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Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT)

Dept. of Computer Science (DCS)

Masters IT (eScience)

COMP6720 eScience Project IV - Research - 6 units

Semester 1/2 2007

Course co-ordinator: none currently allocated for semester 2

This is a prerequisite for COMP6702

Context

COMP6720 is an 6 unit project course which runs in semester 1 and semester 2 of each year.
It prerequisites are 24 units of courses from the MInfTech program with a Distinction or better, average mark or by special permission of the eScience Program Convenor. This means that the project course would normally be taken during the second last semester that a student is enrolled in the Masters program.

(Enrolling in the course will require an Enrolment Variation form to be signed by the eScience Convenor. The DCS Departmental Administrator will then be able to issue a Permission Code for online enrolment)

This course will comprise an individual research-oriented literature review project. Assessment will be based on a written report.

Background and Structure

The minimum entry requirements for the Masters are to have some second year computing (2 courses at minimum). After one full year of Masters study, a student would be expected to be at least as skilled as a good 3rd year BIT student. (A "good" student, because Masters students are meant to have had a Distinction average score in their last year of a degree.) So the Masters eScience project combination COMP6720/COMP6702 can be thought of as being equivalent in standard to either a Honours CS project or a 4th year software engineering project.

Format

Students will write a report which will deal with an advanced topic in computing. Beginning with a project topic, they will undertake a review of existing literature both generally and specifically relevant to the topic. The importance of the topic in this context, and a analysis of gaps in the literature relevant to the topic, should be made. From there, they will develop a detailed plan and description of the project topic, encompassing a theoretical and/or an experimental enquiry.

Marking scheme

The project's scope and assessment conditions will be specified in an 'Independent Study Contract' negotiated and signed by the student, their supervisor and the project co-ordinator at the early stages of the semester. Unless otherwise specified in the Contract, the following scheme will be used.

Deliverable	Weighting
Seminars and Meeting participation	10.00%
Thesis	90.00%

Project topics

Topics will be drawn from interdisciplinary areas which might be called "eScience". Most of these topics will be closer to "research" in nature.

If you are enrolled in this course, you should contact the course coordinator, to discuss your topic and to be allocated a supervisor. A preliminary topic will possibly have been assigned to you before the commencement of semester, but it is possible to modify its specifications, or to choose a different topic completely, providing you negotiate this early enough. Look at the project topics listed on the eScience pages to get some ideas.

Supervision

You will meet regularly with your supervisor - about 30 minutes to one hour every week. These meetings are important early in the semester to make sure that you understand the project requirements; that you have access to the material that you need to study to learn the technology required to complete the project; and that you have developed a good project plan. As the semester gets underway, the regular meetings are important to make sure that you are on track and to get some help on technical topics (or some references so that you can solve the problem yourself). Later on in the semester, you should give your supervisor drafts of some of your report so that you can get feedback which will help you improve the final document.

Possible timetable

Note that the Projects Meetings timetable should be consulted separately to the following.

Week	Dates	Notes	eventually done
1	19 - 25 Feb	Choose a supervisor/project and get started!
2	26 Feb - 4 Mar	Project Definition and Planning Phase Negotiation of Study Contracts
3	5 - 11 Mar	Presentation of Project Topic and Literature Review Plan*. Report of Project Topic and Literature Review Plan due at the end of this week (*). Finalization and signing of Study Contracts (*).
4	12 - 18 Mar	Literature Review Phase begins
5	19 - 25 Mar
6	26 Mar - 1 Apr
7	2 - 8 Apr
7a	9 - 15 Apr	First draft of report to the supervisor, due at the end of the week*. It is always possible to do it before!
7b	16 - 22 Apr
8	23 - 29 Apr	Comments by supervisors.
9	30 Apr - 6 May	Draft / comments / draft / comments ...
10	7 - 13 May
11	14 - 22 May	Next to last Draft of report to the supervisor.
12	23 - 29 May	Comments by supervisors. Draft of Research Plan for COMP6702 phase.
13	30 May - 3 Jun	Finalize report.
14	4 - 10 Jun
15	11 - 17 Jun	Final Reports due at 4:00 pm on Tues, 12th of June (*). Public Seminar(*)

(*) : Those are the official deadlines. The rest of this calendar is only recommendation. You are supposed to establish your own calendar and stick to it as much as possible (either by following it or by cautiously updating it). In you report, you will include your planed and effective timetable.