This document explains the requirements for the research paper, which will count for 15% of your overall grade in CMSC 100.
You must choose an application domain that reflects one of your academic or personal interests. (A list of possible topics is given at the end of this document, but you should not feel limited in any way by those suggestions!) You will research the applications of computers in your chosen domain, and will write a research paper summarizing your findings. You will also be required to read and provide comments on two other students' research papers.
Students will have two opportunities to briefly present their topics and findings in class. These presentations will count towards your class participation grade, not towards your project grade.
There are six "deliverables" (assignments) that must be turned in: (1) a topic proposal, (2) an initial bibliography, (3) an outline, (4) a draft paper, (5) the reviews of other students' draft papers, and (6) the final report. The requirements for these assignments, and the two class presentations, are summarized below.
EARLY OPTION: Students who wish to bypass requirements (1), (3), and (5), and optionally skip requirement (4), may complete and submit their final paper early. The requirements for the early option are in a section at the end of this document. These students are still required to do the two in-class presentations.
The topic proposal should consist of a short explanation of your chosen application domain, why you chose it, and what you think the relevant applications of computers might be. The proposal should be at least two paragraphs (one about the domain, one about applications), and not longer than two pages, single-spaced (which is very roughly 1000 words).
The initial bibliography may be formatted according to any standard style. (I suggest the APA guidelines, which you can find at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/ (in-text citations) and http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/ (reference lists) -- see also tabs on left for specifics about formatting different types of references. However, another style is acceptable, as long as your references are consistently and neatly formatted, with complete bibliographic information.)
Please note that you should not include URLs unless you are citing a source that is only available online. For print materials, you should include the author, title, publication (if appropriate--e.g., name of newspaper or journal), page numbers if applicable, volume if applicable, and date of publication. (You should include this information even if you actually accessed the material online, e.g., through a digital library.) For online sources, you should include the website where found, page title, author if known, and date accessed, as well as the URL.
Your initial bibliography should include at least five sources of information about your application domain and uses of computers in the domain (or relevant computing technology that could be applied to the domain). Of these sources, at least three must be "establishment" (peer-reviewed or formally published) media, such as journals, newspapers, books, or magazines. Furthermore, of these three sources, at least one must be a print media source (although you may access it online, e.g., in the case of an ebook that is also available in print form, or an online New York Times article).
The other two sources can be less formal sources, such as Wikipedia or a web page that was posted by a knowledgeable institution, group, company, or individual. None of the sources should be completely unreviewed, open forums (e.g., Yahoo Answers is not acceptable as a source -- if you learn of something interesting such an unreviewed source, you need to find a more reliable source that can verify that information, and use that in your bibliography). You should label each source as "E" (establishment), "I" (informal), and/or "P" (print).
If you have any doubt about whether a particular source would count as "establishment," "less formal," or "unreviewed," just ask.
The outline should be in outline form (i.e., organized hierarchically, with top-level entries numbered "I," "II," etc., and subtopics up to three levels deep below those main topics). It should summarize the main topics you plan to discuss in your paper, and mention the main ideas you will cover within each section.
One possible organization is: Introduction (overview of paper), Application Domain (what your domain is and why you think it's important), one section for each major application of computing within the domain, a section on social/ethical issues, and a Conclusions section. (See Final Report, below, for an explanation of what your final paper should include. This should also help you to organize your outline.)
The outline should be around 1-2 pages in double-spaced form.
Your outline must also include a more thorough bibliography, with at least 10 sources. Of these sources, at least five should be from "establishment" sources; at least two of these "establishment" sources should be from print media.
The draft should be at least 4-5 pages, double-spaced. The basic structure should follow that of the outline you submitted, although you are welcome to change it if you think you now have a better organization for the paper.
It's fine to submit a complete paper (i.e., 8-10 pages with all of the material) as your draft. If you do this, you are likely to end up with a better grade on the final report, because I'll be able to give you more thorough feedback on the draft. At a minimum, though, your draft should include all of the basic ideas to be covered in your full paper, if not all of the details about these ideas. (For example, if you chose football, you might have a short section that describes the automatically generated line of scrimmage that is shown in televised footbal games, and mention a few sources that you've found that talk about how the line is generated. You might, however, leave out the technical details (of how it actually works) in the draft -- although they should appear in the final paper.)
I will grade and comment on your drafts primarily on content and organization, not grammar and sentence structure. However, the more polished and complete your draft is, again, the more useful feedback I'll be able to give you, and the higher quality your final paper is likely to be.
You must bring three hardcopies of your paper to class on the day that the draft is due: one for the course staff, and one for each of the other students who will be reviewing your paper. Also, you must include your email address on the first page of your paper (under the title).
An online review form will be posted on the course website, and you will be given two other students' papers to review. The form will be self-explanatory: you'll be asked to rate the draft paper on a numeric scale with respect to a number of questions (e.g., organization of the paper, grammar and style, clarity of the descriptions of the applications of computing). You'll also be asked to comment on each of these ratings with a few sentences.
At a minimum, your review should give useful and thoughtful feedback about the quality of the paper, and should show clearly that you actually read and thought about the paper. You are welcome to write more extensive comments, which may be useful for the author, but are not required to do so.
