This page contains information for students attending the course. Changes are still possible.

The seminar programme is available on a separate page.

We use mainly Moodle for submitting assignments, course announcements etc.

Selecting topics

The students will bid for a project work topics from a list provided by the course staff via a Google Docs form (the link has been emailed to students and can be found from Moodle announcements). The student may also propose a topics of his or her own.

The deadlines are as follows:

  • The bidding should be completed at latest on Thursday 24 January. If the student has not provided any bid by the deadline we may assign him or her a random topic.

Pitch talk

The students will give a pitch talk on 7 February. The pitch talk should contain 1 pdf slide and its duration should be at most 2 minutes plus 5 minutes for discussion. The pitch talks should give an overview of the planned report and the slide should contain 1-3 key references around which the report will be built. The purpose is to check that everyone is happy with the topic and provide opportunity to ask for comments or advice for the report.

The deadlines are as follows:

  • The student must submit the pdf slide to Moodle on Tuesday 5 February, at latest.

Project report and presentation

The project work summarises and reviews the topic of given in the project work. The project work should be written using proper scientific structure and style, with appropriate citations. Typical length of the project work would be around 2-3 pages. The length of the project work should not exceed four pages; however, the page limit is not strictly enforced. The idea of the project work is to describe the idea behind the paper(s), not the papers themselves, in such a way that reading your project work would give an useful summary of the topic to your fellow students. You do not have to cover every detail! In fact, it probably makes sense to omit most of the details. Please instead focus on the most important parts that you understand.

The report must be written using the new two-column ACM conference proceedings template. Notice that you may want to modify the template, e.g., to suppress ACM copyright statements, DOI numbers etc. I have made an Overleaf LaTeX template in which I have done just that - your final report should be formatted like it! Please use this as a starting point for your report. You can find more information from Overleaf or from ACM.

The report should be submitted as a pdf file.

The duration of the presentation should be 20-30 minutes plus discussion. Please setup your presentation in the lecture room in good time before 10:15. You can use the computer at the class room (preferred, usually works) or bring your own laptop (higher risk of something not working). You can deliver your slides to the class computer, e.g., by putting your slides to a location where they can be downloaded (e.g., public Dropbox folder) or by bringing with you a memory stick. The room has a blackboard which you can use. Optionally, you can post your slides to the Moodle forum. (Please tell in your Moodle post if you want your slides to be published at the public course web site! I won’t publish the slides by default.)

The deadlines are as follows:

  • Monday before the presentation: the student submits draft report to the opponents and the course staff (all submissions will be done via Moodle).
  • On Thursday 2 weeks after the presentation: the student submits to the course staff the final report.

The final report should contain as an attachment a separate pdf file a letter that includes the following information:

  • summary of changes to the draft version,
  • summary of comments received, and
  • how the comments were (or were not) taken into account.

The final report will be graded and published at the public course web site.

Task of an opponent

The opponent should read the draft report, listen to the talk, and give oral comments about the report and the talk during the session. The opponent should prepare written comment of the report (what is good, what could be improved, any other comments or suggestions) that the presenter can use when preparing the final version of the report.

The deadlines are as follows:

  • The student must submit the comments via Moodle to the student preparing the report and the course staff on Sunday after the presentation, at latest.

Task of seminar participant

A seminar participant who is not presenting or an opponent should read the key references, given in the pitch slides, before the talk and participate actively to discussion after the talk.

Requirements

To pass the course the student must satisfy all of the following requirements:

  • Participate to all of the sessions. Two absences are allowed, but they will affect grading (see below).
  • Submit all deliverables (pitch slide, project report draft, final report with a reply letter, 2 opponent reports) by the given deadlines. The deliverables should all satisfy minimal requirements (i.e., graded at least 1 out of 5). Late submission will affect grading (see below).
  • Give a pitch talk on 7 February.
  • Prepare and present the project report.
  • Act as an opponent for two other students.
  • Reach at least the given threshold value of course points; see item “Grading” below.

If all of the above requirements are satisfied the student will receive grade as detailed below.

Discussing the tasks with other students is encouraged. However, the final deliverables must be completed individually by each of the students.

Grading

The course_points are a sum of the following elements:

  • Report and presentation: 1-5 points
  • Bonus points for opponent duties (for two reports opposed): 0-2 points
  • Bonus points for other activity during the sessions: 0-1 points

Student will obtain penalty_points which will be decreased from the course_points as follows:

  • Each late day from any deadline: 0.25 points per day (Deadlines are always considered to be at 23:59 Helsinki time, defined using the Moodle time stamp on submission. Partial day is counted as a full day.)
  • Missed sessions (max. 2): 0.25 points for one session missed and 1.5 point for two sessions missed (A session is counted as missed if the student is not present for the whole session.)

The course grade is then given by the following formula: course_grade = min(5,max(0,floor(course_points-penalty_points))).

To pass the course the student must obtain course_grade>0 as well as satisfy the requirements detailed earlier in this document.

Sick days

If you have a valid reason to miss a deadline, you can ask for an extension to the deadline to not to accrue penalty points. A “valid reason” is here such a reason that would entitle you to be absent from work (e.g., illness) and that is verifiable (e.g., doctor’s certificate). The extension will not be granted for reasons such as travel, work, or other studies. The extension must be asked before the deadline.

The two allowed missed sessions are primarily meant for sick days. We will not however ask you why you are absent. Therefore, even though you can (if you so choose) be absent for other purposes please avoid it. If you miss a session please inform the course staff in advance. This is especially important if you have some role in the session, such as presentation or acting as an opponent, as it may affect the plans of others. If you miss your presentation we’ll try to move it to a later day (we have couple of slots reserved for this purpose). If you miss your opponent duties we’ll agree separately how to cover it.