CS 7240: Research Project (Spring'24)
During the latter part of this class, students will work on a research project. I recommend you to do your project alone, but you can work in a team of two in case there is a strong argument for a joint project (please reach out to me first). The project is an essential part of this class and counts towards 50% of your grade.
The project focus should be inspired by the topics discussed in class, yet is flexible and allows students to explore scalable data management and analysis aspects related to their PhD research. You may also want to look through our recent or upcoming DATA lab seminars to find ideas for research topics.
Your project can be of theoretical or practical nature. For example, your project may involve implementing a theoretical algorithm and comparing it against a baseline. You can either come up with your own project, or you can meet with me to discuss about project ideas. You don’t need to solve the problem to do well on the project; outlining a list of attempts, partial progress, or a substantial literature survey can also result in a strong project score. A key guiding principle is that your choices or options should be well justified and show a clear structure.
Project deliverables
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P1 (Fri 2/16): Project ideas:
Please submit a few tentative ideas you are considering for the project on Canvas.
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P2 (Fri 3/1): Project proposal:
Prepare a 1-2-page proposal that includes (i) the title of the project, (ii) a short description of the problem you propose to solve, (iii) a brief outline of how you will approach the problem, and how you will evaluate your results. Do not forget to include a list of references!
Use the 1-column ACM latex template on Overleaf for your report. It includes a number of useful packages. Use the latex commands at the end of these instructions to hide unnecessary information from the ACM template.
Submit your proposal as PDF on Canvas.
I will make a pass over your write-up and add comments and clarifying questions.
Optionally, you can share your document on overleaf with my Northeastern email address and I will make my comments directly into your reports.
In that case, please rename your document on Overleaf to "cs7240-sp24-[YOUR NAME]-proposal-[PROJECT TITLE]".
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P3 (Tue 3/26): Intermediate report:
Build upon your proposal and the TEX template and prepare a 2-5 page document that extends your project proposal. The milestones should include (i) a more detailed description of the problem, (ii) related work, (iii) your progress and the unexpected issues you have encountered so far, and (iv) a brief plan for how you plan to continue your project.
In our updated write-up, please refer in an easy-to-distinguish way (e.g. extra paragraphs highlighted in color or bold) to my earlier comments on your initial project proposal and how you choose to address or why you prefer to ignore them.
This report is not graded, yet the more information you give me, the better I can help you at a time you can still make amendments.
Again, submit your intermediate report on Canvas.
If you share your updated latex document with me on Overleaf, rename it first to
"cs7240-sp24-[YOUR NAME]-intermediatereport-[PROJECT TITLE]".
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P4 (Tue 4/23): Project presentation (20%):
The project presentation counts towards 20% of your grade. Design your presentation for approximately 10-15 min, yet add backup slides to be able to answer technical questions. The presentation is interactive, thus be prepared to answer questions during the talk, which may extend the time needed. I suggest to use PowerPoint but you can use whatever works for you. In case you use PowerPoint, you can optionally share your PPTX presentation slides in Office 365 online with my Northeastern email until 2 days before your presentation and I will have a quick pass and add suggestions to your slides. Please use the same naming conventions for your slides as for the report: "cs7240-sp24-[YOUR NAME]-[PROJECT TITLE].pptx".
Please come with your own laptop to present and make sure to test the setup *before* the day you present.
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P5 (Fri 4/26): Final report (30%):
The final report counts towards 30% of your grade. It should be written like a typical paper that we have read in class. There is no formal length requirement, but a good target would be 8-12 pages in the single column ACM format. Please make sure to address any feedback shared during the presentation and earlier reports as much as possible.
Again, please refer in an easy-to-distinguish way to my earlier comments on your project proposals and presentation and summarize how you choose to address those or why you chose to go a different route (which may well be completely legit).
And include illustrating examples and visualizations as much as possible.
Again, submit your final report on Canvas.
Optionally you can also share with me on Overleaf. In that case, name your report "cs7240-sp24-[YOUR NAME]-finalreport-[PROJECT TITLE]".
Some latex references
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If you are not familiar with LaTeX, see this old yet intuitive
LaTeX primer from 2003 or
Wikibooks.
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Most students today prefer to use Overleaf for their papers.
For those like me to who prefer to work offline, you can easily synch an overleaf project with your computer via Git.
Then MacTex helps you set up Latex on a Mac,
Miktex helps you set it up on Windows.
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I recommend using PowerPoint for your presentations.
Office 365 is available free for you at Northeastern University and allows near real-time collaboration. It allows also me to add annotations on a draft of your presentation.
To include formulas in your slides, you can use the native Powerpoint formula editor.
Alternatively LaTeXiT:
a handy equation editor on Mac that you can use to drag or "copy and paste" the equations into your slides.
Required modifications to ACM template
Please use the following latex commands on the top of your Latex file. It hides unnecessary information from the ACM template, adds line numbers I can refer to in my review (and allows me to add colored comments into your document as I read your intermediate or final report in case you shared the source with me).
Please make sure to include an abstract.
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\documentclass[acmsmall, review=true, screen=true]{acmart}
% screen=true adds colored hyperlinks
\settopmatter{printccs=false, printacmref=false, printfolios=true}
% remove citation below abstract, "printfolios" adds page numbers
\renewcommand\footnotetextcopyrightpermission[1]{}
% removes footnote with conference information
% \acmArticle{111} % don't show black box
\fancyfoot{} % place right after "\begin{document}" to replace the footer
\thispagestyle{empty} % place right after "\maketitle"
\newcommand{\wolf}[1]{{{\color{red}{[\textbf{wg} #1]}}}} % macro that allows me to add comments
% \renewcommand{\wolf}[1]{\hspace{-1pt}} % uncomment this line to hide the red comments