CMPT 880/890: Course Work

The course work for the term will consist of the following components, which are decribed below in more detail.

Writing Assignments (25% of final grade).
Paper Review (15% of final grade)
Term Project (50% of final grade)

Policy on late assignments

Late writing assignments will not be accepted. For your project and paper review, the late policy will be set by your advisor.

Notes on handing in

The research assignments in 880 (the paper review and the project) are marked by your research advisor. Please hand these in to your advisor in whatever form they prefer, and email a copy to me as well (horsch@cs.usask.ca).
Electronic submissions, when requested, should be in PDF format.
For those cases where you do email things to me, please prepend "880 - " to your subject line.

Term Project

The 880 term project is carried out in second term (January to April 2010), and the results are presented at the annual Graduate Symposium in April. The term project is negotiated between each student and their research supervisor. All projects, however, should fit into the following framework:

Friday, October 30, 2009: hand in a one-page summary of the candidate research problems/questions that you are discussing with your supervisor. Provide a name for each candidate and a one-paragraph description of the research project. (Note that you are not committing to do these projects - the goal is only that you have a list of possible projects).
Friday, November 27: hand in a one-page proposal for your project, with the following sections:
- 1. General problem / question
- 2. Why should this problem be solved / question be answered?
- 3. Specific activity of this project (what you will do)
- 4. Steps to be carried out in the project and completion dates
February 5, 2010 email a one-page status report (PDF) on project progress
April 2, 2010 hand in final paper (to advisor and 880 instructor)
date TBA: present research results at graduate symposium

Paper Review

Together with your research supervisor, choose a conference-sized paper in your research area for review. The review is intended to be a peer review such as would be done for a conference in your area.

We will discuss how to do reviews in class (see the schedule for more information and readings).

Here is the review form for your review.

November 6: Have your paper chosen (and approved by your advisor); send email to the instructor indicating the full citation of the paper you have chosen.
November 20: The review is due. Please hand in your review both to your supervisor and to the instructor.

The evaluation will be done according to these guidelines.

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Writing Assignments

Breakdown of the 25% given to writing assignments

Paper summaries: 10%
Rhetoric and grammar exercises: 5%
Two-page paper: 10%

Notes on handing in

Most Friday writing assignments are to be handed in on paper in class. Do not hand these in by email; only paper handins will be marked. If you cannot attend a Friday class, please get a classmate to hand in your work for you.
The standard formatting for most writing assignments is 12-point Times Roman or similar font, 1.5-line spacing (to simplify feedback). Handwritten assignments will not be accepted unless specifically noted.

Writing assignments

The writing assignments take three forms.

Paper summaries
Rhetoric and grammar exercises
Presentation
Two-page paper

Paper Summaries

Each Friday following a Wednesday where we discuss papers, you will write and hand in a two-page summary of the readings. The goals of these assignments are to provide general practice in writing clearly and correctly, and to provide practice in identifying the arguments and contributions in others' writing.

A summary of a paper should include:

the paper title
a sentence indicating the main point or argument of the paper
sentences summarizing the elements of the paper

Summaries should be written in prose, not point form. You are limited to a maximum of two pages (12-point Times Roman font, 1.5 spacing).
An example summary.

Presentation

To allow you to practice and experiemtn with giving a talk, you will prepare a 10 minute talk about a subject of your choosing. You can talk about research you have done, apaper you have read, or a hobby you have. The point is to practice preparing a talk, and giving a talk, and to get some feedback about how you perform. More details can be found here.

Rhetoric and Grammar Exercises

These will be small practice exercises to be determined during the term. More information will be given during the Friday lectures. Here's the first exercise: Exercise 1.

Two-Page Paper

Due December 4

Write a two-page paper describing a research project. The research does not have to be yours. The goal of the assignment is for you to communicate research clearly, argue well, and present your work in a standard format. Following Simon Peyton-Jones' guidelines, include the following parts in your paper:

Title: the title should be a good description of the research project, and should indicate what the contribution is
Abstract: the abstract should summarize what the question or problem was, why the problem is worth solving, what you (i.e., the pretend 'you' that did the research) did about the problem, what you found, and what it means for the overall problem area.
Introduction:the introduction should describe the problem in more detail, and state the contributions of your work.
The Idea:this section should describe and defend your idea, pointing to related work where necessary.
Evaluation: the evaluation should provide evidence that your solution is a good solution for the problem. This section should have subsections "Methodology" and "Results".
Conclusion: the conclusion should remind readers of the problem and solution, and then should state what the larger implications of the solution are, and what new research directions lead off from the current work.
References: all references cited in the paper should be formatted consistently here.

Other points:

Use ACM format for your paper.
Maximum of two pages - I will remove additional pages
Use of diagrams and figures is welcome (but you get no extra space for them)

How you will be marked:

Clear writing in all parts of the paper
Effective argument
Correct written English
The individual parts of the paper play their roles effectively
Figures (if used) are clear and well drawn
Correct formatting in ACM style
Consistent reference style

There are many good examples of two-page conference papers in the ACM Digital Library. Try to find examples that fit the type of paper you are planning to write.

A further note on plagiarism: Although you are allowed in this assignment to present someone else's research results, you are not allowed to copy sentences or figures from published work. Any instances of plagiarism will be forwarded to the Department's Academic Honesty committee.