You should submit the reviews by emailing them to Prof. desJardins and the student whose paper you are reviewing, before class on the date it is due.
The final paper should be 8-10 pages, double spaced, with 1-inch margins. This roughly corresponds to 2000-2500 words. If you feel that you need more than 10 pages, then you can submit a longer paper. Papers that are shorter than the minimum stated requirement will result in a reduced grade. You must have explicit section headers for each section and subsection of the paper.
NOTE: You must turn in the marked-up draft that you received back from me when you turn in the final paper. Failure to turn this draft in with the final paper will result in a reduction in your grade.
The paper should have an informative title (not just "CMSC 100 Research Paper.") The body of the paper should introduce and discuss your topic area, and talk about some of the key challenges. (These can be both computational -- e.g., encrypting online medical records -- and non-computational -- e.g., ensuring physician compliance with medical recordkeeping standards.)
Next, you should present at least three uses of computing in your chosen field. (You can talk about more than three uses if you want. Also, in some cases, a student may wish to explore one specific computing application in greater technical depth. This is acceptable if you can make a good case that you have an interesting and detailed application to explore, but you must get permission from Dr. desJardins in advance (at least by the time the outline is due) to do so.)
At least one of the three uses should refer to technology that is currently in use in the field. Also, at least one of them should be emerging technology (new technology that hasn't yet been widely adopted) or a possible future application (this can be as "out there" as you want, as long as it's not impossible). For each of these uses of computers, you should explain what it does, why it's useful, and how the underlying computational technology works. This information should be written so that a non-computer scientist can understand it, but should have enough detail that a computer scientist (i.e., me) will find it convincing and interesting. You should also talk about the limitations of existing technology (what can't it do yet, what doesn't it do well, or when is it not applicable). For emerging/future technology, you should discuss what technological advances would be needed to make it possible.
Finally, you should discuss the social and ethical effects of these current and future uses of computers. These effects can include privacy issues, moral and legal implications, potential social benefits or detriments, or anything else that you think is relevant for the broader impact of the technology on society.
Your paper should include a "Conclusions" section that summarizes the main points, and a bibliography that lists your sources.
All quoted material must be properly cited. Also, you should
support your discussion by appropriate bibliographic citations within
the text. (That is, it isn't enough to just include a bibliography --
you also need to indicate which sources you used to get the
information within each section.) In general, these citations don't
need to be sentence-by-sentence or even paragraph-by-paragraph. For
example, in the football example mentioned above, when you first
mention the line of scrimmage application, you can say something like
"The line of scrimmage technology is used to automatically generate an
overlay for television viewers [Scienceline.org 2008]." After that,
you only need to give that citation (or another citation) if you quote
the article or want to support a specific point that might seem
questionable to the reader.
Students who want to follow
the "final paper only" early option should submit the final draft of
their paper when the bibliography is due (Tuesday, October 23).
If you want to take this option, you are not required to submit a
rough draft, but it would be smart to do so. Rough drafts for
early-option students must
be turned in by Tuesday, October 9 (when the topic proposal
would normally be due), and I will get comments/feedback to
you by Tuesday, October 16.
If you do submit a draft, that will count as 10% of your grade, and
the final paper will count as the other 90% (since the grades
for the other assignments -- topic proposal, initial bibliography,
outline, and peer reviews -- will be folded in).
If you don't submit a draft, then the final paper submitted by
October 23 would be the entire grade (since there wouldn't be a
draft grade).
I won't accept any late drafts or final papers for students who
want to follow this model, so if you're not going to make the
October 9 deadline for the draft, you shouldn't submit one; and
if you're not going to make the October 23 deadline for the final
paper, you'll have to do the other assignments (or receive zeros
on them if they're not turned in).
Note that you may turn in the draft and final paper even
earlier than these deadlines, if you want to get them out
of the way. I can't necessarily promise a 7-day turnaround
on the draft, if you submit at a busy time for me, but I
will certainly try.
Early Option
At this point, you'll know what your topic is, and will be working on your bibliography, but may not have fully researched your applications. That's OK, since we just want to hear about your topic and a bit about why you think it will be interesting.
These presentations will be given from your seats (although you will have to stand when you talk!). Since we have about 45 students in the class and only 75 minutes for the presentations, students will be limited to 90 seconds each (and should not be shorter than 60 seconds). You'll have to submit a single PowerPoint slide (plus title slide) in advance of the presentation day, using a template that I will provide, so that we don't have to rotate laptops through the projector. You should practice what you're going to say in that 60 to 90 seconds several times! We will talk more in class about how to design a good slide and "spiel" before this assignment is due.
By now, you'll have submitted your draft, gotten feedback from the course staff, and received two reviews from other students. So you should have a good understanding of your chosen domain and the relevant computing applications.
We will spread these presentations over two days; still, you will likely only have 3 or 4 minutes. So again, you will have to submit your slides in advance (about 3 slides will be plenty), and you need to think carefully about what you want to say, and practice your presentation in advance. This time, you'll have the option to send me a draft version of your slides (not graded). I'll send you comments that you can incorporate into the final slides, which are due the day before the presentations start.
Presentation slots will be assigned by lottery, possibly grouped into general areas. Be prepared to give your presentation on either day. I will distribute the schedule in advance so you can plan accordingly.