This course requires a written term paper on a topic related to the use and usability of computers to deal with knowledge. Your emphasis can be either on technical and conceptual aspects of knowledge, or on relevant usability aspects. The term paper is accompanied by a presentation on the same topic.
This paper and presentation can be done individually, or in pairs of two students. If you choose to do it with another student, I expect your paper to be either significantly longer (about twice the length), or on a more challenging topic. For the latter, please put a short justification in the proposal.
Topic
You can select your own topic, but it must be pre-approved by the instructor. A formal topic proposal must be submitted via Blackboard.
Your topic proposal must include:
- date of the presentation (see also the signup sheet passed around in class)
- proposed title
- proposed abstract (a two or three paragraph explanation of the topic)
- an outline of your approach to the topic (list the big issues and how you want to look at them, maybe a note about why this is an important or timely topic)
- a short bibliography (three sources minimum; books, papers, Web pages or other sources)
Related Work
Sources for Ideas
A collection of interesting items that I have encountered over the last few years is available via Evernote; see AI Nuggets (Evernote), KM Nuggets (Evernote), and UCD Nuggets (Evernote). For AI topics, you can also visit the Web site of the AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence). They are the publisher of the AI Magazine, which had a special issue on "Usable AI" in Winter 2009.
Student Papers
Some papers of former students in this class are available through the Blackboard Wiki.
You can find examples of published student papers at the CPSR and ACM Crossroads Web pages. Of particular interest may be submissions by former Cal Poly students, such as Eric Rall's paper on Shrinkwrap licenses, and Rom Yatziv's paper on Spyware: Do You Know Who's Watching You?. Note: The papers are not available anymore, but there's still a listing of the Essay Contest Winners.
There is also a number of articles in the ACM Crossroads magazine, (which contains only submissions by students) that are relevant to this class, although most of them are a little dated by now:
- Applications of AI in Education
- XML: The Future Of The Web
- Design and Implementation of a Digital Library
Due Dates
The overall timeline for the presentation and paper is as follows:
Activity | Date |
Topic selection | Week 2 |
| Topic proposal | Week 3 |
| Reviewer feedback to topic proposal | Week 4 |
| Draft version paper | Week 5 |
| Reviewer feedback to draft version | Week 6 |
| Final version paper | Week 9 |
| Reviewer feedback to final version | Week 10 |
Since the presentation dates are different for individual students, due dates for presentation material will vary: A draft version of the presentation is due one week before the presentation, with feedback by the reviewers due two days before the presentation. If the speaker and the reviewers prefer to meet in person to go over the presentation instead of receiving feedback in writing, you can do this. If so, please post a brief note on the respective Blackboard thread with an overview of the issues that you discussed. The final version of the presentation material is due when you give your presentation.
Late submissions are subject to a penalty of 10% per business day.
Format
The paper should follow the requirements for submissions to the
- IJCAI 2009 formatting guidelines; includes links to LaTeX and Word templates that adhere to those guidelines
- ACM Crossroads student magazine; see their Writers' Guide for more details.
Structure
You paper should contain the information listed below. You may use a different structure if you believe that it is better suited for your topic. The one below is derived from the CSC 300 class, and based on a paper that makes a significant statement, and then analyses the issue at hand. Computer science papers also frequently use a structure with the following sections: introduction, background and related work, system design, system implementation, experiments, evaluation, conclusions, and references.
- Cover Page: Title, author, affiliation of the author, date, and abstract (5 - 10 sentences, less then 500 words is typical)
- Introduction Section: an overview of what issue you are writing about, and how this relates to the topic of the class.
- Background Section: This section provides background information on your topic. It often contains material that is necessary to understand the technical aspects, related work (especially if it lead to the work you're presenting), and some information on the context of your topic. Any factual statements or other evidence must be supported by citing your sources.
- Main Section:In this section, you're discussing the relevant concepts, methods, approaches, systems, etc. central to your topic. This is typically the longest section, and can be divided into subsections. The structure of this section also depends on the type of the paper. If a new approach, system, method, or algorithm is presented, it typically contains an overview, then technical details, and possibly some experiments to demonstrate the feasibility or performance. If the paper is centered on a (possibly controversial) issue, it may start with a statement of the issue, present arguments supporting various perspectives on the issue, and then analyze those arguments. The arguments can be based on your own assessment, or on other people's statements. For both types of papers, there should be an evaluation based on objective evidence, such as experiments, systematic evaluations, or facts presented earlier. This subsection is also the proper place to express your subjective opinion.
- Conclusions: This section is usually short, and contains the main aspects of your overall document. As a writer, it is your chance to refresh and confirm the reader's impression. You should not, however, just copy and paste statements from previous parts. While there is some overlap in content between the abstract, the introduction section, and the conclusions, it is better to rephrase important aspects, instead of repeating sentences.
