Paper discussion and summaries

Long paper discussion (15%)

Inspired by Alec Jacobson and Colin Raffel and other special topics courses, we will be discussing papers in the many-to-many role-playing format.

There will be 6 long paper discussions in total, 2 per module (prediction, planning, control). Over the quarter, you will need to give one long paper discussion.

Sign up sheet here!

For every paper, there will be 3 people.

  • 🏺 Archaeologist
    You’re an archeologist who must determine where this paper sits in the context of previous and subsequent work. Based on your digging (i.e., reading other related works), describe what the impact of this paper is to the field. You should find and report at least one older paper cited within the current paper that substantially influenced the current paper and at least one newer paper that cites this current paper.

  • 🤓 Academic researcher
    You’re a researcher working in this field. You want to understand the details of the algorithm and see how you can potentially use it in other ways. Summarize the technical approach and propose possible follow-up projects based on the proposed approach and key findings from this paper.

  • 🧑‍🏭 Industry practitioner
    You’re working in a company that is developing on solving a very similar problem but for a real physical system. You need to pitch to your manager why they should approve you spending time and resources to implement the method proposed in the paper. How much time and resources would you need to request to successfully implement the method? Provide justification for the request.

During discussion session, each role would first present their findings, the group will summarize their overall assessment of the paper, and then we proceed to an open-floor discussion. Each long paper discussion will about ~35 minute long, so we can fit 2 long paper discussion in one class time. A rough timeline is as follows.

  • (2 mins) Opening remark to summarize what the paper is about.
  • (5 mins) Archaeologist
  • (5 mins) Academic researcher
  • (5 mins) Industry practitioner
  • (3 mins) The groups’s overall assessment of the paper (accept, weak accept, borderline, weak reject, reject) and brief justification
  • (15 mins) Open floor discussion where the group prepare questions to facilitate discussions and audience can ask questions or follow up on any points made previously.

Please submit your slides to Canvas after your presentations so it can be shared with the class.

Short paper summaries (5% each)

For the audience to prepare for the long paper discussions, you need to submit (via Canvas) a short paper summary for each paper that will be discussed. They are due before class on the day of the long paper discussion. Follow the PACE method. Each summary should be about 0.5–1 page long.

You do not need to submit short paper summaries if you are part of the long paper discussion for that day. For example, if you are doing a long paper discussion for the prediction module, then you only need to submit short paper summaries for the planning and control modules. This means you only need to submit (at most) 4 short paper summaries.

Talk summary and reflection (5% each)

We will have 3 guest speakers give a talk during the course. One speaker for each module. You will need summarize their talk and include a short self-reflection describing what you might have learned that you previously didn’t know, or what lingering questions you have after hearing the talk, or new ideas that might have popped up that you think is interesting. Submit via Canvas. It is recommended you submit the talk summaries are 2 days after the talk. Otherwise, it is due by Friday 13th 11:59PM (no extensions).

Note: You only need to submit a total of 6 short paper summaries and talk summaries. As there are 7 opportunities to submit short paper summaries and talk summaries, you can “drop” one if needed in case of unexpected events during the quarter.