Fall 2020

Mondays 12:00-12:50 pm ET

Wednesdays 12:00-12:50pm ET (Subject to change)

First class: Monday August 31, 2020

Via Zoom

[syllabus version: 10 September 2020]

 

Prof. Tanzeem Choudhury

tanzeem.choudhury@cornell.edu

Office hours: Fridays 2:30-4:30PM ET

 

TA: Dan Adler

dadler@infosci.cornell.edu

Office hours: Fridays 2:30-4:30PM ET

 

Course website: https://canvas.cornell.edu/courses/21108

 

OVERVIEW and GOALS

Precision Behavioral Health will introduce students to sensors, computational systems and algorithms that will play a transformative role in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of mental and behavioral health care. Individuals’ mental health state could be continuously assessed using novel sensors and computational tools. Healthcare professionals will be able to exploit wearable and IoT devices to diagnose mental health problems and severity and deliver care at much lower costs. Novel interfaces, conversational agents, and AI systems will deliver just-in-time intervention in users’ natural environment and motivate positive behavior change throughout users’ lifespan. This course will provide an overview of ongoing advancements in novel sensors, multi-modal sensor fusion and AI algorithms, in conjunction with psychological concepts needed to develop the next generation of Precision Behavioral Health solutions. 

Throughout the semester, we will focus on reading, presenting, and discussing papers. We will potentially host a few invited speakers. The instructor explicitly and intentionally does not have a single pre-conception of how technology can help address the huge unmet need of mental health care but aims to explore this space with YOU. The project-based course will enable students to apply concepts learned towards original research. 

Prerequisites: Students should have coding proficiency and basic familiarity of sensors available on mobile devices and IoT, and a basic knowledge of machine learning. Contact the instructors if you have questions.

COURSE MATERIALS

No course materials are required. Papers will be posted on Canvas before the course meeting. 

 

ASSIGNED READINGS and PARTICIPATION

Assigned readings will explore multiple dimensions of technology-based solutions in mental health care and illness diagnosis and treatment. Even with thousands of behavioral health apps available and decades of research, mental health prevalence and treatment access numbers have barely changed. Discussions and critical analysis of solutions are critical to get the most out of the course and understand how YOU could help in changing the status quo. You are expected to read the assigned readings before class. This will typically mean two full-length research papers per class.

Any set of readings is inherently incomplete, and part of the value of this course is assembling diverse perspectives on precision behavioral health. We encourage posting of additional resources that you might discover as you read the assigned article or come across in new media or beyond.

Advance Posting of Potential Discussion Topics

To help prepare for an engaging and meaningful discussion, we will require participants to post potential discussion topics to Piazza discussion threads. We will create a Piazza discussion thread for each day.

Simply criticizing the details of research often leads to an underwhelming discussion. We encourage students to draw upon their backgrounds to surface more interesting discussion topics. For some thoughts on why and how to formulate good questions, see our colleague Dan Cosley’s blog post. 

Potential topics for discussion might be inspired by considering:

• What idea or innovation enabled this, what more might be done based on that idea or innovation?
• How can the ideas proposed by this research be used in the real world? What might the barriers to adoption be?
• How might this research help address gaps in other solutions or research you have seen in this space?
• How well did the authors uniquely communicate their data, ideas, and results? Could the finding have been made clearer to achieve greater impact?

The goal of posting discussion topics is to facilitate rich discussions during class. All of your classmates will have read the paper, so do not simply post a summary of the paper.

Students are expected to post one potential discussion topic per day of class. Students can submit multiple topics but this is not expected.

Participation in the posting potential discussion topics for each day will be graded on a scale from 0 to 3.

• 0: If you do not participate.
• 1: If your participation seems weak and does not convince us you read, understood, and considered the readings.
• 2: If your participation shows you read and understood the readings, then surfaced a potentially interesting discussion topic. This will be the most common grade.
• 3: Reserved for especially strong or insightful discussion topics. This will be an uncommon grade and may not be given out for every thread/topic.

Potential discussion topics must be posted by 11:59pm ET the night before class so your instructor and discussants have time to review the posted topics before class.

Presentation of Assigned Readings

Each student will sign up to present the assigned readings on one day of discussion. We will determine the number of presenters for each day based on the enrollment number. Our goal for the course is to bring diverse perspectives to spur stimulating discussions, so we ask you to pair with others who you already did not know well before class. Discussion of each reading will begin with this presentation. Presenters should work together to present a coherent and multi-faceted picture.

