Fall 2008

CSC 3990 - Computing Research Topics

MW 1:30 pm - 2:45 pm in Mendel G88

Instructors: Mirela Damian Thomas Way
Office: 167A Mendel Hall 160A Mendel Hall
Phone: (610) 519-7414 (610) 519-5033
Office hours:   M  10:30 - 11:30 am M  12:00 - 1:00 pm
W  12:00 - 1:00 pm W  3:00 - 4:00 pm
Email: mirela.damian@villanova.edu thomas.way@villanova.edu
Class email: Fall08-CSC-3990-001@villanova.edu

Announcements


Assignments

Due Date What to Turn in References
Sept. 1 Research Web Site Samples
Sept. 8 Paper Summary Summary Guidelines
Helpful Feedback (Damian/Way, 2008)
Sept. 15 Topic Selection Sample
Suggestions
Sept. 17 Revised Paper Summary 
Sept. 22 Broad Bibliography IEEE Citation Style (1)
IEEE Citation Style (2)
Real Bad Examples
Sample
Oct. 3 Annotated Bibliography How To
Sample
Oct. 10 Revised Annotated Bibliography
 
Oct. 29Literature Survey Example
Sample (no abstract at this point)
Nov. 10Revised Literature Survey  
Nov. 24Proposal Section
Note updated due date
Specifications
Examples of Successful Proposals
Dec. 8 Final Proposal with Abstract and Conclusions 
Dec. 10Completed Posters due  

Course Schedule

Date Topic, Activities References & Description
Week 1 - Aug. 25, 27 Overview. Research Topics. NLP & Image Processing topics (ppt)
Wireless Network topics (ppt)
CSRS 2007 conference
Week 2 - Sept. 3 Plagiarism.
Topic Selection.
What Is
Examples
Interactive Quiz
Week 3 - Sept. 8, 10 Technical Writing.
Literature Survey.
Writing a Paper
Writing Style (ppt)
Tips for writing technical papers
Top 10 tips for writing a paper
Week 4 - Sept. 15, 17 Research Approaches &
Student Topic Discussion
 
Week 5 - Sept. 22, 24 Approaches & Discussion (cont'd)  
Week 6 - Sept. 29, Oct. 1 How to Give a Good Presentation Marie desJardins   slides
Simon Peyton   slides
Presentation Feedback Form
How to Give a Good Research Talk
File naming conventions
Week 7 - Oct. 6, 8 Literature Survey

What is
Example

Week 8 - Oct. 13, 15 Fall Break, no class meetings  
Week 9 - Oct. 20, 22 Literature Survey (cont'd)
Research Topic Presentations


Wed 10/22 - Armin & Stephen

Week 10 - Oct. 27, 29 Research Topic Present's. (cont'd)

Mon 10/27 - AJ & Helen
Wed 10/29 - Kristen & Tom

Week 11 - Nov. 3, 5 Research Topic Present's. (cont'd)

Mon 11/03 - Elliot
Wed 11/05 - Tara & Michael

Week 12 - Nov. 10, 12 Research Topic Present's. (cont'd)
Writing Report Abstracts
Literature Survey Evaluation

Mon 11/10 - Joe, Vince & Nate
How To
Examples

Week 13 - Nov. 17, 19 Literature Survey Polishing
Future Work & Conclusions

Example proposals:
Guidelines for Interactive Mapping of the
  World Wide Web
Grading Tool Development and Analysis
Web Technologies
Data Object Storage System
Programming for Biologists

Week 14 - Nov. 24 CATS
Discussion & Refinements
How to run a conference
No class meeting on Wed. 11/26
due to Thanksgiving break
Poster tutorial
Conference organization
Running a Conference
Week 15

     Mon. Dec. 1

Final Planning Day
No formal class meeting
Professors available by appointment
Students may opt to meet to have their presentations and final work reviewed by the professors.
     Wed. Dec. 3 Final Research Presentations
Conference-style: 10+5 max
1:30-1:45  Tara Srihari
1:45-2:00  AJ Palkovic
2:00-2:15  Elliot Whaley
2:15-2:30  Vince Vuono
2:30-2:45  open
Week 16

     Mon. Dec. 8

Final Research Presentations
Conference-style: 10+5 max
1:30-1:45  Michael Hercenberg
1:45-2:00  Tom Bryan
2:00-2:15  Joe Charpentier
2:15-2:30  open
2:30-2:45  open
     Wed. Dec. 10 Final Research Presentations (cont'd)
(Note that there is no final exam, but we may need the final exam time for remaining presentations)
1:30-1:45  Stephen Walter
1:45-2:00  Nate Hower
2:00-2:15  Helen Magobet
2:15-2:30  Armin Mobasseri
2:30-2:45  Kristen Scudder
  Road Trip on Dec 8?
University of Delaware
Computer Science Research Day
Possible road trip if enough students are interested, and can safely miss other classes. If we did this we would have to reschedule talks from that day to the final exam day (Tues. 12/16 @ 8:00-10:30am)

Resources

Literature Reviews
Paper Formatting

Paper Refereeing

Technical Writing
Future Work

Presentations

Online Resources

Having Fun with Technical Writing


Student Research Websites

Fall 2008:  CSRS 2008 conference

Fall 2007:  CSRS 2007 conference


Updated 12/23/08