Topics for the Week of Sept 7, 2009
CS 495: Senior Seminar I

• Go over Assignment 1
  • How to read a paper:
    • See Lecture 2 of Scholarship Skills
    • Discuss Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology, Michael J. Hanson, Dylan J. McNamee.
    • How do you assess the quality? For example, what are the differences between conferences, symposia, workshops, white papers, books, and journals?
  • How do you plan to organize your work?
  • Discuss the references you found.
• Assignment 2
• Picking a Project:
  • It should be about the right size for the time and resources available. Often too little time is allotted for background and planning and dealing with problems and analysing and making sense of data and results. Implementation should only be a portion of allotted time.
  • Types of projects
    • Extend the results of an existing paper.
    • Implement something (algorithm, game, application, etc)
    • Design and carry out an experiment: Analyze and test an algorithm. Do a usability study.
    • Download and analyze data, e.g. scientific, social network, ....
    • Do a simulation.
    • Do an interdisciplinary application
• Recall: This course is about developing the ability to
  • Think creatively
  • Think critically
  • Ask good questions
  • Learn about a subject in depth
  • Find information
  • Read and write papers
  • Solve problems
  • Work independently
  • Communicate your ideas to others, both verbally and through writing
  • Organize and present your work.
• What does it mean to engage in "research"?
  • Understanding the current intellectual context
  • Forming and testing a hypothesis
  • Publishing results
  • Identifying future lines of inquiry arising from the results.