In this course, students will be reading and reviewing papers for each class. During the class, some students will be presenting the papers for the week, they and the rest of the class (including me) will be discussing these papers and our take on them. There is also a term-long project, which is worth the biggest chunk of your grade. Following is the marks breakdown:
- Project 45%
- Presentations 25%
- Paper Reviews 15%
- Class Participation 15%
Project
The research project could be any of the following:
- New research idea: A prototype implementation of a new research idea that addresses one of the drawbacks or limitations of an existing research work, or a completely new research idea that is inspired by any of your readings.
- Experimental Study: An experimental comparison and evaluation of existing work in a specific research topic. Students are not supposed to reimplement all of the existing solution. Rather, they should be able to reuse an existing code base with minor changes to run the benchmark. The main contribution in the benchmark is to give insights that did not exist in the systems used in the evaluation.
- Survey: With the extensive research efforts in the topics covered in this course, a survey paper should summarize and categorize the major research contributions in a specific area. The survey should not be a mere summarization of existing papers, rather, the students should provide their own insight on the surveyed body of work. For example, they can provide a categorization or a taxonomy that highlights that major research directions in that area. Students can also identify the open research problems that were hardly addressed in the literature.
- System Implementation and Reproducibility (must be individual project): I have a number of systems I would like implemented. Your project could be choosing any of them, and implement and reproduce the results reported.
The project can be done individually or in groups (except the system implementation). However, the assessment will take into consideration how many students are in the group. E.g., if one student demonstrates contributions in her/his project that is equal to the contributions for a team of three students, students should expect a high variance in grades.
The project deliverables will be:
- Project Proposal: This should be a two-page proposal (including references) in ACM Proceedings Format. To write a good proposal, I strongly suggest reading Jennifer Widom's tips for writing introductions. I also strongly suggest reading the whole thing as it's helpful for writing research papers in general. This proposal is due on February 22nd. If you have a solid idea that you would like to submit before the deadline to get better feedback and give yourself more time to work on the project, early submissions of the proposal are encouraged.
- Project Paper: Again, in ACM Proceedings Format. This should be at least 7 pages including references. Depending on the size of the group and contributions, the paper could be longer. So, there is no page-limit. Due date for the project paper is April 10th.
- Source Code: Your source code is expected to be publically available on github. The github link for your project should be in the project paper. Please write a good README that clearly describe how to run your code. Due date for the project source code is April 10th.
- Project Papers Review: You will be assigned a couple of other students project papers to review. You will submit the same review format for the papers we discuss in class. You can use the same submission link (below in the Paper Reviews Section). This is the last deliverable of the course. Its due date is April 12th.
Presentations
There will be 26 papers that need to be presented by you throughout the term. This workload may not be evenly distributed over the students doing this class. Therefore, the student who presents one more presentation than average will get a bonus. Each presentation should be 25 to 30 minutes, followed by a 20 to 25 minutes of discussion of the paper. The presenter should not only present the details of the paper, but also suggest the discussion points at the end of his/her presentation.
Paper Reviews
The paper reviews are due at 8:35 AM on the day of the class. The format for the review is fixed: Summary of the paper, three or more strong points, three or more weak points, and any additional comments you may have on this paper. The number of fields required is small, but you are expected to be elaborative. Theoretically, if your review is written in a Word document, it should be at least one page long in 12 pt. You'll be given a free pass for three reviews throughout the term.
Paper Review Submission Link
Class Participation
This is a seminar-based class, meaning that your participation in the class is essential. You are encouraged to ask questions, answer other students questions, give comments over the papers we discuss, etc.
