Please attend lecture and come prepared to engage without using laptops and other digital devices. You may miss up to two lectures without penalty. Afterwards, each missed day will be penalized at one third of a letter grade, e.g. A to A-.
The main components of the coursework, their relative weights for grading, and estimated time investment are as follows
| Component | Grade contribution | Estimated workload | Rubric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper presentations | 15% | 15 hours | Rubric |
| Weekly responses | 20% | 2 hours each | |
| Project proposal | 10% | 12 hours | Rubric |
| Project paper | 30% | 30 hours | |
| Project presentation | 10% | 12 hours | Rubric |
| Participation & Critiques | 15% |
Many of the classes will consist of a paper presentation by a student followed by a class dicussion. We will provide a selection of papers covering the themes of the course. Paper selection will be done in class during the fifth lecture, so plan to attend that day. Students will be required to give a 30 minute presentation of their paper in class, after which there will be a discussion.
Every Friday we will post an open ended question encouraging you to think about the week's lecture concepts and respond in half a page to a page. These responses will be graded pass/fail with a week to re-submit for a half credit any response graded as fail. The grading criteria are meeting the length requirement of at least a half page and relevance of response to the question.
You may choose to do either a survey or research project on an area related to the course. A survey project will focus on a fairly narrow area of the literature and survey it with respect to both recent developments and open problems. A research project will identify and attempt to solve an open problem. The projects will be graded on effort, so trying and failing to solve an open problem is acceptable so long as the effort was satisfactory and there is an understanding of why it didn't work. Some possible topics appear below.
A one-page proposal which cites at least 3 sources will be due February 21. A paper of 6 pages length, not including references (10 for groups of two), in LNCS format will be due on April 15. Each project will require a 15 minute in class presentation, with 3 mintues for Q&A, beginning April 22. Sample papers from last semester are available here.
Students will vote on a "best presentation" for 2% extra credit to the course's final grade in class on May 6. Attendance for student presentations will required for participation credit, as described below.
For all components of the final project, you may work in a group of two or by yourself.
Participation will consist of filling out feedback on students' final presentations in class, and a critique of papers we discuss in class. After the first 6 introductory lectures, the evening before each lecture by 11:59PM, each student will read and critique the paper to be discussed in the following class. Critiques should be short, less than half a page, and comment on strengths and weaknesses of the paper. Critiques can be turned in on Compass.
All coursework will be handed in on Compass. If you haven't been added to Compass, email Rick (barber5@illinois.edu)
No late assignments will be accepted.
You are expected to maintain the utmost level of academic integrity in the course. You are encouraged to form a study group to discuss the papers but are expected to write your paper presentations and weekly responses on your own without recourse to notes from the group discussions. As outlined above, groups of two are allowed for final projects.
Plagiarism deserves special mention. It is an academic violation to copy, to include text from other sources, including online sources, without proper citation. To get a better idea of what constitutes plagiarism, consult the UIUC policy on student obligations (http://bit.ly/1p25qTO) and the CS policy (https://cs.illinois.edu/academics/honor-code)