ECE509/CS598HPN Assignments

Reading Assignments (25%)

For each class, students are expected to:

  1. Read one full-length paper (or two half-length papers). Links to the papers for each class are provided in the 'Readings' column of the syllabus table.
  2. Submit a short write-up on each paper as specified below.
  3. Some lectures have been assigned two full-length papers listed with an 'OR'. Students may choose to submit a write-up on only one of the two papers for that class. Both papers will be dicussed in class, and students are encouraged to read both.

What to submit?

  1. Paper summary (3-4 lines).
  2. Assuming you are a reviewer for the paper, two reasons why you would accept it.
  3. Assuming you are a reviewer for the paper, two reasons why you would reject it.
  4. A follow-up idea on the paper, described very briefly in 1-2 sentences. The idea could:

When to submit? By 11:59pm the day before the class (Tuesday 11:59pm for Wednesday class and Thursday 11:59pm for Friday class).

How to submit? Fill out this form. The form can be accessed via your NetID after enabling Google Apps @ Illinois.

Missed or Late Submission Policy:

  1. Three skips allowed without any penalty (partial submission will be counted as a skip).
  2. A submission that is more than 9hrs late will be counted as a skip.
  3. Three late submissions (i.e. submitted late but within 9hrs of deadline) will be counted as a skip.

AI use policy: Use of AI assistance is permitted for filling gaps in background knowledge and conceptual understanding while reading the paper. However, AI assistance is not permitted for generating paper summaries or for generating responses to any of the other questions in the write-up -- students must read the papers, think through the questions, and write the paper summaries and question responses by themselves. Copying over AI generated paper summaries or responses will be considered as academic dishonesty and a violation of the University of Illinois Student Code.

Class Participation (25%)

Students are expected to attend classes, and participate in class discussions. In addition, each student will be given an opportunity to briefly present a paper of their choice towards the end of the course.

AI use policy:

  1. Not applicable for in-class discussions. Students are expected to abstain from using the Internet, and more generally their phones and laptops during class (unless it is to take notes or refer to previously written notes on the discussion topic).
  2. Students are permitted to make use of AI assistance when trying to search and choose which paper to present. But note that AI tools might not correctly list papers on a given topic, and may hallucinate references. So use them with care.
  3. When preparing slides for class presentation on the paper, AI assistance is permitted only for formatting and presentation of slide contents (including grammar and spell check, minor repharsing of sentences, help with diagrams, or plotting data). AI use is not permitted for generating the slide contents -- students are expected to read and understand the paper, and generate the slide contents manually.

Course Project (50%)

Students are expected to do a research-style project on a topic relevant to the course in groups of upto three. Deliverables include:

1. First progress report for the project

Contents:

  1. Motivation - what problem are you trying to solve and why?
  2. Related work - survey of related work, and how is your project different
  3. Key challenges you need to overcome
  4. Solution sketch
  5. Implementation and evaluation plan
  6. Progress made so far
  7. Tentative timeline for remaining work.
  8. For teams with multiple people: who is working on what.
  9. AI use acknowledgement (if applicable, see AI use policy below)

Deadline: Friday, Oct 9th, 11:59pm

How to submit? Email at radhikam @ illinois.edu with subject 'ECE509/CS598HPN Fall 2026: First progress report'. Only one email per team, cc all members.

2. Second progress report for the project

Built on top of the first progress report. You can add more to the motivation based on updated understanding of the project. You can also add more to the related work if you find anything new. Design of your solution must be more concrete (if it was not already so in the first progress report). In addition, you must discuss the progress you made towards implementation and present some preliminary results. A small section at the end of your report should list the delta over the first report (what new sections/sub-sections were added, and which sections were heavily edited).

Deadline: Friday, Nov 6th, 11:59pm

How to submit? Email at radhikam @ illinois.edu with subject 'ECE509/CS598HPN Fall 2026: Second progress report'. Only one email per team, cc all members.

3. Final report for the project

Format: 6 pages (without references), 10pt font, double-columned. For more details, please refer to the formatting guidelines here.

Tentative contents:

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Design
  4. Implementation
  5. Evaluation
  6. AI use acknowledgement (if applicable, see AI use policy below)
Specific section headings and length of each section may vary across projects.

Deadline: Friday, Dec 4, 11:59pm

How to submit? Email at radhikam @ illinois.edu with subject 'ECE509/CS598HPN Fall 2026: Final report'. Only one email per team, cc all members.

4. Project presentation

Final presentation (day, time, location):

Watch out for an email to schedule presentation slots.

Each presentation must be at most 10mins long. It should cover the motivation of the project (especially in context of relevant related work), briefly explain the approach/design, and present the key results. The entire presentation maybe given by a single team-member or maybe split across the team. Each presentation will be followed by at most 5mins of Q/A. All students are welcome to sit through other presentations, and ask questions if time permits.

AI use policy: Use of AI assistance is freely permitted for various stages of the project -- brainstorming ideas, related work survey, thinking through solution, coding assistance, paper writing assistance, and assistance with making project presentation. While AI use is permitted, it is by no means required! Students may use AI tools as per their own comfort and discretion. If you choose to use AI assistance for your course project in any capacity, you must take full responsibility for AI's contributions, including the accuracy of the information and reliability of sources. Project reports with non-sensical or vague AI-generated text will not be graded -- it is your responsiblity to read through all AI generated text and ensure it conveys the right meaning. You must further document and attribute all AI contributions in a separate section in your project report, and in a separate slide in your project presentation. Keep a journal documenting prompts, AI responses, and your usage -- you may be asked to provide this documentation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-21 11:50:39 -0500 [validate xhtml]