- Bibliography and Citations: The purpose of references and bibliographies is twofold: On one hand, they establish a trail of evidence that the reader can follow to verify facts, or find out additional information. On the other hand, they also acknowledge work performed by other people. Whenever one or both of these aspects applies, you need to put a reference in your paper (Ex 1: "the Internet now makes up 4% of the Gross National Product of the USA" [cited source goes here and in your bibliography.] Ex 2: This document contains material based on Dr. Turner's CSC 300 class; since that material is not foramlly published, however, and this is not a formal publication either, I chose to give credit via an acknowledgement at the end of the document.)
There are many bibliographic styles in use. Two of the most popular ones are: 1) Numbered schemes, where you list the sources in the order in which they appear in the paper, and refer to them via a number in the text (e.g. [3]). This is the scheme suggested for the ACM Crossroads magazine; see http://www.acm.org/crossroads/doc/information/wg/citations.html. 2) Schemes that include the names of the author(s) and the year of publication. In this case, the sources are listed alphabetically at the end, and something like [Parberry, 1994] is used in the text.
When you use Web pages as a source, try to provide at least the following information in addition to the "naked" URL: Title, author, affiliation, date of publication (or date of viewing). A good reference for Web citations is maintained by Bedford/St. Martins at http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite7.html#1. And of course you should be especially careful with the reliability and trustworthiness of Web pages.
Copyright Issues and Plagiarism
It can be tempting to "write" the paper by copying and pasting parts (or the whole paper) from somebody else's document. Under no circumstances is this justified without acknowledging the original work. If you as the author feel that it is critical to include pieces from another publication, the proper way to do this is as a quotation. A quotation is either surrounded by quotation marks, or visually marked, often by indentation and the use of a different font or style. In both cases, a reference to the original work must be given. This applies not only to text, but also to other artifacts like diagrams, charts, drawings, photographs, etc. If your paper includes a reproduction of artwork, you may have to get copyright clearance from the copyright holder (often the publisher, sometimes the author of the original work).
The Role of Peer Reviewers
In addition to giving a presentation and writing a term paper, you are required to act as peer reviewer or commentator on two papers written by other students, and on their presentations. In this capacity, your task is to make sure that the material is presented in such a way that it is as easy as possible for readers to benefit from the paper. This includes, but is not restricted to the following:
- Verify the facts. Make sure that the sources cited in the paper exist, confirm the facts, and are reputable.
- Check the arguments, and the conclusions derived. Try to ensure that the reasoning employed in the paper is consistent and sound. Point out if there are gaps, inconsistencies, or other problems.
- Ensure balance and fairness. Especially for controversial issues, authors may get carried away by their own preferences and viewpoints. Look at the arguments presented for or against different perspectives, and point out omissions or biased presentations. This is of course less relevant for the sections where the authors present their own, subjective opinion. Opinions and personal preferences should be clearly identified, and there should be a clear separation between facts and issues on one hand, and the subjective opinions on the other.
- Do a consistency check between citations and the list of references in the bibliography. Every citation in the text must have a full listing in the bibliography, and each source listed in the bibliography should be referenced at least once in the text.
- Point out spelling and grammatical errors.
- Phrase your criticism in a professional and positive way. Your job is not to "trash" the paper, but to help the author improve it.
The reviews of the papers will probably be done through Blackboard. For the feedback, we will either use an online form, or a spreadsheet template that I use in other classes.
The identity of the reviewers is usually only known to the editor; otherwise, authors who are unhappy with the evaluation of their paper may be tempted to retribute against the reviewers. In order to keep the administrative overhead low, we will probably conduct open reviews, where the authors know the identity of the reviewer.
Term Paper Writing Tips
- Do a spell check!
- Check the grammar!
- Remember the Writing Lab in 10-138.
- Use a clean, clear format, with descriptive headings.
- Number the pages.
- Use the formatting support provided by word processors, such as styles.
- Do not use long quotes; cite the ones you use.
- Cite all "facts" you state by listing a reference to the sources of those facts (this is important!)
- Link citations to your bibliography in a reasonable way (author and name, or numbers are fine); journals also often specify explicitly how citations must be formatted.
- Do an explicit analysis of the ideas, concepts, methods, or tools under investigation in a rational manner, and restrict your subjective opinions to the appropriate parts of the paper.
Grading Guidelines
The score will be determined by the following criteria (which are very similar to the ones used for other assignments):
- knowledge of subject matter (does the author demonstrate a good grasp of the topic)
- evidence, (does the author present facts, examples, or other material that supports the arguments, and are the sources cited)
- complexity and difficulty of the topic investigated, (is the topic new, unexplored, difficult to comprehend; does the paper contain original ideas)
- thoroughness of the evaluation (are all relevant features of the tool examined)
- accuracy (is the material presented correct, consistent, and complete)
- organization and readability of the write-up, (is the paper well organized and easy to follow)
- presentation and appearance (is the appearance of the paper of professional quality, e.g. without spelling or grammatical errors)