IDM Thesis

The expectation is that, regardless of the topic, approach and form, or outcomes of the project you take on in this semester, you will have a project and paper that support one another which will reflect a significant investment of your time and effort. This may or may not build on prior coursework.

It is *your* project and you are in the driver’s seat.

You get to choose what you want to work on, how you want to go about it, and who you reach out to for advice, help, or other forms of support. It is a semester-long project, with the expectation that you will be doing what is necessary to complete it with outcomes that meet your and faculty expectations, whether that involves field research with users or other stakeholders, or consistently iterating and prototyping through semester to complete an artwork. We highly recommend that you pick something to work on that will keep you motivated and excited through the semester that you will be proud to show off at its end.

Plan for a self-contained project that you can complete in a semester.

You should be scoping this project appropriately — that is, you need to complete this in 14 weeks, and any work you do must be finalized in that period. Thinking big about building a platform or product is great, but your finished project needs to be realized with fewer resources and less time than a full fledged business could possibly be launched with. If you do have plans for a larger endeavor than what you can achieve in the thesis semester, think about what you can do in this time frame that will be a complete, standalone project that points you towards that larger goal. A click-though or a wireframe is not a project; you should be thinking about more concrete outcomes — even if they are speculative in nature. If you need assistance with thinking through something that can be realized in this time frame, consult with the faculty for guidance.

The IDM faculty and larger community are there to help and support you.

Your instructors are responsible for making sure that you are staying on top of things, making consistent progress on your work, meeting deadlines, and being prepared for the mid-semester and end-of-semester reviews and the public showcase. You will be expected to take the initiative and reach out to people whom you think having a conversation with or showing work to would be useful. This can include working with or under IDM faculty on common research interests. You have to take the first step to reach out to anyone whom you think might be useful — the earlier you start those conversations, the better!

Start the semester knowing what your project will be and how you want to do it.

You should enter your final semester already having spent time thinking and deciding on your project. Come prepared to work if you haven’t started already. You may decide to use the research you did in a seminar course to inform your work, or you may have to revisit research or studio work you did in a prior class to inform your project’s direction.

In the opening weeks of the semester, your instructors will help you refine and hone in what you’re working on. Your Research Methods course will have given you some insight into what kind of process will work for you, and you should start well before the thesis semester starts.

There are deadlines and expectations attached to delivering on those deadlines. You will be evaluated on your progress and process.

Twice during the semester — mid-way through and at the end — you will have faculty critiques, where the instructors and IDM faculty will review your project and the progress you’ve made on it. These feedback sessions are mandatory and you will be graded by your instructors — you cannot opt out. You will be presenting work to faculty who may not have seen it or be acquainted with it, so keep in mind that how you present and articulate it is important — practice presenting beforehand! You will also present your Thesis work at the end-of-semester showcase which is open to the public (including faculty, your peers, friends, family, coworkers and people from industry, etc.).

Your project must have tangible outcomes and process documentation.

This is a creative emerging media arts + design program, and it is expected that you will have something tangible — some form of creative output, whether in the form of an artifact, a site or space, a visualization, or something else, to show. In other words, you can’t just present some slides or still wireframes or basic click-throughs of a proposed work at the end — you must make something substantive, whether screen-based, tangible, or experiential. You will also be expected to produce a document that captures and summarizes your process in a succinct and rich manner to be submitted to your instructors.. This will also serve as a document of your work that you can use to show other people outside of Tandon.

Learning Objectives

• Develop and complete a body of work or project that has been crafted to be used for professional purposes (employment, gallery shows, funding, starting a business, etc.).
• Thoroughly explain their work and process in a written document, and provide context through detailed media archives (video, audio, and code repositories are some examples of these materials)
• Clearly articulate and describe a project of significant scope to specialist, professional, or general audiences

Attendance

• Attendance is mandatory. 
• One absence is allowed; if you miss any additional class meetings and have legitimate reason for your absence, you must submit documentation per NYU Tandon policies : https://engineering.nyu.edu/life-tandon/student-life/student-advocacy#chapter-id-30199.
• For each additional undocumented absence, your grade will be reduced by a grade point (e.g. A to an A-).
• If you have more than 3 unexcused absences from class meetings / one-on-one meetings you will fail the course.
• Be on Time. If you are consistently late to class, you will be penalized by being marked with an unexcused absence.
  
• Contact the professor in advance if you will not be in class (in person or by email only) so that arrangements can be made. 

Academic Honesty

Please review NYU’s School of Engineering’s academic dishonesty policy in its entirety.

All work for this class must be your own and specific to this semester. Any work recycled from other classes or from another, non-original source will be rejected with serious implications for the student. Plagiarism, knowingly representing the words, media, or ideas of another as one’s own work in any academic exercise, is absolutely unacceptable. If you are misrepresenting work that is not your own, you will fail the assignment and be referred to student conduct. Please use the MLA or Chicago Manual of Style for citing and documenting source material.

