ICS 621 Fall 2021 Assessment (Grading)The grade in the course will consist of the following components (see below for details):
DetailsClass participation (20%)
You are expected to attend lectures on Zoom. Throughout the lecture, I will be asking questions and you are expected to participate in the discussions. Homeworks (40%)
There will be 5-8 homeworks throughout the semester (more earlier in the semester, fewer once you start working on the research project). The purpose of the homeworks is to reinforce the material and sometimes to prepare you for the upcoming lecture. You may collaborate with anyone on the homeworks, however, the final write up must be performed individually, in your own words. That means copying solution from each other is NOT permitted. You must write the names of everyone you discussed the solution with in your homework write-up. The homework must be typed up - handwritten homeworks will receive no credit. Homework submission: Homeworks should be submitted in Laulima. They will be due at 1pm on Fridays (before the lecture). Since homework solutions will be discussed during the lecture, no late homeworks will be accepted. Research Project (40%)
Goal. Ideal outcome of the project at the end of the class is for you to obtain results that can be published at an (algorithms) conference. To receive full credit on the project, you do not have to achieve this goal (that's the nature of research), but that should be your goal. Your write-up should describe the ideas and approaches you took to solve the problem and where/why they failed. Topic. The topic of your research project should be related to algorithms. I will be available for brainstorming during office hours for possible topic of interest. You should be interested in the topic, but I must approve it, so check with me first. Format. Here is a list of possible formats of the project. This list is not exhaustive, so if you have an interesting idea that you don't see on the list below, please discuss it with me.
Write-up. The project must be written up in a research paper format. It should be somewhere between 6 to 15 single-spaced pages with 1 inch margins and 11pt font. It should start with a title, author and a 1-2 paragraph abstract. The body of the write-up should consist of the introduction, body and conclusions. Introduction should describe the problem you are addressing, present a brief literature review of related results on the topic, and a summary of your results. The body should describe your solution, teachnique/approach to solving it and results. If you haven't achieved significant results, you should still describe the techniques/approaches you have tried and why they didn't work. The conclusions should summarize what you have presented and mention possible directions for future research, e.g. open problems that remain unsolved and/or possible approaches that you might have tried if you had more time. You are welcome to collaborate on the project with anyone (even outside the class), including me, but you should give credit to people you have collaborated with. This is the nature of research. |