Georgia Tech
CSE-6242 A / CS-4803-DVA: Data and Visual Analytics
Spring 2013 - Duen Horng (Polo) Chau

PROJECT INFORMATION

Preliminaries

Graded parts of the project:

  1. Proposal (10%)
  2. Proposal presentation (10%)
  3. Progress report (15%)
  4. Final presentation (15%)
  5. Final report (50%).
The work will be carried out in teams of 2-4 persons. Smaller or larger groups will need instructor's permission.

Choosing a Topic

Once you have selected a topic, you should do some background reading so that you are capable of describing, in some detail, what you expect to accomplish. For example, if you decide that you want to implement some new proposal for a multidimensional file structure, you will have to carefully read the paper that proposes similar structures, pinpoint their weaknesses, and explain how your approach will address these weaknesses. Once you have read up on your topic, you will be ready to write your proposal.

Proposal

Your proposal should answer Heilmeier's questions (all 9 of them) whenever possible; for the questions that may not be very relevant (e.g., "How much will it cost?"), briefly explain why they aren't. In other words, your proposal should describe what you plan to do (the probelm to address), why you want to do it, how you will do it (what tools? e.g., SQLite, PostgreSQL, Hadoop, Kinect, iPad, etc.), how your approach is better than the state of the art, why it may succeed, and when it does, what differences will it make, how you will measure success, how long it's gonna take, etc.

You must describe what portion of the project each team member will be doing.

Your proposal should be fewer than 800 words (excluding references, titles, etc.), 12pt font, typed (e.g., latex/pdf/msword), and with pictures if useful. It should be self-contained. For example, don't just say: "We plan to implement Smith's Foo-Tree data structure [Smith86], and we will study its performance." Instead, you should briefly review the key ideas in the references, and describe clearly the alternatives that you will be examining.

Grading scheme & Submission instructions

Proposal Presentation

10 min per team. See T-Square for your team's presentation date and time.

Time limit strictly enforced! You'll be booted off the podium when 10min is up.

Don't use too many slides; less is more! Fewer slides mean it's less likely that you will overrun. Being succint is hard, so practice your timing and delivery!

Make sure you answer Heilmeier questions, briefly mention your survey, expected innovation, plan of activites, etc. Presentation will be graded similarly as the proposal writeup.

Progress Report

This should be fewer than 2000 words, 12pt font, typed.

It mainly serves as a checkpoint, to detect and prevent dead-ends and other problems early on.

It should consist of the same sections as your final report (introduction, survey, etc), with a few sections "under construction", describing the work performed up to then, and the revised plans for the whole project.

Specifically, the introduction and survey sections should be in their final form; the section on the proposed method should be almost finished; the sections on the experiments and conclusions will have whatever results you have obtained, as well as `place-holders' for the results you plan/hope to obtain.

Grading scheme & Submission instructions

  • 70% for proposed method (should be almost finished)
  • 25% for the design of upcoming experiments / evaluation
  • 5% for plan of activities (in an appendix, please show the old one and the revised one, along with the activities of each group member)
  • Clear list of innovations: give a list of the best 2-4  ideas that your approach exhibits.
  • Submit a hardcopy (with your graded project proposal attached)
  • Submit a softcopy via T-Square (progress report only)
  • Final Presentation

    10 min per team. Time limit strictly enforced! See T-Square for your team's presentation date and time.

    Don't use too many slides; less is more! Fewer slides = less likely to overrun. Being succint is hard, so practice your timing and delivery!

    Your presentation should cover:

    Grading scheme: 2% for each of the above points, plus 5% for presentation delivery (e.g., good slides? Did you practice?)

    Final Report

    It will be a detailed description of what you did, what results you obtained, and what you have learned and/or can conclude from your work.

    Components:

    1. Writeup: fewer than 4000 words, 12pt font, typed. Describe in depth the novelties of your approach and your discoveries/insights/experiments, etc.  
    2. Software: packaging, documentation, and portability. The goal is to provide enough material, so that other people can use it and continue your work.

    Grading scheme & Submission instructions

    Due Dates

    As announced in the course schedule

    Based on materials by Prof. Christos Faloutsos