HarvardX Interactive Learning Challenge Now Open

HarvardX invites creative coders everywhere to a learning technology challenge.

The mission is to create an interactive visualization of the binomial distribution suitable for students who are learning the topic of probability.

Possible approaches include interactive line or bar graphs, coin-flip or dice-roll simulations, combinations of these, or something completely different. 

Winners will see their work appear in a HarvardX open online course.

Submissions are due November 1, best entries decided by November 10, winners announced November 30, 2014. Enter your email down below to get challenge related updates.

Requirements

  • Interactivity. Students should be able to control and "play around" with the visualization, not just look at or watch it.
  • Browser compatibility. This bit must work in current-version browsers (IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome).

Recommendations

  • Inspectable data points with accurate values.
  • Comparisons with other similar distributions (e.g. Gaussian).
  • White or light grey background.
  • Width of no more than 800 pixels.
  • Mobile compatibility is a plus.
  • Accuracy in the distribution and the ability to calculate it for a wide range of values should be balanced against speed of calculation. The binomial distribution involves several factorials, and numbers can become very large or very small quickly. Javascript will not store numbers above about 170 factorial.
  • D3 and other packages are generally acceptable. Package size may be a concern for some larger packages - with the global audience of the challenge, download speeds are unreliable.

Banned

  • Cookies, local storage, and other client-side data storage.

Submission RulesSend links to working demos to challengeentries@databits.io stating challenge name in the email subject line. Best entrants will be granted tenured user status on Databits, and will need to re-post their entries as databits on the site. Winning entries will be determined out of the entries which make it to Databits.

Due date November 1, 2014

Sponsor HarvardX integrates the development of instructional approaches and digital tools across Harvard’s campus by providing faculty with pedagogical and research support. A faculty-driven and university-wide effort, HarvardX aims to be collaborative and representational of Harvard’s academic diversity, showcasing the highest quality offerings of the University to serious learners everywhere.

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