 10 minutes late for class, three such late arrivals will equate to one missed class meeting.
• Discussion participation: You are expected to come to every class discussion prepared and ready to engage. Your participation in these discussions will be evaluated on your ability to demonstrate critical thinking about the HRI research papers. At minimum, we expect you to verbally contribute to class discussions at least one out of every three class periods.

Discussion Leadership

For each paper discussion, there will be 3 students who will serve as the discussion leads and contribute to a presentation to the class that will set the stage for our class discussion of the paper. Each student will have a unique role:

• Main Discussion Lead: The main discussion lead will summarize the paper, highlight its strengths and weaknesses and pose discussion questions for the class discussion. The slides the main discussion lead are responsible for include:
  • 1 slide reporting the title of the paper, authors, publication venue
  • 1-2 slides summarizing the methods of the paper
  • 1-2 slides reporting the main results of the paper
  • 1 slide summarizing the main strengths and weaknesses of the paper
  • 1 slide with 2-3 Warm up questions for small group discussion
  • 1 slide with 5-7 Large group discussion questions
• Literature Analyst: The literature analyst will explore how this paper sits in relation to past and current peer-reviewed work on the same topic. The literature analyst will search for at least one prior work and one current work (published within the past year or two) and report on the similarities and differences between the main paper and those they've discovered. The slides the main discussion lead are responsible for include:
  • 1-2 slides on prior work
  • 1-2 slides on current work
• Researcher: The researcher will consider how future work might build upon the paper and propose avenues for future research. The researcher will propose at least two detailed potential avenues for future research with corresponding research questions and high-level methods. The slides the main discussion lead are responsible for include:
  • 1-2 slides on future research idea #1
  • 1-2 slides on future research idea #2

All three discussion leads will contribute to the Google Slides presentation in this Google Drive folder by 12:00pm (noon) the day of class.

Peer-Reviews of the Readings

During the quarter, students enrolled in CMSC 20620 will be asked to write 2 peer-reviews and students enrolled in CMSC 30630 (grad level) will be asked to write 3 peer-reviews of the assigned course readings. Your review is expected to be approximately 2 pages in length and should include all of the following elements:

• Header information: The paper title, year, authors as well as YOUR name.
• Summary: Summarize the paper and its contributions in 1 paragraph.
• Strengths: List out 3-5 strengths of the paper as it is currently written, these can be formatted as bullet points. Examples of strengths I’ve listed for papers I’ve reviewed include:
  • "The paper is well written and is situated in the relevant literature."
  • "The analysis of the results, especially using Bayesian statistics, is thorough and well explained."
  • "The authors provide helpful information (including tables) on their methods and measures."
  • "The authors chose a nice array of explanation types to investigate and also studied interesting personality dispositions that may influence human-robot rapport."
  • "The study design is robust, well executed, and communicated effectively."
  • "The influence of anthropomorphism on a person's trust of and relationship with a robot is a very interesting and relevant topic to the HRI community."
• Weaknesses: List out the 3-5 main weaknesses you see in the paper/work as it is currently presented. Examples of weaknesses I’ve listed for papers I’ve reviewed include:
  • "The study did not yield many results, most of the hypotheses were not confirmed, and there are few takeaways of this work about the main variables of interest. It seems that to answer the authors’ research questions, a new study needs to be designed that addresses the shortcomings of the study presented in this paper."
  • "The study design itself does not make the robot’s trust violations negatively impact the participant, nor does it seem to set up a situation in which repair attempts could be successful."
  • "There is a potential confounding effect that could explain the results of the study, which is the robot in one condition appears more human-like than the robot in the other condition."
  • "Some of the claims made by the authors about the significance of their findings seem overstated (e.g., the claim that this work is the first to demonstrate the influence of robot anthropomorphism on people's positive impressions of the robot). The paper needs reframing with regards to the claims it makes about its novelty."
  • "The paper does not motivate the research by providing real-life examples of when robots may leverage different embodiments, and could improve in its motivation of the concepts studied and the research questions posed."
• Suggestions for Improvement: List out the main 4-6 changes you think the authors could make that would serve to make the largest improvement for the paper. Please elaborate on each of these suggestions for improvement.
• Conclusion: In a few sentences, summarize your overall impressions of the paper. Praise what you believe to be the main merits and strengths of the paper and also briefly summarize the main change(s) you believe will help improve the paper.
• Review Score: For most conferences, papers are given a score to indicate the reviewer's perspective on whether they believe the paper should be accepted or rejected, please choose a score from the list below. Your score should reflect what you have written in your review.
  • Strong Accept (SA): This is a very strong paper, I will fight for its acceptance.
  • Accept (A): This is a strong paper that should be accepted.
  • Weak Accept (WA): My opinion on this paper could be swayed, but I am leaning accept.
  • Weak Reject (WR): My opinion on this paper could be swayed, but I am leaning reject.
  • Reject (R): This is not a strong paper that should be rejected.
  • Strong Reject (SR): The paper is trivial, known, or wrong, I will fight for its rejection.

