Homework

Class participation

Research papers are not always well written, sometimes make misleading claims, and even sometimes contain errors. Students are expected to contribute to the discussion of the papers in class by subjecting the readings to critical analysis, asking questions, and offering observations.

Class presentations

Students will be required to plan and deliver three class presentations. A presentation on set of papers should include

• Motivation for the work.
• Key algorithms, strategies, techniques, insights, and results.
• Critical evaluation of the work.
• Remaining open issues.

While not required, presenters should show their presentations to the instructor in advance. Each presentation will have one class period (75 minutes). Within 48 hours of the presentation, the presenter will provide the instructor with a version of the presentation suitable for posting on the class web page. Correct English grammar and spelling is required. Errors discovered during the presentation or answers to audience questions should be included in the turned in version.

Paper evaluations

Students are required to evaluate 67% of the papers (your choice of which ones). A paper evaluation consists of

• Your name.
• The paper name.
• A paper summary of at most 5 sentences.
• The three most important strengths (1 sentence on each).
• The three most important weaknesses (1 sentence on each).
• A summary of one issue or open problem of at most 3 sentences.

Paper evaluations will be graded on a scale of 1-3. The default grade is 2. Insightful reviews will receive a 3. Disappointing reviews will receive a 1. Students will email evaluations of papers to the instructor (craig.c.douglas@gmail.com) before the start of the class in which the paper is presented. Late or incomplete evaluations will receive a 0.

Presentation evaluations

You are required to evaluate at least 67% of the student presentations in class. There are two motivations for this. First, if you have to write reviews of presentations, you will pay closer attention. Second, if you know that your presentation is being evaluated by your classmates (as well as the instructor), you may try harder to make it engaging. The ability to make engaging presentations to intelligent audiences is one of the most important skills that you need.

A presentation evaluation consists of

• Your name.
• The name of the presenters or presenters.
• How well did the presenters explain why the area matters?
• Did the presenters mumble, fail to make eye contact, speak too quickly or too slowly?
• Were the presentation slides too busy, too ugly, or just right?
• How well did the presenters seem to know the material? Were they honest about admitting when they did not know something?
• Any additional information that you would like to add.

Presentation evaluations will be graded on a scale of 1 to 3. The default grade is 2. Insightful evaluations will receive a 3. Disappointing evaluations will receive a 1. Evaluations for presentations that I believe the reviewer did not attend will receive a 0. To receive credit for a presentation evaluation, email it to the instructor (craig.c.douglas@gmail.com) before Sunday noon in the week in which the presentation occurred. Late or incomplete evaluations will receive no credit.

Presentation evaluations are intended to be helpful. Give constructive criticism, not nasty, mean comments (i.e., do to others as you would have them do to you). Your evaluations will be kept anonymous. I will merge and edit presentation evaluations submitted and forward them to the presenter(s). I will suppress inappropriate or unhelpful comments.

Final project

This course requires a term paper or a final software project with a written project report.

Term papers must be done individually. For a term paper, you may focus on the same topic as one of your presentations, but you should study different papers. Consult the instructor if there is any question.

Final projects will typically be done individually, but they may be done by a pair with instructor permission. Group projects will submit a single paper. A project involving application development or experimentation may build upon existing code, but consultation with the instructor is in order. Code that is obtained from other sources should be clearly identified.

Cheers,
Craig C. Douglas

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