CS190 - Administrivia

Coursework

Attend all Pomona Colloquia. A missed colloquim where the instructor is informed about the absence in advance can be made up by attending an HMC colloquim and then e-mailing Professor Kauchak with a one paragraph summary.
Read the weekly paper and participate. Participation includes attending class, presenting on the discussion board by 5pm the day before the presentation and participating in the paper discussion.
Participate in two paper presentations (in groups of two or three).
Lead two paper discussions (in groups of two or three on the same day as you present).
Give two 1 minute presentations on your survey paper topic.
Write a survey paper (see survey paper guidelines below for more details).

Grading

Attendance is required. Two absences, with advance notice, are allowed. Each subsequent absence will result in a one grade point (on a 12 point scale) deduction from your final grade.
40% Research paper presentations (20% each)
20% Class participation
40% Survey paper:

4% LaTeX exercise
4% Paper topic + 10 references
4% Annotated bibliography
4% Outline + one section
4% Paper draft
4% Peer review
16% Final paper

Paper Reading and Presentations

Each week we will have a research paper we will be reading and discussing. Each person will present two papers throughout the semester in a group. The presentations should be no more than 30 minutes. We will then have 30 minutes of discussion.

If you are presenting: Read through the paper early. Read the paper again :) Sit down with your presentation group and discuss the paper. Setup a meeting with Prof Kauchak to talk about the paper/presentation (optional). By 5pm of the day before the presentation, post discussion topics/questions on the sakai forum for the paper. Practice presentation at least once as a group and show up 10 minutes before class to setup. Within a week after your presentation, meet with Prof Kauchak to get feedback about your presentation and to review peer feedback.

If you're NOT presenting: Read through the paper early. Read any confusing parts again. By 5pm of the day before the presentation, post on the sakai forum for the paper. Possible things you might post about include: a summary of the paper (if you're the first to do this), something you found confusing about the paper, an answer to a previous question, something you found interesting about the paper, etc. I don't expect your posts to be a 10 page essay, however, it should show that you read the paper, thought about it and put some time and effort into participating on the forum.

Survey Paper Guidelines

A survey paper provides research background and analysis of a focused area of research. For those doing a senior project or thesis, the survey paper will be related to the topic of their project. For everyone else, the high-level topic(s) will be defined by the CS190 course instructor.

You will complete your survey paper in a number of steps:

Paper topic + 10 references: Identify the topic of your survey paper and at least 10 papers related to the topic. Half of the work will be finding the papers and half will be narrowing down and define the topic. Even for those who aren't doing a senior project, you will still need to identify a subfield of the high-level topic(s) defined by the instructor.

Your submission should include a few sentences describing your topic of interest and ten properly formatted citations. A citation should be of the form seen on the course web page, i.e.

[author(s)]. [year]. [title]. [where_it_was_published].

and should be listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author.

Annotated bibliography: Read your initial 10 papers and others you discover along the way. For each paper you read, write a paragraph or two summarizing the paper. This will become your annotated bibliography. See A Guide to the Senior Exercise for formatting instructions. To make life easier, I've also created an annotated bibliography starter that you can also use as a starting point.

Outline + introduction: A critical part of a good survey paper is that the author should provide some good analysis and organization of the subfield that the paper discusses. A survey paper is not simply a paragraph by paragraph summary of papers. Your outline should consist of the section and subsections that you plan to have for the paper. Use descriptive section names for these headings.
You should also include the text for your introductory section. It should give a very high-level overview of the paper topic and also outline how you have organized your paper. You do not need a bibliography, though you should include preliminary citations already where appropriate.
Draft: The survey paper should be at least 6 pages and at most 10 pages long and should cite at least 10 papers, though it's likely that you will cite more. You must also include at least one figure or table that you generated (though more might also be helpful). The draft should be a complete draft, i.e. should have all of the sections filled in, though it may be a little rough and some of the sections might still be missing a paragraph or two. It should be formatted already using the style guide (see the example starter).

Final paper: The final version of the paper should be properly formatted, meet all the requirements outlined in the draft (length, number of citations, table/figure), be free of any grammar or spelling issues, be well organized, and should include changes made to address the review feedback.

Students working on a group senior project should talk with their senior project advisor and 190 instructor since the requirements will vary slightly.

All work should be submitted via sakai assignments.

Optional Senior Work

CS190 and the associated survey paper is the only senior work that is required for the CS major. For those interested, there are three additional senior experiences that may be done in addition to CS190: clinic, senior project or senior thesis. A Guide to the Senior Exercise has more details on all three of these options. At this point, if you have not enrolled in clinic or started working with an advisor on a senior thesis, the only option (and the most common option) is a senior project.

If you plan to do a senior project (or thesis) the main difference for this course will be that your survey paper will be written on the topic of your project instead of one designated by the class. See the senior project information page for more information on what is required of you and when.