CSCI 440 Project Proposal — Spring 2013
Presentation due May 05; Final Report due May 17
Written Document
At the end of the course, you will be submitting a written report describing your project or research. This report will detail what you accomplished through this course, as well as the significance of your work. In a way, this paper should build on the promises and content of your project proposal, answering similar questions.
Your final report should conform to the ACM SIG format, with a length between 8 and 10 pages, including all figures and references.
If you completed an implementation project, this document should include a detailed description of your implemented system, including what it does, how it works, and how it is used. You might also include details about false starts or discoveries you made of what didn't work, or how your project integrates with a larger system.
If you completed a research project, this document should include the details of that research, including what you discovered and the significance of that discovery. Be sure to detail the background for your research, the method of your research, the results of your research, the analysis of your results, and the implications of that analysis.
In either case, you will want to include the background and motivation of your project (which you can borrow from your proposal), as well as a brief overview of related and similar work. Implementation projects should have between 5 and 10 references, while research projects might have between 10 and 20.
Below is a general template for structuring academic papers. You are in no way required to follow this; it is intended simply to be an inspiration to get you started.
- Abstract A short (max 150 words) summary of the paper. Consider combining one sentence summaries of each of the below points to produce this.
- Introduction Explain the context and motivation for your project. What domain are you working in; what is the subject of your project? Why is this a problem worth solving? In brief, how are you going to solve it?
- Background and Related Work What other work has been done before? What similar systems or research exist? How does your project fit into a greater context, perhaps building on what has come before? This is where you explain many (but not necessarily all!) of your references.
- Implementation / Method Explain how you did what you did. How does your system work (what are its components/architecture/etc)? What did you do for your research?
- Evaluation / Results and Analysis How well does your system work, or what did you figure out? In an implementation project, you might report on either a short user study explaining the system in use, or give the results of tests demonstrating the effectiveness of your implementation. For research projects, present and analyze your data that supports your arguments.
- Discussion What is the significance of this project? This section should answer the "so what": what can we (the readers) take away from this report? How can we use the system that was implemented? What does the research tell us that we didn't know? What are the impacts of this project?
- Future Work What are the next steps, either for your or for people who will build on your work?
- Conclusion Include some concluding remarks. A brief summary of what we should have taken away from your paper is common.
- Acknowledgments and References Acknowledgements are places for special thanks, and be sure to include your reference list properly cited!
Your document should be proofread and highly polished when you turn it in. Camera ready for publication quality.
Your written document is due at the end of finals week on Friday, May 17th at 5pm. If you are completing an implementation project, your code/system should accompany the paper (so I can at least see that you did stuff!)
Oral Presentation
You will be formally presenting your completed project at the end of the semester. Each student or team will give a 20 talk on their work, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A.