RIT Department of Computer Science
CSCI-788-03C3: Master's Project Colloquium (Fall 2017)
Lecture Room: GOL-3560
Instructor: Prof. Richard Zanibbi ( rxzvcs(at)rit.edu )
Office Hours: Wed 11:15am-1:15pm, Fri. 2:30-3:25pm
Class: Thursdays, 11am-12:20pm
Week 15
- This Thursday will be our last Colloquium for the semester. Submit your poster draft before class, and have your 1-minute blurb ready!. Aim to have a 15 second overview, along with 45 seconds of details. Everyone will have time to give their blurb, and get feedback on the blurb and poster.
- Final reports, anonymized reports, and posters must be submitted as .pdf files by Dec. 11th through the CS submission system; **Also submit your final poster through MyCourses (so it can be printed!).
- Poster Session: Thursday Dec. 14th from 1-3pm in the GCCIS Atrium. Arrive at 12pm, so that you have time to collect your poster and set up before the session starts. We will meet in the atrium.
Week 14
- Milestone III Presentations, Part 2: students who did not present in Week 12 will present this week. Presentation requirements can be found below under Week 11.
- Project 'Stub' Submission Deadline (Dec. 1st): Students must to upload their name, advisor name, cluster, and title of your report + 'blank' .pdf files for other fields at this web site: project submission web page. Final reports, anonymized reports, and posters must be submitted as .pdf files by Dec. 11th.
- Next Week (last class, Wk 15): submit a draft of your poster as a .pdf. We will be practicing our 1-minute overview talks (15 second overview + 45 seconds of details), and collecting (brief) comments on our posters.
Week 13
- Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there is no class this week. Have a good holiday!
Week 11
- Read Ch. 15, skim chs. 5-8 before class (Zobel).
- This week, Prof. Kwon will talk about drafting and editing your final report. Make sure to follow the project formatting requirements, described in the Syllabus (link above - see "Final Report and Poster Presentation).
- Next Week (*Wk 12*): Students with last names Bharde through Marathe (13 students) will present their progress for Milestone 3 (5 minutes, including questions - please submit slides using the appropriate dropbox in MyCourses) . Your presentation must be 4-5 slides long, and include the following:
- Title slide: Project title, your name, advisor's name.
- Overview: Explain the key goals and methods of your work, and set up the background for the results that you will present. Think about how best to illustrate this, whether using an example, showing inputs and outputs, or some other way. ** Use this to practice giving a 1 minute poster overview (a 15 second summary, followed by 45 seconds of additional details).
- Preliminary Results or Mock Results: Present results that you have collected so far, and discuss them (in particular: are they what you expected, and why or why not?). If you do not have results, create mock data, and explain clearly why you expect to see the trend(s) shown.
- Progress: Milestone goals completed/remaining, and challenges that you are currently facing.
Week 10
- Presentations: We will have the remaining four Milestone 2 presentations at the start of class.
- Read Ch. 16 before coming to class (on Presentations). We will be talking about preparing your poster and poster presentation.
- Next Week: Read Chs. 13, and skim chs. 5-8 before class. Prof. Zanibbi is away, but Prof. Kwon will give a presentation on preparing the final project report. Please note the project format requiremements, listed in the Syllabus (link above) under "Final Report and Poster Presentation."
Week 9
- The second set of Milestone 2 presentations will be given in-class on Thursday. Presentation requirements may be found below.
- For next week, Read Zobel Ch. 16, for material related to preparing slides, posters and presentations.
Week 8
- Milestone 2 materials are due to your advisor this Friday.
- Milestone 2 Presentations (see presentation requirements below):
- Students with last names Bharde through Marathe (+ Preethi) will present this week.
- Next week, the remaining students will give their Milestone 2 presentation using the same format.
Week 7
- Submit your homework (figures and graphs) through the dropbox before class.
- Milestone 2 materials are due to your advisor next Friday (Wk 8).
- We will talk about math and algorithms/pseudo code in-class this week (Read Zobel Chs. 9 and 10 before coming to class).
