For those considering taking this course, you will see listed a 'course project' where you will have the chance to (pending my approval of the topic) do one of two things:
1. conduct a study of your choosing in the area of domestic or social computing
2. create a design in the area of domestic or social computing and evaluate it in some way
If you want to conduct a study or evaluation 'for real' (not just as a pilot) and involve participants who are not your friends/family, you will need approval by the SFU Ethics Board. In this case, please consider talking with your supervisor about submitting an ethics application prior to the start of the course. Ethics applications take some time to write and a week or two to get approval. You won't have time to do one once the course begins.
In the course, you are not required to do the above, but it would limit your work to just being of the 'course project' variety. This is fine for the course, yet it would limit your chance at being able to publish your project as a paper outside of the course.
Please let me know if you have any questions (or if this makes no sense to you). I am happy to talk with people about this before the course starts.