Degree Project in Computer Science, First Level, dkand10, Spring 2010

Examensarbete inom datalogi, grundnivå

Note: This page is not maintained at the moment. Pls consult the Swedish page for up to date information.

Supervisor assignment here

Slides from info meet 18 Jan here

NOTE: The Swedish version is the authoritative one. This version may be out of synch.

Content

The degree project consists of two parts:

The programming project part of the software engineering (MVK) course, 9hp. The software engineering course aims to test your abilities in areas like problem solving, software construction, project planning, project execution and teamwork, documentation, and presentation.
A "Bachelor's essay", 6hp. The essay work can be done individually or in pairs. We recommend the latter. Information on this page concerns ONLY the essay work.

Goal

The purpose of the essay work is primarily to test the students analytic abilities, to identify, understand, analyse, process, and critically evaluate a scientic piece of work at a level at, or close to, the state of the art in Computer Science.

Organization

Term paper projects are organized in groups of 10-12 students. Each group is assigned a joint supervisor. The following groups are planned:

Mads Dam, Computer Science, theory, security, programming languages, systems, group 1, group 2
Lars Kjelldahl, Computer Science, human computer interaction, graphics, group 3, group 4
Johan Boye, Computer Science, speech technology, group 5, group 6
Cristian Bogdan, Computer Science, human computer interaction, group 7, group 8
Jesper Oppelstrup, Computer Science, numerical analysis, mathematical modeling, simulation, group 9
Mikael Goldmann, Computer Science, theory, security, group 10

We aim to organize supervisor groups along loosely identified thematic areas. However, all supervisors are qualified to supervise all subjects in the CS area.

Structure and Schedule

The essay work has the following components:

project work, incl. project specification, written report and oral presentation
Review of another students essay report
Course in report writing and presentation techniques

The essay work as a whole is passed only if all parts are passed.

The work starts with a kickoff on Monday Janu 18, 9-10 am in D1 where we go through the plans, how groups are formed, what are suitable project subjects, what a good project specification looks like, what is expected of the essay work, and how grading is done.

The division into supervision groups is done to make the supervision process manageable. We will do our best to accomodate wishes, but we cannot guarantee that you get to join any particular supervision group.

You must produce a project specification and get it accepted by your supervisor before starting the project work proper.

The group supervisor organizes the groups work, and advises individual students. It is expected that groups meet on some occasions during the essay work process to present project specifications, to give feedback on the work, and to check that the work progresses satisfactorily.

The essay work is ended with a final degree project conference in May.

Project Ideas

Here

Schedule

It is *extremely important* to get started with the essay right after the kickoff meeting. By experience the software engineering (MVK) project work consumes a lot of resources up towards the deadline in May.

	Time	Place	What
Kickoff	18 January 9-10	D1	Lecture
Group affiliation requests	22 January	---	Email to mfd at kth.se
Collection of projectspecs	29 January	---	Email to gruop supervisors
Report writing	5 Feb 13-15	E1	Lecture
Midway seminar	10 or 12 March	E35, E52, E53	Groupwise
Report final deadline	3 May		To group supervisor
Presentation techniques	4 May 10-12	E1	Lecture
Hand in of reviews	10 May	---	To group supervisors
Degree project conference	10 May	E1, E31, E51, E52	Conference day

Requirements

The following four course components must receive a passing grade for the overall Bachelor's essay to be passed

Project specification
Presence at report writing, presentation techniques, midway seminars
Written report.
Oral presentation. If the work is done in pairs, the presentation is split as well.
Written review and oral opposition on other student essay

Grading

Both the MVK-project and the essay work is graded using the ECTS A-F scale. For the entire degree project to be passed, both the MVK project and the essay work must be passed. If so, the final grade is calculated as the average of the grades for each part.

The final grade for the essay work is calculated as a weighted average of the four components for engineering and scientific content, report, written and oral review/opposition, and oral presentation. Each component must be passed. The KTH bylaws indicate evaluation criteria (in Swedish) for engineering and scientific content and written and oral presentation. These criteria can be used as basis for the written essay review.

Prerequisites and Registration

Minimum requirements to join the course are 120 hp completed of which 60hp in CS.

Registratin is obligatory. Use res here. Help with registration .

Maillista

Mailing list dd-143x with usual suffix [csc,nada] dot kth dot se reaches registered students and supervisors. Use the list to look for project partners, discussion, general questions, and whatever else of relevance to the course.

FAQ

Is it possible to do the essay project in a company?
Yes. You are free to organize the essay work as you wish, provided you meet the requirements and deadlines set out here. Note, however, that many industrial projects will not be suitable as essay projects for the reasons explained below.

Are students allowed to define own projects?
Yes, we encourage this, but you must get the project specification accepted by your group supervisor. If you have an idea which you like and you think it fits the requirements below to an adequate extent do not hesitate to get in touch with your group supervisor early to check if it is likely to be acceptable.

Is it possible to do the project abroad?
As long as you meet the requirements you are free to do the project where you want.

What is a good subject for an essay?
The essay project is 6hp, i.e. 4 full time weeks of study. To meet the goals set out above a pure programming project is normally not suitable. Implementing a non-trivial piece of software, in addition to acquiring state of the art background, reviewing literature, evaluating, testing, etc. is not generally feasible in the short amount of time available. The typical essay will be based on a research paper published at some recent international computer science conference, a paper describing some interesting open source project or application, a paper surveying a research area, or a chapter from some final year undergraduate textbook. The task will typically include the following elements:
- Read and process the paper.
- Identify and summarize the problem domain.
- Summarize the state of the art in the area including some literature search.
- Summarize and present the results/conclusion and method used.
- Apply the results/approach/method/algorithm to a case study of feasible size.
- Perform a critical evaluation of the paper with respect to scientific quality, methodology, appropriateness and contribution in relation to the state or art.
- Other points that might be included could be to create an example or little animation to illustrate the workings of some algorithm or to elaborate some scenario in terms of use cases.

Are there subjects available to choose from?
Yes, a list of suggestions will appear here in time for the kickoff meeting.

Can I use material from Wikipedia in my report? Can I use a nice passage of text from this other paper I found in the library?
No, plagiarism is under no circumstances allowed. You are meant to process the material yourself and present it in your own words. Cut and paste from whatever medium is not allowed. It *may* in exceptional cases be ok to include small quotations, but these have to be motivated by their exceptional clarity, clearly indicated, and be properly referenced.

Can I use this nice really figure I found in a paper?
The general answer is no. Again, you are meant to present the material in the way you think is appropriate, and this includes graphic presentation. In exceptional cases it may nonetheless be ok to include a third party illustration, but *only* if clearly attributed (referenced) and if copyright permits.

Contact

Coordinator for essay projects: Mads Dam