1 / 17

ACS Project Briefing

ACS Project Briefing. 25th October 2010 Steven Hand. What’s an ACS Research Project?. An independent * piece of work in some area of computer science Can be based on one of the many project suggestions, or initiated by the student Needs to have a willing academic supervisor

indiya
Download Presentation

ACS Project Briefing

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. ACS Project Briefing 25th October 2010 Steven Hand

  2. What’s an ACS Research Project? • An independent* piece of work in some area of computer science • Can be based on one of the many project suggestions, or initiated by the student • Needs to have a willing academic supervisor • Official member of staff who signs off on proposal, and provides 50% of final assessment • Optionally can have additional ‘day to day’ supervisor who helps with the actual doing of the work! (* you can work in collaboration with others… but need to be very careful about attribution; best avoid other ACS students)

  3. A “Research” Project? • The word ‘Research’ describes an aspiration… • A successful project should be something that could lead to a paper submission to a decent venue… • … but novelty is not strictly required • Perfectly acceptable to do a measurement study; to reproduce (or not!) results; or just build a <foo> • Aim is to show that you can • Find a problem/area (perhaps with some help); • Get up to speed with the state of the art • Produce a research proposal; • Effectively carry out a decent amount of work; and • Write it all up coherently

  4. Timetable • Now: think about possible projects • See ACS project web page for ideas, or browse research group or individual pages to understand interests • Next: acquire a supervisor • Get agreement in principle as soon as you can • Do background reading, and iterate on proposal • Mon 22nd November 2010: submit research proposal • Can start work immediately, despite official start of 1st Dec • End of Lent Term: progress review • May 9th–11th 2011: project presentations (assessed) • Fri 17th June 2011 (noon): submit dissertation • HARD deadline! (fail if miss this… so don’t ;-)

  5. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix (max 2 pages)

  6. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Formally registered with BoGS in January • Must notify us if you want to change it! • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix (max 2 pages)

  7. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Aim for an ‘elevator pitch’, i.e. 1. What’s the problem? 2. Why is it important / interesting / non-trivial? 3. What’s your approach? • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix (max 2 pages)

  8. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Motivation, background and context • Should interleave some related work here • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix (max 2 pages)

  9. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • What’s the basic idea? • What will you aim to produce / achieve? • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix (max 2 pages)

  10. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan(~2 pages) • Total duration is approx 28 weeks – aim for 14x2 week ‘chunks’ • Write down planned work and milestones • Suggest leave 2-4 weeks for write up, and 2 weeks for ‘catch up’. • Appendix (max 2 pages)

  11. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix(max 2 pages) • Academic references • Required resources – also need to fill out additional form • Anything other supporting material

  12. The Research Proposal • 4+2 page document which includes: • Your name, college, CRSid and academic supervisor • Project title • Abstract (1-3 paragraphs) • Introduction (~1 page) • Approach & Outcomes (~1 page) • Detailed Workplan (~2 pages) • Appendix (max 2 pages) • LaTeX template available on ACS project page…

  13. Risk Management (1) • Intellectual Risks • Due to hard deadline, must ensure that with very high probability a project produces something • If possible structure project in ‘phases’, e.g minimum acceptable outcome followed by optional extensions • Practical Risks • Avoid relying on someone else’s speculative work, or untested hardware, or flaky software • Ensure everything you do is backed up

  14. Risk Management (2) • Legal Risks • If incorporating any external IP, be sure you have clear permission to publish • Unacceptable if a dissertation requires an NDA to read! • (In general I’d strongly advise you avoid any encumbrance from external IP if possible …) • Ethical Risks • If your project involves human subjects, you must read the official procedures [see web page] • (and, if necessary, get approval)

  15. The Dissertation • A dissertation of no more than 15,000 words • Including footnotes, appendices and bibliography • Relatively ‘free’ format apart from proforma (declarations, etc – see web page) • Writing this much text (well) is hard • Suggest you try to write as you go • Generic structure will work as a starting point • Refine as/when the project results become clearer • LaTeX strongly recommended (tho not required)

  16. Attribution & Reproducibility • Declaration of originality states everything is your own work except where explicitly stated • Be sure to explicitly state it! • Your supervisor can help in if you’re in doubt • Your results/work should be reproducible • We require you to upload a tarball or equivalent of any source code, proofs, data sets, etc • Examiners reserve the right to call a student for a vice voce examination for any reason

  17. Summary • Choose Project (Area) and Supervisor • Prepare Research Proposal • Start background reading & preparation ASAP • Build plan incorporating risk management • Submit by Mon 22nd November 2010 • Do Work and || • Write Dissertation • Submit Dissertation: Fri 17th June 2010 (noon) • Party!

More Related