CSCI 390 Spring 2008 Senior Seminar

The senior seminar course will consist of two components: the seminar component (in Alter 217 on Wednesdays from 4:30-5:20 p.m.) and the project component.

Semester Schedule

January 16	Organizational meeting
January 23	Student presentation of project proposals (approx. 5 minutes each): Luis Zaman Forrest Pepper Matt Fuhrmann Lora Anneken Michael Cheever Brandon Kraeling Michael Gunter Matt Heim
January 30	Gary leads discussion Please read this and this paper on "threshold concepts" in computer science education. Questions: How does the style of research described in these two papers differ from more typical natural science or mathematical research? What is similar? Considering your experience, do you think threshold concepts exist in CS? How well do the concepts described in the paper fit the notion of a threshold concept? If threshold concepts really exist, what other CS concepts might fit this notion? How does any of this help us learn or teach in a better way?
February 6	Brandon Kraeling This paper Is the Gnutella model for P2P networks an efficient one? What are the disadvantages to the Gnutella network? How can they be resolved? Should ISPs bill their clients based on bandwidth used by their P2P networks?
February 13	Matt Fuhrmann see this page.
February 20	Matt Heim This paper and the following questions: Before reading the article, do you think that the dataset, or the algorithm are more important in accurately solving a recommendation problem like the NetFlix problem? What about after reading about the results of the experiment? After reading the article, what are some ways that you would go about solving a recommendation problem like the NetFlix Contest?
February 27	Michael Cheever This paper. Why do flash drives erase by setting all bits to 1 instead of the typical clearing of bits? Do the writes have to be out of place or are there ways that the system of writing could be improved to reduce inefficiency? Will flash memory ever be able to replace disk based hard drives. (15 minute to mount a JFFS disk)?
March 5	Midterm Reports (approx 5 minutes each): Brandon Kraeling Matt Heim Matt Fuhrmann Forrest Pepper Michael Gunter Michael Cheever Lora Anneken Luis Zaman
March 12	SIGCSE 2008
March 19	Spring Break
March 26	Luis Zaman this paper and the following questions: Which seems more reliable, the explicit trust-graph (Epinions) or the implicit trust calculation used by the authors? Would you rather have control over which users become "trustworthy"? What sort of things would you do to avoid malicious users/profiles from ruining the recommendations, such as misbehaved restaurants wanting to generate a little more revenue? The authors very very briefly mention differentiating between global and local trust metrics; would using these two values differently further increase reliability? (for example, using the global trust value as the weighting coefficient and local trust as the filtering value or vice versa)
April 2	Forrest Pepper This paper and this letter. Questions: Given the differences between Algorithmic Composing and Automated Composing, does either change your perception of music? Would you say Algorithmic Composing without a computer is more of an art than with the aid of a computer? Do computers possess the ability to truly create a composition worthy to be called art? Given your personal experience with Music and Algorithms, do you believe that automated music will ever be as desirable than music composed with human intuition? In reaction to the second report, "Chimpanzees, Wind Chimes...", is a compositions' artistic value lost or lessened if it was created Algorithmically or Automatically? Does the creator of the Algorithm or Program truly deserve to be labeled the Artist?
April 9	Lora Anneken this paper and these questions.
April 16	Michael Gunter This paper, and the following questions: Is this artificial intelligence? If not, what would need to be added in order for it to be considered AI? What type of improvements could be made on this system in order to create added functionality and efficiency? What are the possible uses and applications of this type of data and is this the most efficient way of achieving the desired goal?
April 23	Final Presentations I: Lindner 103 4:30: Matt Fuhrmann 5:00: Matt Heim 5:30: Forrest Pepper
April 25 (Friday)	Final Presentations II: Lindner 103 4:00 Luis Zaman 4:30 Michael Cheever
April 30	Final Presentations III: Lindner 103 3:00 Lora Anneken 3:30 Brandon Kraeling 4:00 Michael Gunter
May 4	Final Dinner, 7:00, location tba

Seminar Component:

Each week the seminar will meet on Mondays from 4:30-5:20 in Alter 217 to discuss a current article or paper. Students will take turns being responsible for leading the seminar discussion. Each student will lead one seminar session.

