CMSC 601: Basic Research Skills

Spring 2008
Instructor: Charles Nicholas

Subject to revision through the semester.
 
Date Topic(s)

Reading(s)/
Assignments Made

Handouts/Links
1/28 Overview,
Kung's talk,

Zobel, chapter 10, to be discussed next week

M. E. J. Newman, "The structure of scientific collaboration networks" (pdf)
to be discussed in class Monday 2/4
1/30

Finish Kung.
Introduction to LaTeX.
2/4 Reading and summarizing of papers.
Reviewing papers.
Plagarism.
Example: Summary of Newman paper
Paraphrasing guidelines
ICML-03 reviewing form
2/6 The reviewing process. Discussion of Parberry Classification/Analysis.In-depth paper analysis and critique.
  • discuss Zobel Ch. 10
  • Peters Ch. 1,2
  • Purdue Online Writing Lab's APA citation guidelines
  • Assignment: no due date yet set. Using LaTeX, write yourself a resume.
  • Assignment/Request for Monday: dream up a good question for Mr. Algren!
    		•

    Annotated bibliography guidelines(ps, pdf) LaTeX source, and BibTeX file
    Oren Patashnik, "BibTeXing"
    Plain (sorted) and unsorted annotated bibliography BibTeX style files 
    The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies
    Justin Zobel's writing page
    Levin and Rendell, How to Write a Good Systems Paper Local copies(ps,pdf)
    Chinneck, How to Organize Your Thesis
    Google Scholar
    2/11 

    Using the Library - Guest speaker Drew Algren

    Writing I: Organization, bibliographies.  BibTeX.
    In-depth survey analysis and critique.
  • Dijkstra's Three Golden Rules for Scientific Research
  • Zobel Ch. 1 and pp. 20-25
  • Elvins, A Survey of Algorithms for Volume Visualization (pdf)
    		• Sample topics
    Topic guidelines
    Literature survey tips
    Editing symbols
    2/13

    Discuss desJardins and Elvins papers
    Writing II: Style, common errors.

    What really happened: Dr. Joshi and two of his students presented their research!
  • Zobel Ch. 2-3
  • Peters Ch. 18
    		•  Slides

    2/18

    How to give a good presentation.

    Generic dissertation outline.

    What really happened: We talked about the similarities between a business plan and a research proposal, and Dijkstra's three rules.
  • Peters Ch. 20
  • Zobel Ch. 11
  • Topic paragraph is due
  • Library exercise is due
    		•  Paper presentation feedback form
    Slides
    Mark Hill, Oral Presentation Advice
    Winston, Some Lecturing Heuristics
    2/20 Research I: Finding a topic and advisor.
  • Peters Ch. 5, 6, 16
    		•  Slides
    desJardins, How to Succeed in Graduate School (ps ,pdf )
    2/25 Research II: Research topics cont.
  • TBA
    		•   
    2/27

    More on research topics

    Also talked about new comps, and what is supposed to be accomplished

  •  Zobel Ch. 4
    		•
    CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshops Booklet (includes Berman's "Building a Research Career")
    Science's Next Wave
    Outside reader agreement
    3/3

    Writing III: Tools.

    More on public speaking

  • Zobel Ch. 5, 6, 7
  • Outside reader form is due
  • Annotated bibliography is due
  • Literature review outline is due
    		•  Literature survey review form
    3/5 Criteria for listening to a CS talk
    Three talks were presented:
    Fahad Zafar Marching cubes
    Ganesh Saiprasad Integrated knees
    Ben Griffin

    Multiple agents

    Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student by Manuel Blum
    Applying to Ph.D. Programs in Computer Science by Mor Harchol-Balter

    3/10 Research III: Empirical methodology.
    More ten-minute presentations
    Kishor Datar HTTP Smuggling
    Deepak Chinavle Attacking Spam Filters
    Houcheng Lee Cold Boot Attacks
    Soumi Ray Scaling in Reinforcement Learning
    Yi Sun Internet Telephony
    Prakash Hiranandani Sensor Network Energy
    Sourav Mukherjee Inducing Probabilistic Grammars
    		Slides on experiment design
    Rob Holte's slides on experimental methodologies
    3/12 More ten-minute presentations
    Oleg Aulov Trust Management
    Fei Chen Boosting Classifiers
    Audumbar Chormale Rogue Detection
    Arghya Dasgupta Minds, Brains and Programs
    James MacGlashan Learning Games
    Karan Oberoi Sensor Network Security
    		Research statement guidelines
      3/17-3/21 SPRING BREAK  
    3/24  Time management, success strategies. Literature review is due Slides
    3/26 More on personal finance for grad students
  • Peters Ch. 12, 18, 21, 22, 23
    		•  Research paper guidelines
    Janice Cuny, Time Management and Family Issues
    The Wealthy Barber is available from Amazon
    3/31

    Career Development - Patterson


    Patterson, How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia"    		  
    4/2 Finish Patterson    
    4/7 More on Giving Talks Peyton-Jones et al., How to Give a Good Research Talk  
    4/9 Research IV: Proposals, grant writing Set presentation schedule
    t test spreadsheet

    Research portfolio guidelines
    4/14 Statistical methods.

    multinomial spreadsheet

    		 Slides on proposals
    4/16 Time Management Randy Pausch's talk (ppt) The video is available at many sites, including http://video.google.com  
    4/21 Career Management Peter Drucker's 1999 paper, Managing Oneself Advice to a Young Scientist (pdf)
    4/23 . class cancelled to allow more time for papers and posters  
    4/28 More about Proposals
    		  More slides on proposals
    4/30 Student poster presentations.
    Oleg Aulov  
    Wes Griffin Misbehaving Agents
    		Research paper draft due
    5/5 Student poster presentations.
    Prakash  
    Ganesh Saiprasad Spleen Segmentation
    Fei Chen Boosting on Manifolds
    Mukherjee Graph Grammars
    		Paper reviews due
    5/7 Student project presentations.
    Hou Cheng  
    Yi Sun  
    Kishor Datar Security and Privacy Online

    James MacGlashan

    		 Agent Learning Frameworks
    		 
    5/12 Student project presentations
    ?  
    Fahad Coherency Algorithms (avi)
    Dasgupta  
    Soumi  
    Deepak  
    Audumbar  
    		Last day of class: May 13
    5/19 Scheduled final exam Final papers due 6-8pm


    Stuff I removed from the schedule but don't want to loose:
    Cohen, Schapire, and Singer, Learning to Order Things
    Kamishima and Akaho, Learning from Order Examples

    Kajiya, How to Get Your SIGGARPH Paper Rejected
    Discussion questions
    Doyle and Thomas, Background to Qualitative Decision Theory

    Transcript of Hamming, "You and Your Research" (html,pdf)

    Drucker article, "Managing Oneself" and other time management advice


    This semester I didn't have students practice presenting papers. It would have been good, but
    I didn't see it on the schedule in time. Also, the class is a little too big to do this and squeeze in
    everything else. But knowing how to present papers is very important in research groups, and
    if I had it to do over I might do it differently.