CS 1401 "Research Contact" Assignments

One goal of this course is that you become aware of the research going on in this department and understand that research is one career path open to you. To meet this goal, you are required to participate in two "research contacts" during the semester. Each research contact is worth up to 15 points and will require one to two hours of time to complete. Together, the two research contacts count for up to 30 points (which is the same number of points as 3 quizzes, or 1.5 homework assignments).

A "research contact" is one of the following:

Participate in an experiment as a subject.
Attend a research presentation and write a one-to-two page report on the presentation.
Interview a student who is a member of a research group and write a one-to-two page report of that student's research.

The first research-contact assignments must be completed no later than Monday, October 2, 2006; the second research-contact assignments must be completed no later than Monday, November 27, 2006. The procedures and grading criteria for each type of research contact are explained below.

Experiments

Requirement: Participate as a subject in an approved experiment. Approved experiments will be announced in the class.

Note that some experiments will have restrictions on who can participate; common restrictions include your preferred language (because some experiments are conducted in Spanish, for example), your gender (because many experiments require that equal numbers of men and women participate in the study), or that you must sign up with a friend (because the experiment requires two people who are comfortable working together). If you do not qualify for a particular experiment, then you cannot participate in that study. You likely will qualify for other studies, though.

Procedure:

Contact the student conducting the experiment to find out whether you qualify for that study and, if you do, make an appointment to do the experiment. Be sure to get their number to call in case you have to cancel your appointment for some reason, and find out where the experiment will be conducted.
Show up at the appointed time and place.
At the conclusion of the experiment, the student conducting the experiment will have you sign a log to document the fact that you participated in the study. This log will be given to the CS1401 instructors so that you will get credit for participating.

If for any reason you cannot make an appointment, call in advance and cancel your appointment. Failure to show up for a scheduled experiment will increase your research contacts requirement by one. In other words, if you no-show for one experiment, your research contact requirement will be increased to three contacts (10 points each). If you no-show twice, your requirement will be increased to four. This is because when you fail to show up for a scheduled appointment, you both waste the time of the student who is running the experiment and prevent another student from doing the experiment at that time.

Grading Criteria: Full credit (15 points per study) for showing up ON TIME and participating in the experiment.

Research Presentations

Requirement: Attend a research presentation, either a research talk or a thesis defense, and write a one-to-two page report on the presentation.

The department has research presentations about twice a month, generally on alternate Wednesdays at 10:30. Thesis defenses are scheduled as students complete their research, typically four or five per semester. Announcements for talks and defenses are posted on the bulletin board to your right as you enter the Computer Science building. Presentations are about an hour in length, and most will take place in Room 221 on the main floor of the Computer Science building. Most talks and defenses are scheduled only five to seven days in advance, so check frequently.

Procedure:

Attend the talk and take notes. (See note below.)
At the conclusion of the talk, ask one of the faculty to initial your notes to confirm that you attended.
Write a paper summarizing your understanding of the talk in your own words. The paper should be not less than one page and not more than two pages in length using 8.5" x 11" paper with 1.5" margins and double-spaced 12-point Times Roman (or similar) font. Attach your original notes as a third page.

NOTE: We do not expect you to understand every detail of these talks; most of them will be assuming a level of knowledge about Computer Science that you have not yet attained. We do expect you to do your best, however. For most talks, you should be able to pick up Why the work is important and What they did to demonstrate that their work is correct, even if you don't understand some details. For example, it would be okay to report that the speaker described an experiment in which two versions of a system were compared to see which was faster but you didn't completely understand how the systems differed, or that the speaker presented a proof about the complexity of an algorithm but you didn't understand the proof. Generally the first few minutes and the last few minutes of a talk are the easiest to understand, so don't panic (or fall asleep!) if you don't follow some of the details in the middle.

Grading Criteria: Each paper will be worth up to 15 points, as follows:

Your original notes with faculty initials are attached (5 points)
Paper includes the title, speaker, and date of the talk (2 points)
Paper summarizes your understanding of the talk using your own words (see note above) (3 points)
Paper exhibits correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and it follows the formatting and length instructions given above (5 points)

Interviews:

Requirement: Interview a Computer Science student who is a member of a research group, and write a one-to-two page report of that student's research.

Procedure:

Locate a Computer Science student doing research. All of the research groups have lab areas in the basement of the Computer Science building. Check in rooms 106 (SSEAL: software engineering and parallel computing), 124 (TRACS: theory, security, cryptography), and others. Knock on a door and ask politely if you might make an appointment with some student to find out about the research project they are working on.
Conduct the interview. If several of you want to interview a student together, that's fine--in fact, it's good. Just make sure that you write the report by yourself.
Find out who the student is: name, whether they are graduate or undergraduate, which research group they are in, how long they have been in the group.
Find out what project the student is working on. Why is this work interesting and important? What does the student actually do: write programs, or write proofs, or run experiments, or analyze the performance of something, for example? If the student has a publication, ask for a copy of the paper and include a complete, correct citation in your report. (If you aren't certain how to do this, ask the student.)
Take notes, and ask the student to sign your notes.
Thank the student profusely for taking the time to talk to you.

Grading Criteria: Each paper will be worth up to 15 points, as follows:

Your original notes with student signature are attached (5 points)
Paper includes the student's name, whether they are an undergraduate or graduate student, how long they have been in their research group, and the date of the interview (2 points)
Paper summarizes what the student is working on and why the project is important, using your own words (3 points)
Paper exhibits correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and it follows the formatting and length instructions given for the Research Presentation paper (5 points)