CSCI 390 Spring 2009 Senior Seminar

The senior seminar course will consist of two components: the seminar component (in Alter 2xx on Wednesdays from 4:30-5:20 p.m.) and the project component.

Semester Schedule

January 14	Organizational meeting
January 21	Student presentation of project proposals (approx. 5 minutes each): Gabe Goliath Krista Miller Terry Callan Tommy Filliater Jenn Scibetta
January 28	Gary leads discussion this article on paired vs. solo programming (originally used by Tommy Hearns in Spring '07). Which group had fewer interruptions? Why do you think this is? Related to your process in OS, would you say you were pair programmers or solo programmers who communicated? Is this a research paper? What makes something research? Is your senior project research?
February 4	OPEN
February 11	Tommy Filliater This paper and the following questions: Why is spam bad? Why is spam bad in a social book marking website? The article lists things which might be able to solve some issues of spam, which is the most fair to a user? Does being fair to the user stop the spam? How can we solve spam by changing how tagging works?
February 18	Jenn Scibetta This article and the following questions: What are shared-memory multiprocessors? What are distributed-memory multiprocessors? What are the advantages/disadvantages to using OpenMP? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using MPI? Give examples of problems that can be implemented using MPI and OpenMP.
February 25	Krista Miller This paper (or here if you are off campus) and the following questions: What is AR? How is it different from VR? How is AR used in this research? How is/can AR be used today in both the civilian and military worlds? Using this research, how could one extend/improve an AR reality game? Will we see more AR games in the future? What will they be like?
March 4	Spring Break
March 11	Midterm Reports (approx 5 minutes each):
March 18	Gabe Goliath this paper and these questions: What is GPS? How is it different from Differential GPS? How is GPS used in this research? Which mode would be the implementation for the use with the iPhone? Does the iPhone GPS system differ from the system discussed in this paper? Do you think more GPS systems will be implemented in zoos, amusement parks, and other public attractions?
March 25	Terry Callan this paper is long, but you should concentrate on sections 1, 3, 8. What is feature selection? What are some of the problems inherent in working with large amounts of data and how can feature selection help? What is the distinction between variables and features in the context of feature selection and why is this relevant? How can these techniques be applied to image recognition?
April 1	Drew Wyborski This paper and these questions: Where else would these kinds of systems be useful? Is there an advantage to the way that servers are held in buckets? Are there any connection issues that may arise from the way these servers are implemented and handled? What other features would you include in a system to ensure reliable operation and recovery?
April 8	How to present, etc
April 15	OPEN
April 22	Final Presentations I (Logan 100) 4:00 Jenn Scibetta 4:30 Krista Miller 5:00 Terry Callan
April 29	Final Presentations II (Logan 100) 4:00 Tommy Filliater 4:30 Gabe Goliath
May 3	Final Dinner, 7:00, location tba

Seminar Component:

Each week the seminar will meet on Wednesdays from 4:30-5:20 in Alter 2xx 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, or Liz. (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 20, 2009. If you miss this deadline, then you fail the course.

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".