CSE6242 / CX4242, Spring 2015
Data and Visual Analytics
Georgia Tech, College of Computing

Project

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Preliminaries

Graded parts of the project:

1. Proposal (10%)
2. Proposal presentation (10%)
3. Progress report (15%)
4. Final poster presentation (15%)
5. Final report (50%)

The work will be carried out in teams of 3-4 persons.

A team may consist of both on-campus and distance learning students (Q or Q3 section). All such teams will have 3-day lags for all their deliverables. For proposal presentation and final presentation, those teams can choose to do that in class or submit videos (see details below).

We will grad projects and undergrad projects separately; we generally expect grad projects to include more detailed analysis, comprehensive results, etc.

Polo recommends each group to consist of either all grads or all undergrads. The main reason is that grads and undergrads have different expectations and work schedules. If you want to form a group with both grads and undergrads:

1. We will grade that group as if all members are grad students
2. Every member MUST fully understand the potential challenges in coordinating work schedules (e.g., grads usually take class on TH, undergrads on MWF) and expectations (e.g., course grades are generally very important for undergrads)

See course homepage's schedule table for all deliverables' due dates.

Choosing a Topic

• Pick your own topic:
  • You need to justify that the topic is interesting, relevant to the course, of suitable difficulty.
  • Required components: (1) at least one large dataset, (2) some non-trivial analysis/algorithms/computation (e.g., clustering, classification) performed on the dataset, and (3) an interactive user interface that interact with the algorithms (can be visual, voice-controlled, on tablet, desktop, etc.).
• Harder way:
  
  • Joint projects with other courses might be negotiable. You must obtain the instructor's approval, and you need to clarify exactly what steps will be done for this course, as and for the other course.
  • Projects related to your dissertation/master-project are also possible, as long as there is no 'double-dipping', i.e., you clearly specify what the project will do, in addition to what you were planning to do for your thesis anyway.

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; if you think a question is not very relevant, briefly explain why. 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 1000 words, excluding titles, section names, reference list, etc., but including the literature survey. It should use 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

• 60% for the survey
• 30% for innovation
• 10% for plan of activities
• For every Heilmeier question that's not mentioned, deduct 5%.
• You may consider organizing your proposal based on the Heilmeier questions (e.g., each section addresses one question)
• Your survey should have at least 3 papers or book chapters per group member (outside of any required reading for the class).
  • Short papers, like PNAS, Nature, Science papers, count as 0.5.
  • Copying the abstract of the papers is obviously prohibited, constituting plagiarism.
  • For each paper, describe
    
  • (a) the main idea,
    
  • (b) why (or why not) it will be useful for your project, and
    
  • (c) its potential shortcomings, that you will try to improve upon.
• Clear problem definition: give a precise formal problem definition, in addition to a jargon-free version (for Heilmeier question #1).
• Provide a plan of activities and time estimates, per group member. List what each group member has done, and will do.
• Team's contact person submits a softcopy via T-Square (i.e., that person submits for the whole team)
• [-5% if not included] Distribution of team member effort. Can be as simple as "all team member contribute similar amount of effort". If effort distribution is too uneven, I may assign higher scores to members who contributed more.

Proposal Presentation

• 5 min per team. See this Google spreadsheet for your team's presentation date and time. Presentations take place during class time. First presentation starts at 4:35pm SHARP.
  • 4 min maximum for presentation
  • 1 min for Q&A + transition to next team
• If you overrun, we will boot you off the stage and deduct 5% of your presentation grade.
• Two teams can swap their presentation dates if both teams agree; no need to ask Polo for permission. Both teams MUST update the Google spreadsheet with the new dates.
• Attendance is mandatory. Lateness will be noted. If you cannot attend, let Polo and TA know through a private post on Piazza.
• If you team has a Q or Q3 students. You can choose to
  1. Present in class (using the assigned time slot)
  2. Submit a video presentation through T-Square which shows your slides with voice narration. If you choose this video option,
     1. You will have 3-day lag
     2. Please replace the date that Polo assigned to your group with the word "video"
• The podium only has VGA connection. Bring YOUR own video adapter. Test your laptop beforehand (in the classroom). Polo recommends you bring a backup laptop.