Each person will choose their own article or paper to present and will distribute their faculty guide-approved article or paper on the Wednesday preceding its discussion. Along with the article or paper, each person will also distribute/post 3-5 questions to help the other seminar participants focus their reading. The article or paper should be related to the student's research project.

ALL students are responsible for reading each week's assigned article/paper, and for coming prepared to discuss it at the seminar. Attendance is mandatory and PARTICIPATION COUNTS! Every two unexcused absences will result in a letter grade drop.

Project Component:

Each student will undertake a significant self-directed project under the guidance of Gary, Liz, or Mike. (Other project mentors must be approved by the course instructor.)

Projects must contain or embody the self-directed learning of an academically rigorous CS topic that is new to the student. When deciding what is an appropriate topic one should bear in mind that CS is the study of algorithms and not the study of technology. Projects typically involve either:

• Faculty-sponsored undergraduate research.
• Self-study of a CS topic not offered/available through the Xavier CS curriculum. Examples of this include continued (or graduate-level) study of a topic already studied (e.g. concurrency), or first exposure to a topic not yet seen (e.g. parallel algorithms, graphics, distributed computing).

An implementation exercise is neither a necessary nor is it a sufficient condition for defining a satisfactory senior project.

Examples of worthwhile projects are:

• Theory oriented project: Working with a "Computing Surveys" (or other scholarly journal) article on a topic of interest; one possibly tied into a seminar presentation topic. After mastering the article, and the appropriate background material, one could work out the proofs "left as an exercise to the reader," offer alternative proofs to some of those in the paper, or extend the work by applying the principles in a new way. Projects based on this approach have the advantage in that they are sufficiently rigorous, highly focused (i.e. easily tractable within the constraints of a single semester), and very interesting.
  
  
• Implementation-oriented project: Extension of the OS, Parallel Computing, Compilers, or Advanced Algorithms projects. An implementation project typically involves the learning of new material, whose mastery is reflected in the implementation. Implementation projects need to be well thought out so that they are tractable within the constraints of a single semester. Frequently students select implementation-based projects that contain sufficient academic rigor, but are overly ambitious to be completed in one semester.
  
  
• Hybrid or other: These projects do not involve a major implementation exercise, nor the proving of lots of theorems. An example could be the studying of database design and optimization techniques. Theoretical material would be studied, the mastery of which would be reflected in an optimized design for a real (or imaginary) database application.

Students must submit a short project proposal and projected completion time line signed by their faculty guide/mentor no later than Tuesday, January 22, 2006. If you miss this deadline, then you fail the course. (Gary leaves town around noon on 22 January, so it is better to be early than late!)

In addition to the weekly seminar, students are expected to meet regularly with their faculty guide. Students are expected to keep a project log and to complete satisfactory progress on a regular basis. Furthermore, each student will briefly (2 minutes or so) discuss at the seminar session their progress on their project.

Finally, at the end of the semester, each student will make a public presentation (approx. 20-30 minutes) of their senior project and submit a writeup of their work. What constitutes an appropriate writeup is to be negotiated between the student and their faculty guide.

Grading:

Your grade for the course will be based on your participation in the seminar discussions, the quality of your preparations for the seminar discussion you will lead, the quality of your weekly mentor interactions, the final public presentation, and your work on your project.

Rubric for Senior Project grading

The CS faculty as a whole will be assigning the final grades.

The faculty have very high expectations for success from all of the seniors. Nevertheless a grade of "A" will be reserved only for those whose work/performance is deemed exceptional in all areas of the course. A "B" grade will represent good work, while a "C" grade will be assigned to those whose work is judged to be satisfactory. Any student whose work/performance is judged to be less than satisfactory will receive the failing grade, "F".