CS632: Course Description

You will be graded based on your performance in the following components of the course.

Homework for each class (20% of overall grade)

You have to carefully read the papers assigned for each class. In addition, you have to email a 3-4 paragraph description to the instructor () by midnight of the day preceding the class. You description should summarize the papers, identify potential weaknesses, and outline ways in which the work could be extended.

Class participation (5% of overall grade)

Since this is a seminar-style course, you are expected to participate in class discussions.

Class presentation (15% of overall grade)

You will be responsible for one of the class lectures, where you will have to present the research papers to be discussed in that class. Your presentation should be carefully prepared, and I strongly encourage you to start preparing the slides at least 2 weeks before the date of the presentation. You should show your slides to the instructor at least a week before your presentation (for feedback and possible modifications).

Final exam (10% of overall grade)

There will be a in-class final exam.

Course project (50% of overall grade)

You have to do a database research project in groups of two. Usually several of the course projects will lead to publishable results, and I encourage you to have a publication as a goal in the course. The project will have the following milestones:

1) Literature survey: A survey of the literature relevant to the project.

2) Project proposal: This document should include a description of your algorithms and ideas, the design of the piece of software you are proposing to build (if any), and a description of how you propose to evaluate your ideas (such as what experiments you plan to run).

3) Weekly progress meetings: The projects that you will be doing are research projects, with many difficult problems for which no one knows the answer (at least not yet; it is hoped that your final project report will shed some light on some of these problems!). The weekly progress meetings will be a chance for you to meet with the instructor to get some feedback and discuss research ideas relevant to the project.

4) Final project report and a short presentation to the class about your course project.

Click here for a list of suggested projects. You are also free to come up with your own project.