Grading

• [45%] You must answer the Heilmeier questions. 5% for each question. If a question doesn’t apply, say so.
• [15%] Brief survey. Can be combined with Heilmeier question(s).
• [10%] Expected innovation. Can be combined with Heilmeier question(s).
• [10%] Plan of activities
• [20%] Presentation delivery
• [-5%] Illegible text, tiny figures, bad color contrast, etc.
• [-5%] Overrun
• Your presentation does NOT need to strictly follow your project proposal document. For example, you can talk about ideas and materials that your team has come up recently.
• Your team can select one or more persons to present. Points will NOT be deducted either way.

Tips

• Use few slides. Less is more! Fewer slides mean less likely to overrun. Being succinct is hard.
• Practice timing and delivery! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!

Progress Report

This should be fewer than 1600 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.

Team's contact person submits a softcopy via T-Square (progress report only)

[-5% if not included] Distribution of team member effort. Can be as simple as "all team member contribute similar amount of effort". If effort distribution is too uneven, I may assign higher scores to members who contributed more.

Final Poster Presentation

Each project team presents a poster during Wednesday, April 22, 4:30 - 6pm. All team members must attend this poster session. Everyone is welcome to walk around to see other teams posters. When we (TAs and Polo) come to your team, at least one member should be there to present. The presenters should know the project very well and be prepared to answer our questions (so we recommend all team members to be there when your team presents).

Please design and print the poster *well before* your presentation day, to avoid last-minute rush.

The poster must be in portrait orientation; width between 20 and 30 inches, height between 30 to 40 inches. Foam core poster boards, push pins, and easels will be provided to you to mount the poster. We suggest 18pt font size and larger.

A deck of PowerPoint slides is not acceptable as a poster. However, you may print your design on multiple smaller sheets of paper and then carefully stitch them together. See the illustration below for what is allowed and what is not.

Each team will have 3 minute to present the poster, and 1 minute for Q&A.

Demo: optional but encouraged. If you decide to give a demo, please bring your own laptop. Assume there will little or no internet connection, and no ready access to power outlets.

Who will attend: We plan to open the session up to everybody (to the College of Computing at least).

Your poster should cover the following parts (point distribution shown on the left).

15%	Motivation/Introduction: remind us what you're doing, why it's important and why we should care
30%	Your approaches (algorithm and interactive visualization): what they are, their intuition, why do they work, etc.
5%	What's your data: where you got it, what's its characteristics (e.g., size on disk, # of records, temporal or not, etc.)
20%	Experiment and results: how did you evaluate your approaches? What are the results? How do you methods compare to other methods (if any)?
30%	Presentation delivery: (e.g., Good design? Is the text too small? Did you practice?)

If you team has Q or Q3 students. You can choose to

1. Present in class
2. Submit a video presentation through T-Square which shows your poster (e.g., as pdf on your computer screen via screen capture) with voice narration. Your team will have the standard 3-day lag.

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 2800 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

• Writeup
  • [2%] Introduction - Motivation
  • [3%] Problem definition
    
  • [5%] Survey
  • Proposed method
    • [10%] Intuition - why should it be better than the state of the art?
    • [35%] Description of your approaches: algorithms, user interfaces, etc.
  • Experiments/ Evaluation
    • [5%] Description of your testbed; list of questions your experiments are designed to answer
    • [25%] Details of the experiments; observations (as many as you can!)
  • [5%] Conclusions and discussion
  • [-5% if not included] Distribution of team member effort. Can be as simple as "all team member contribute similar amount of effort". If effort distribution is too uneven, I may assign higher scores to members who contributed more.
• Team's contact person submits one zip file, via T-Square, that contains the following (software + writeup softcopy) [10%]:
  • a concise, short README.txt file, corresponding to the "user's manual". This file should describe the package in a few paragraphs, how to install it, how to use it, and how to run a demo.
  • a folder called DOC (short for "documentation"), which contains your writeup (e.g., latex/pdf/msword), and any files related to your final (poster) presentation (e.g., PDF of your final poster)
  • make sure that your package includes only the absolutely necessary set of files!