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Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT)

Dept. of Computer Science (DCS)

Masters of Computing Honours

COMP8800 Computing Research Project Course

Semester 1 / 2, 2007

Course co-ordinator: Peter Strazdins

Background and Structure

The Masters of Computing Honours aims to prepare computing graduates for research. The culminating component of this is the COMP8800 Computing Research Project course. The course enrolment in two 12-unit halves (COMP8800A and COMP8800B), which are normally taken over consecutive semesters. The work done over these halves will be on a single, substantial research project.

For part-time study, the Project would normally be taken over the last two semesters of the degree.

Format

Students will write a thesis which will deal with an advanced topic in computing. As part of their work, they will write a literature review and they will develop a "thesis" of some sort which can be justified on the basis of theoretical or experimental enquiry. This will be an individual project and will be assessed mostly on the thesis as well as on seminar presentations.

From the Honours Student Resources page, you can obtain a LaTeX template for a thesis, indicating its structure and citation style.

The thesis will be expected to be at least the standard of that of Computer Science Honours. For a good project in that category, the research content will have to be consistent enough to allow the release of a research paper.

Assessment

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	10.00%
Thesis	90.00%

Note that after the first semester, a `deferred' result will be entered for the COMP880A enrolment. After the second semester, the same mark and grade will be allocated to both COMP880A and COMP880B based on the final submission.

Project topics and supervision

It is preferable to have given thought to the research area and potential supervisor(s) well before the first semester starts, even at the time you applied for your degree. See the main projects page for the current listing of topics.

Possible timetable

It is up to you with your supervisor to devise a timetable for your two semesters of studies. The following is a guide.

The events marked (*) will be subject to hard deadlines.

Semester/Week	Events
S1/week 0	Choose a project / supervisor Begin Literature Review
S1/week 2	Negotiation of Study Contracts Begin familiarisation with required technologies
S1/week 4	Initial Presentation of Project Topic(*) Finalization and signing of Study Contracts (*)
S1/week 7	Report on Project Topic and Literature Review due (*) Commence preliminary research (e.g. design and implementation of project artefacts, initial experimentation)
S1/week 10	Thesis Outline to be presented to supervisors
S1/week 15	Continuation of research
S2/week 0	Thesis including outline and semester 1 work to be presented to supervisors.
S2/week 1	Review and possible re-scoping of the project Continuation of research.
S2/week 2	Mid-term Seminar (*)
S2/week 3	Presentation of Project Review and Plan for semester (*) Finalization and signing of Study Contract (*)
S2/week 7	Final phase of research and experimentation begins.
S2/week 10	Draft Thesis to supervisor.
S2/week 12	Final Seminar (*)
S2/week 14	Final Thesis due (*)