Lecture topics


Course Overview [ 1 lecture ]
  - learning outcomes for the course
  - grading
  - overview of computer science sub-areas
  - research methods intro:
      -what kind of results different communities care about? 
  + audience survey and in-class discussion
     + what are your key research areas of interest?
     + what do you know about: (take your best guess)
       + how papers get reviewed?
       + how research is funded?
       + how will you choose a research problem for your thesis?
       + how faculty spend their time?
  + assignment of initial readings

Research Methods for Area XYZ (see areas listed below)
  - what are the common theoretical frameworks and the common assumptions?
  - how is research evaluated in this area?
  - what should CS graduate students know about the research
    methodology in this area?
  - what are open problems in this area?
  + assign an example paper or two to read in preparation for the discussion,
      along with perhaps a few written questions to hand-in to motivate the reading
  + knowledge will be tested with 2 paper reviews, and student-done critiques of paper reviews
    + there will be a predefined set of papers to choose from, 
      probably two from each (broad) area
    + the reviews will use a standard review form from a conference appropriate
      for the area of the paper

Research Methods: Emperical Methods of Algorithm Analysis  "RM Algo" [ 1 or 2 lectures ]
  - analytic vs emperical; deterministic and stochastic algorithms
  + assignment

Working with human subjects  "RM HCI" [ 2 lectures ]
  - research methods in HCI  
  - qualtitative studies
  - quantitative studies
    - intro / recap of basic statistical techniques
  - interview techniques
  - ethics of working with human subjects
  + in-class discussions
    + reading of "Ethics, Lies, and Videotape"
    + case study of evaluating adaptive interfaces
  + assignment
    + reading of an example ethics proposal for holes
    + stats questions

Research Methods: Systems "RM sys" [ 1 lecture ]

Research Methods: Graphics and Visualization "RM gfx"  [1 lecture ]

Research Methods: SW eng + prog lang "RM SPL"  [ 1 lecture ]

Research Methods: DB "RM DB"    [ 1 lecture ]

Research Methods: AI "RM AI"    [ 1 lecture ]

Paper Writing  [ 1 lecture ]
  - structure of a conference and journal paper
  - general advice about writing technical papers in english
  + read: "How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper"
  + in-class discussion of technical writing examples
  + hand-in technical writing exercise:
      produce a 500 word summary of a research paper

Reviewing [ 1 lecture ]
  - the peer review process
    - blind, double-blind reviewing, conflicts-of-interest
    - program committee structure and operation
    - the task of the referee  
       http://www.computer.org/tpami/freecontent/taskoftheferee.pdf
  - peer review for tenure
  - peer review for grants
  - ethics of reviewing: borrowing ideas, discussing papers, etc.
  + written reviews of 2 papers as if a peer-reviewer
  + written critiques of 2 other student's paper reviews

Publishing [ 0.6 lecture]
  - historical perspective (dating back to Euler, Newton, etc.)
  - purpose, structure, "weight" of:
    - conferences, symposia, workshops
    - journals, e-journals
    - posters
    - technical reports
    - other:  MSc, PhD theses, survery articles, patents
  - issues:   dual submission, pub of interdisciplinary work
  - evolution of these: "flagship" conferences, e-journals, etc.
  + assignment:  determine the key publication venues in one 
      of your areas of interest;  what are the submission categories,
      what are the review processes;   when are the submission deadlines

Starting on Research  [ 2 lectures ]
  - what constitutes a MSc thesis and a PhD thesis
    - expectations of publication
  - role of the thesis supervisor
  - maintaining a notebook
  - finding a good problem, top-down approach
    - new problem needing tools
    - tools looking for a problem
    - looking at future trends
    - impact
    - scalable:  simplify using assumptions?
    - you know of a starting point
  - finding a good problem: bottom-up approach
    - get started on something, things will come up
  - creative thinking techniques
    see  http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/howcreativethinkingworks.html
  + preparation exercise:  think about a particular example
  + in-class discussion of particular examples (priority queues)

Literature Search [ 0.33 lecture ]
  - online tools
     - google, CiteSeer, ACM Digital Library, IEEE
     - The on-line Computer Science bibliography http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/index.html
  - survey papers, people(!)
  - finding material not on the web
  - searching patents
  + find some/all of the references for a given paper,
      including those that are not on the web

Managing Research  [  0.5 lecture ]
  - general thesis highs and lows
  - "How to do research at the MIT AI lab"
      http://www.cs.indiana.edu/mit.research.how.to/mit.research.how.to.html
  - time Management 
      -scheduling, organization, and procrastination
      -setting and achieving goals

Grants and Research proposals  [ 1 lecture ]
  - the granting system
  - criteria for common types of research proposal
  - surveying existing work in a given area
  + write a research proposal modeled after NSERC research grant proposal,
      perhaps with some additional weight on a survey of related work
  + critiquing the proposals of two other students

Intellectual property [ 1 lecture]

Giving Technical Presentations [ 1 lecture ]
  - talk structure, basic presentations skills
  - use of PowerPoint and SLITHY

Careers in CS research [ 1.66 lectures ]
  - academia:   research, teaching, administration, grant writing, networking [  0.66 lecture ]
  - industry:   guest lecture on research in industry [ 1 lecture ]

Student Technical Presentations [ 4 lectures ]
  + 20 minute presentation of research proposal
  + 3 presentations per class in 2 parallel sessions (book another room)
  + written critique of other presentations