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CS 697
Computer Science Graduate Initiation
Spring 2011
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Professor Assaf Kfoury
kfoury@cs.bu.edu
MCS 176, 617-353-8911
TBD
TBD
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Professor
Rich West
richwest@cs.bu.edu
MCS 289, 617-353-2065
Wed 5:00-6:30pm
Thu 3:30-5:00pm |
Overview of the Course
This required two-credit course is designed to help guide entering
Ph.D. students through the challenging transition into the graduate
program in Computer Science. The course may also be taken by advanced undergraduate or masters students, and postdoctoral fellows. Topics range broadly across issues of
research and scholarship:
• balancing competing demands of
coursework, research, and teaching
• how to go about identifying and working with a dissertation advisor
• working within a research group
• becoming a proficient reader, writer, and reviewer of technical papers
• making use of online and library research resources
• becoming proficient with technical tools of the trade for writing and
performing research
• presenting good talks
• becoming visible in the research community
• understanding and applying scientific ethics
• applying for fellowships and internships
• writing a thesis proposal and a dissertation
• finding a job after graduate school
The course will not cover details of program requirements and
milestones, nor will the class provide academic advice specific to
individual students in the class. For these please consult the Graduate
Student Handbook and your academic advisor, respectively.
Course Format
Weekly meetings will be led by the instructors, frequently accompanied
by other faculty members and senior (or former) Ph.D. students, who
will discuss their experiences. Although most weeks will consist of a
lecture portion, especially on the more technical topics, there will be
ample time for discussion during each class. We will meet once a week
for one hour. We will often expect you to have read
some material in
advance to prepare for class discussion. We will assign the readings as
needed.
Grading and Assignments
Letter grades will be assigned. Grades will be based on completion of
written assignments and reading assignments for the class, active
participation in class, and attendance. The three main assignments in
the class will help the student build a foundation in a research area
of their choice, and are to be conducted together with, and assessed
by, a faculty advisor in a research area that they are interested in
pursuing.
1. Written Review (due March 4). In
this assignment you will read a paper chosen in concert with the
advising faculty member, and generate a conference-style review. Using
a review form from a top conference, the review will assess the paper's
suitability for publication and offer constructive feedback intended to
help the authors improve the paper. A post mortem discussion of the
reviews will be conducted in class.
2. Short Talk (due April 8). In
this assignment you will present a 20-30 minute talk at a group meeting
outside of class. Talks will be previewed and critiqued by an advising
faculty member. Appropriate venues include established research group
meetings or the graduate student lunch talk series. For this talk you
must prepare your own slides -- you may not use any slides prepared by
others. Presentations will be graded on the ability of the student to
incorporate effective presentation techniques discussed in the seminar,
and to communicate the main ideas and contributions of the paper
effectively and clearly. You may choose to present the paper that you
reviewed for the first assignment. By the deadline, you should submit a
copy of your slides with evidence from an instructor, advisor or
reading group that you have presented the work.
3. Technical Paper (due April 22).
In this assignment you will write a technical report on a topic that
either (a) you are currently pursuing with your advisor, (b) is
relevant to your already chosen research area (if you have one), or (c)
represents an overview of the current state of the art for a specific
area. You should write your paper in a style similar to that in
peer-reviewed conferences and journals (limited to 8 pages, 10-point
font, double column, single-line spaced, according to IEEE/ACM standard
formatting rules). The first page of your paper should include a
carefully chosen title, followed by your name and contact information,
and then an abstract that captures the salient points of the paper. In
the remaining space on the first page, you should start with an
"Introduction" section, that motivates your research topic and
describes the significant contributions of the paper. Ensuing sections
should be chosen as necessary, to describe the details of the research
topic, key observations and results, related work, and conclusions and
future work. You are also required to include a list of references to
related work at the end of your paper.
The course has a web site where assigned and recommended readings will
appear:
http://www.cs.bu.edu/fac/matta/Teaching/cs697/RCR/