You can sign-up for a presentation on the Google Doc schedule.

George H. Heilmeier, a former DARPA director (1975-1977), crafted a set of questions known as the "Heilmeier Catechism" to help Agency officials think through and evaluate proposed research programs. We encourage you to keep these questions in mind as you prepare your presentation:

• Include some background about the researchers involved in the work 
• What were the researchers trying to do? Articulate their objectives using absolutely no jargon.
• How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
• What is new in their approach and why do you think it will be successful?
• Who cares? If the researchers are successful, what difference will it make?
• What are the risks? 

Again, all of your classmates will have read the paper, so do not simply present a summary of the paper.

Presenters are welcome to seek guidance and feedback on your presentation at a high-level but not on specific details of your presentation. The presentations should last about 15 minutes, and students can choose which paper from the assigned readings they would like to present.  As part of the preparation, the presenter should share any additional resources that will be presented with the scribes.

Moderating and Scribing of In-Class Discussion 

During each class, students will sign up to either (1) moderate or (2) scribe one day’s discussion. Pending the size of the class, we will determine the number of times students will be responsible for moderating/scribing. Students can sign-up for becoming a moderator/scribe on the schedule. 

We expect students in this course to raise a variety of backgrounds and perspectives in the course of discussion. Again, we encourage posting of additional resources that you might discover as you read the assigned article or come across in new media or beyond.

The moderator will review the topics for discussion posted on Canvas and suggest topics of their own. Following the presentation of the assigned readings, the moderator will lead the in-class discussion. The moderator will be supported by course instructors and presenters.

Scribes will capture key aspects of in-class discussion and additional resources that surface in that discussion. The expected process is:

• Scribe using a Google Doc to take notes during discussion.
• Cleaning up those notes and posting to the class-internal Canvas.
• Link identified additional resources to the notes.

Scribes are not expected to provide a transcription of the discussion but provide a fairly detailed and organized summary of the discussion. That goal is that explicit scribing allows participants to focus on the discussion and have the key points and additional resources will be available later.

Project

Students will be expected to complete a semester long project where they will conduct original research on one aspect of PBH. The project will either involve a data analysis, intervention design, literature review, or a discussion about the ethics/privacy of conducting PBH research. More details about the project will be available shortly.

Grading

Grading will roughly correspond to:

• 60%: Group Project
• 15%: Forum Posts on Assigned Reading
• 15%: Presentation of an Assigned Reading
• 10%: Scribing / Leading a Day’s Discussion

Much of the grading in this course is necessarily subjective. We will attempt to communicate expectations and feedback throughout the course, but it is your responsibility to communicate with us if you feel you would like guidance in this regard.

Submission

Submissions will be coordinated using Canvas:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

You are expected to observe Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity in all aspects of this course. The code states that:

Absolute integrity is expected of every Cornell student in all academic undertakings. ... Academic integrity is expected not only in formal coursework situations, but in all University relationships and interactions connected to the educational process, including the use of University resources. ... A Cornell student's submission of work for academic credit indicates that the work is the student's own. All outside assistance should be acknowledged, and the student's academic position truthfully reported at all times. In addition, Cornell students have a right to expect academic integrity from each of their peers.

FAQ

Q: How should I attend class?

A: This semester our courses are structured to have one lecture on Monday afternoon (12-12:50PM ET) and one lecture on Wednesday afternoon 12-12:50PM ET. You will be required to attend one lecture live and watch the other on recording. You are of course welcome to attend both lectures live.

The lectures will be on Zoom, and we will record/post each lecture so you can watch them. The Zoom links will be on Canvas.

Q: How is my participation graded?

A: Given the asynchronous nature of the class, your participation grade will mainly be based upon the Piazza discussions you participate in. Live discussions will contribute to your participation grade, but will not be the main contributor.

Q: What resources do I need to complete the class?

A: The course will require you to have access to a laptop and internet connection, so that you can view and download the course readings. In addition, you will need to participate in posting discussion questions on Piazza. You can access Piazza through Canvas.

Q: What if I am not registered for the class, and want to attend the lecture?

A: Please email either the professor (tanzeem.choudhury@cornell.edu) or TA (dadler@infosci.cornell.edu), and we can send you the Zoom link.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE 

See schedule linked here. This schedule will be updated throughout the term, and thus is subject to change.