You may not use a LLM or generative tool like ChatGPT to write your paper for you or make content that appears in your project uncritically. You may use it as a tool to assist you in your process. If you do so, you must provide attribution, show your work, and include documentation and transcripts of your process. These are helpful tools in many domains, but they are no substitute for iterative and thoughtful work. See full generative AI policy below. You are responsible for all content in your project and paper, no matter the source.

Generative AI Policy for your papers

Generative AI is software that can create content in response to user prompting. It uses very large collections of data (text, images, audio, code, etc.) to produce surprisingly convincing, often inaccurate, and rarely unique results. The source material may or may not have been procured ethically. Generative AI is not neutral and is prone to reproduce the biases of the creators and the data it was created from. When used intentionally and with an awareness of its limitations, it can help you advance your work in positive ways. However, an overreliance on AI can hinder independent thinking, creativity, and the development of certain skills needed to excel as creative professionals. Many users of these tools believe that they know how to get good results fro these models, though it is not typically the case.

These policies refer to any tool that could be considered an LLM – this includes but is not exclusive to, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grammerly, Ollama, Quillbot, or Otter.

AI is allowed in this class in limited capacities and with the following stipulations:

• You cannot represent the output of any AI system as your own work. This would be plagiarism. Any use of AI must be documented and cited. NYU libraries guidance on how to cite AI can be found here. If you are unsure of how to cite a specific use of generative AI, ask a librarian or your instructor.
• AI text outputs cannot be copied verbatim into any document you are submitting. This must be treated like any text that is not your own. At a minimum, it must be paraphrased and cited. The use of paraphrased AI outputs should be limited. This is similar to other sources, in that you shouldn’t over rely on any one source in your work.
• In general, idea generation or polishing is a more appropriate use of AI than producing complete or final content. An example of idea generation could include asking chat GPT to generate a cover letter template that you will then personalize. An example of polishing would be inputting your original writing and asking for help adjusting the tone to better communicate to the reader. Note that appropriate does not mean recommended, merely that this would be considered a ‘permissible’ use.
• If it seems like you are over relying, misusing, or carelessly using AI software in your work a conversation with the instructor may be warranted and you may be asked to stop or change your use of these tools. You must be able to show your process – this includes but is not limited to tracking changes in Google Docs, showing transcripts and/or logs of chats with LLMs, or identifying how you changed an output to be in your own voice and with your own input.
  
• You are responsible for everything in a document you submit, which includes information submitted based on an AI query. You must ensure that it does not violate intellectual property laws, contain misinformation, or unethical content. For example, if your work contains the output of an AI that is too closely related to someone else’s IP, even if you cite it as AI, you will be penalized. If you cite an imagined reference that was generated by an LLM, you will be penalized.
  
• Anything prompts and chats must be saved in their entirety. For example, if you use ChatGPT, downloading the conversation is required. This archive may be requested by the instructor.
• AI cannot be used as a source for academic information. It is not considered a reliable source for factual information. It is not a replacement for databases, peer-reviewed studies, reputable journalism, or primary research. It is not a search engine. It cannot be cited to back up any claims.
• AI cannot be used to replace user-research or create user personas. It cannot be used to perform as a real person or generate false experiences of real humans. For example, if you are producing an app to help elderly people access medical services, you cannot ask ChatGPT to pretend to be an elderly person and ask it a question about the difficulties it theoretically encounters in the situation.
• AI is not to be used as a short-cut. The use of AI in your work must be in service of a larger goal. You must be able to articulate how your use of AI is adding value to your work. You may be asked to defend your choice of using AI.
• If an assignment explicitly restricts the use of AI, you cannot use it in that assignment.

You MUST have complete rights of use to any and all materials which appear in your thesis project. This includes images, illustrations, video, audio etc. The source of any materials NOT created by you MUST be documented. Please remember that you can collaborate with other students to create your own media or contact the authors of your media content for rights. I strongly encourage you to use original media for your thesis project, however should you absolutely require to use stock images, video, etc., you will need to provide a PDF of all source files and the usage rights you have purchased/negotiated or whether it is creative commons or copyright free.

If you use generative tools to create assets, code, sound, or other types of media, it should only be in support of the project — it may not be the project itself. You must cite and identify where all your media comes from, a book, a generative tool, a github repo, a youtube tutorial, etc. In all cases, these should not be the core of your project, but in support of its existence.

Inclusion

The NYU Tandon School values an inclusive and equitable environment for all our students. We hope to foster a sense of community in this class and consider it a place where individuals of all backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, national origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, religious and political affiliations, and abilities will be treated with respect.  It is our intent that all students’ learning needs be addressed, and that the diversity that students bring to this class be viewed as a resource, strength and benefit.  If this standard is not being upheld, please feel free to speak with your instructor.

The TCS Department is dedicated to the university’s goals for diversity, equity and inclusion. At the department level, we would like everyone to think about the perspectives present in their current author/book/article list in their syllabi: Are your authors diverse? Do they provide the students with diverse opinions of the topic they are studying? Are their additional authors (people of color, women) who can be added to your list? Please do think about these questions while preparing your final versions for submission.

Academic Accommodations