Meetings

• one weekly group meeting
• one weekly individual meeting

You are going to meet with me in pairs (or groups of three) every week. During these meetings we will discuss the state of your project and plan your next steps.

To facilitate this discussion, you will post a progress report on the wiki by noon of the day before our meeting. You will also read everybody else's status reports before the meeting and prepare some questions, comments or suggestions to discuss in the next meeting.

Why meet in pairs? Research depends on discussing ideas and getting as well as giving feedback. I want you to experience both sides. Also, working on a research project can sometimes be frustrating (when things don't go how initially planned); seeing that somebody else is struggling in similar ways helps to understand that that is normal. And finally, doing research in a group of people (even if they don't work on the same project) is simply more fun and thereby motivating than working alone.

In addition, you will have an individual meeting with me every week during which we can discuss things which for some reason or another don't fit into the group meeting. This meeting can be short if there is nothing to discuss, but I still want to meet with you every week.

Presentations

• short status reports in the weekly group meetings
• a presentation for the department at the end of the fall term
• a presentation for the department and outside guests at the end of week eight of the winter term (Saturday, Feb. 28th); includes oral and poster presentation
• Steinmetz symposium (optional; required for honors)

The status reports during the weekly meeting can be very short because everybody will have read your written status report. Just something to get the discussion going is necessary.

We'll talk about the other presentations more as they get closer, and we will also have practice runs in the week before them.

Writings

• weekly status reports on the wiki (due: noon of the day before the group meeting)
• a revision of your proposal (due: TBD on an individual basis)
• a report at the end of fall term (due: end of finals)
• your senior thesis at the end of spring term (due: end of finals)

The weekly status reports should include:

• your goals from the previous week that you wanted to meet
• what you actually did (describe solutions, problems and how you dealt with them and especially elaborate on open problems and questions)
• suggestions of goals for the next week
• a time sheet where you list when you worked for how long on which problem. I do expect you to work 10 hours per week on you project. However this time sheet is not so much for checking this, but for you to realize what you spend your time on. From my own experience I know that honestly keeping track of my activities can be very illuminating and also very good for my productivity.

We will talk about the other papers when they come closer.

Seminar Series

You are required to attend all talks in our seminar series. (Normally, certain Thursdays 12:50-1:50 with lunch starting at noon.)

Hearing other people present their research will help you in determining how to go about your own research and seeing other people give presentations will help you to give good presentations yourself. And along the way you will find out what's going on in current CS research.

Grading

CS majors get one grade each term. ID majors get one grade at the end of the second term which is applied to both terms.

• weekly progress: 30%
• term progress: 20%
• participation: 10%
• final report: 20%
department presentations: 20%

For the first term, the term progress grade includes a grade for the revised proposal.

The participation grade is based on: the timely submission of informative weekly status reports, constructive participation in the group discussion, and attendance at the seminar talks.