- Milestone Presentations Next Week (Wk 8): next week students with last names Bharde through Marathe (13 students) will present their progress for Milestone 2 in-class (5 minutes, including questions). Your presentation must be 4-5 slides long, and include the following:
- Title slide: Project title, your name, advisor's name.
- Overview: a figure showing a concrete example of an input and output for your project system. This should be an improved version of the example in your Milestone 1 presentation. Feel free to set up your discussion of Milestone 2!
- Algorithm: Provide pseudo code for the main algorithm you are developing and/or implementing for Milestone 2. Use math where appropriate, and indicate clearly any steps that are still unknown. Feel free to add text and figures to present the algorithm clearly.
- Progress: Milestone goals completed, and challenges that you are currently facing.
Week 6
- Homework this week. Before class next week, submit a .pdf through the MyCourses dropbox. The pdf should contain two graphics and a brief discussion, as described below.
Create both graphics carefully - these are sketches for your final presentation of results in your poster and project report.
- A figure representing imaginary results from your project using mock data that you create (e.g., a bar graph, scatter plot, line plot, or box plot). Include a clear, informative caption for the figure. If your project is more development than research, create results for an imaginary experiment using your project system.
- A table representing the same results. Again, provide an informative caption. Think carefully about the organization of headers in the table and do not put a ruling line between all cells of the table!
- Discussion. Which graphic do you prefer, and why? Which information is easier to see in your figure than the table, and vice-versa?
- Next week: we will discuss effective use of math and pseudo code in academic writing for Computer Science. Read Chs. 9 and 10 of Zobel before coming to class next week.
Week 5
- This week we will have Milestone 1 Presentations, Part II (last names Nadig through Zhang). For those students presenting, prepare and submit your slides as instructed below.
- Next week we will be discussing the effective use of graphs and figures. Read Ch. 11 in the Zobel text before class next week, and bring your questions and comments.
Week 4
- Your Milestone 1 deliverables should be submitted to your advisor this Friday.
- This week we will have Milestone 1 Presentations, Part I (last names Bharde through Marathe). For those students presenting, make sure to prepare and submit your slides as instructed below.
- Students who do not present this week will present next week, using the same format.
Week 3
- Reading: Read Chs. 14-15 of Zobel
- Milestone 1 presentations next week: Last names Bharde through Marathe (13 students). The remaining students will present next week.
- Presentations are a maximum of 5 minutes in total, including questions.
- Format: Your presentation should have exactly 4 slides:
- Title slide: Project title, your name, advisor's name.
- Project overview: research question(s) you are addressing or building a system to address, final deliverables, and key challenges.
- Illustration: A figure that simply and clearly illustrates an example of an input and output related to your problem. Note that this should not be a process diagram, pseudo code, or table. This should be an introductory view of what data for your task looks like.
- Milestone 1: Very brief summary of original goals for milestone 1, progress to date, and challenges you are currently facing.
- Submit slides through the MyCourses dropbox.
Week 2
- The video of Richard Feynman talking about science seen in class can be found on the Resources page (link is above).
- The course schedule has been updated.
- Reading: Read Chs. 4-5 of Zobel
- Homework: Submit a 1 page summary of the research elements/context for your project through the dropbox in MyCourses; due: before class next Thursday. You should write in prose (i.e., sentences), but the organization can be mostly point-form.
- What are the research questions that your project addresses, or supports?
- What are the hypothesis/hypotheses that you plan to test in your project, or that your project work could be used to test?
- What types of evidence will you be collecting to test hypotheses, or that your project work could be used to collect? Make sure to discuss evaluation metrics that you will use, and how they relate more broadly to your hypotheses.
- Milestone Documents: students who have not yet had a milestone document approved and posted by their advisor on the CS Wiki need to do so before class next week.
Week 1
- Reading: read Chs. 1-3 of the Zobel text before class next Thursday.
- !! Homework: create a project outline, including milestones and deliverables with your advisor. Have your advisor post the project description on the Projects Pages in the CS Wiki and email me the link to your project description before class next week.
- Note: This class will meet only once a week, on Thursdays at 11am-12:20pm.
- You must secure a project advisor and topic by Friday to remain registered for the project. The "Resources" link above provides a link to available projects, and example projects completed earlier this year.