Your peer-review must be uploaded to Canvas by 12:00pm (noon) CST the day of class. Your peer review can be in Word document or PDF format. Also, please name your peer-review file after the first author last name, the year the paper was published, the peer-review review type, and your own name (e.g. "Bainbridge_2011_review_against_Sarah_Sebo").

Late Assignments

A late assignment is one that does not provide the requested deliverable (e.g., analytical comment, project proposal, discussion lead slides) in the requested format by the stated deadline. Late assignments will be docked 10% of the total grade for each 24 hours period, up to 3 days, that they are late. After three days, the assignment will receive a zero.

The only exceptions to this policy are listed in the 'Flexibility' section above and in case of emergency. If you experience an emergency, please take care of the situation at hand, and afterwards please reach out to me so that we can discuss a best path forward.

Policies

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Academic Integrity

In this course, we abide by the University of Chicago's Policy on Academic Honesty and Plagiarism. If you violate this policy (depending on the severity of the offense) you risk being dismissed from this course. All cases will be referred to the Dean of Students office, which may impose further penalties, including suspension and expulsion. If you have any questions about whether an activity or written work would constitute cheating or plagiarizing, please ask.

With respect to this course, please ensure that you appropriately cite all academic work that you paraphrase or quote.

Use of Generative AI

We specify the following guidelines for the use of generative AI in this course:

• English writing content: Some of the central goals of this course include the ability to think critically about human-robot interaction research and to communicate research ideas and critiques through writing. Therefore, we prohibit the use of generative AI to generate from scratch any of your deliverables written in English (e.g., analytical comments, peer reviews, project deliverables). However, you may use generative AI to help you edit/improve your English writing (e.g., "rephrase this sentence").
• Code for the course project: Since gaining robot programming skills is not a central learning objective of this class, we allow and encourage you to use generative AI to generate code, document code, debug code, etc. for your course project.

If you have any questions about the use of generative AI to produce or edit your English writing in this course, please ask.

Diversity Commitment

I stand with the University of Chicago in my dedication to "creating an environment where people of different backgrounds feel valued and where their ideas and contributions can flourish" (see UChicago's Diversity Commitment Statement). I strive to make this classroom environment one where the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of each individual are valued and included for the benefit of us all, including gender identity, sexuality, disability, generational status, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, religion, national origin, and culture. I expect that all class related interactions will be conducted with mutual respect, open communication, and non-discrimination. If you have any suggestions for how we can better promote an inclusive and open environment, please reach out to me.

Accessibility

The University of Chicago and I are committed to ensuring equitable access to academic programs and services. Students with disabilities who have been approved for the use of academic accommodations by Student Disability Services (SDS) and need a reasonable accommodation(s) to participate fully in this course should follow the procedures established by SDS for using accommodations. Timely notifications are required in order to ensure that your accommodations can be implemented. Please meet with me to discuss your access needs in this class after you have completed the SDS procedures for requesting accommodations.

Phone: (773) 702-6000
Email: disabilities@uchicago.edu

Sexual Misconduct

The University of Chicago is "committed to taking necessary action to stop, prevent, and remedy instances of sexual misconduct" (see the University of Chicago's website for the Office for Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Support). Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. Sexual misconduct is unacceptable at the University of Chicago, including any interactions that occur related to this course.

If you would like to speak confidentially about an incident of sexual misconduct, want more information about filing a report, or have questions about school policies and procedures, please contact our Title IX Coordinator. In certain situations, the University may have an institutional obligation to respond to a report of sexual misconduct. Additionally, as a faculty member, I am required by Title IX and the University of Chicago to report incidents of sexual misconduct, even if I am requested to keep the information confidential.

Wellness

As you pursue your education, your health and overall wellbeing is extremely important. Do your best to maintain a healthy lifestyle this quarter by eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, and taking time to relax. Despite our best efforts, all of us benefit from support at times. Asking for support when a problem is small can help keep it from growing larger, but there is no wrong time to ask for help. If you or someone you know could benefit from mental health services, I strongly recommend that you reach out to UChicago Student Wellness, whose services do not come at any additional cost to students. Additionally, If a personal emergency arises that may impact your work in this course, please alert me so that the appropriate arrangements can be made.

Acknowledgments

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This course is centered around the excellent recent work in the field of Human-Robot Interaction. The policies outlined in this syllabus was informed and adapted from those of Henny Admoni, Ravi Chugh, Blase Ur, and Marshini Chetty.