CSM00 Planning and Executing an MSc Project Andrew Hippisley Helen Treharne

Overview How to organise yourself? –Make time for your work –What resources are available to you Assessment of Projects –Deliverables and submission Department Research Interests Are there different kinds of projects? –Development Projects Industrial Projects –Research Projects Plagiarism Questions

Aims of CSM00 Competently address one current problem in the broad area of Internet Computing or Information Systems Describe and critically evaluate existing literature relevant to their topic thus demonstrating expertise in their field Apply the concepts, techniques and methods they learned from the taught element of the course in order to design a solution (typically a software system) for their chosen problem Critically evaluate software tools and environments and choose the right combination in order to implement (fully or partially) their design Assess their system by using appropriate metrics such as performance, user acceptance and feedback, security, etc Develop skills in information gathering Demonstrate the ability to time manage tasks Demonstrate the ability to present the project work both orally and written

Choosing a Project Two ways: 1.Come up with your own by 4 th December, Enter the ballot of suggested topics (reflect department research interests)ballot Last week of Autumn semester 2006 – discuss with your supervisor and produce a dissertation supervision formdissertation supervision form –Opportunity to start preparatory phase

How much time is it going to take? Two main phases: –Preparatory Phase 3-4 hours per week, January – 24 April, 2007 Make a block of time in the timetable to work on your project –Full-time phase – 40 hours per week is reasonable End of examinations – 24 August, 2007

Assessment Written –Preparatory Phase Report – 24 April, 2006 (10%) –Final Dissertation Report - 6 August, 2007 (70%) Oral –Preparatory Phase Presentation March, 2007 (5%)Preparatory Phase Presentation –Final Presentation Viva August, 2007 (15%)

Resources Available On-line searching for books/papers/research skills – (accessed 11/11/05) – (accessed 11/11/05) Internet – but can’t guarantee quality Make use of your supervisor –Regular meetings –Keep them informed of progress – be honest Don’t forget to that holidays/sickness needs to be scheduled into your plan

Department of Computing Research Formal Methods and Security Software Systems Biologically Inspired Modelling and Applications Links between groups, and with others in SEPS Interdisciplinary links (biological and medical sciences; chemistry; psychology)

Formal Methods and Security Formal Methods –Theory –Integrated methods applicable to UML –Development for hardware/software codesign –Biological modelling (theory underpinning nanotech assemblers) –Security modelling and analysis Multimedia Security –Digital watermarking technologies –Authentication –Steganography/steganalysis

Software Systems Formal analysis of informal specs Architectural issues for distributed systems/networks –Agent-based –Peer to peer Test automation Reliability estimation Intelligent decision making Context awareness

Biologically Inspired Modelling and Applications Multimodal information processing and classification Image processing and classification (medical; botanical) Brain modelling/simulation Bioinformatics Natural language processing Robotics

Multimedia Information Extraction and Classification Image Processing Analysis, and Classification Intelligent Decision Making Watermarking and Multimedia Security Security Networking Software Systems Formal Methods Biological Modelling And Bioinformatics Natural Language Processing How does all our research fit together?

Development Projects Identify broad area Identify the problem & client (stake holder) Select method of solution Specify the solution Design the solution Build the solution Test the solution Present the findings

Example Design and build a Java Peer-Peer file sharing system between a small number of users –Investigate existing peer-peer systems and evaluate what functions they provide, identify a set of features would like to include and ones which are not included but would like to implement –Use advanced features of Java Programming including object serialisation and network programming which will need to be learnt independently Why student chose this – interested in music sharing systems, e.g. Napster

Undertaking a Development Project You might still need to acquire new skills Database example –Architecture – what platform, software going to use –Web front end – CSS, XML, accessibility –Secure login – use of hash functions –It still has to do something!

Research Projects A process model: Identify broad area Select Research Topic Decide the approach Formulate research plan Collect data or information Analyse and interpret data Present the findings

Writing Up Write up as you go along Target audience – one of your peers should be able to understand it Aim for 15,000-20,000 words excluding appendices Need to start early to get used to writing

Literature Search Investigation Specification Development Evaluation/Testing Critique of work Future work Depth of Evaluation and Critique is essential in an MSc report Contents of Dissertation

Reports can vary in format If your project consists of four quite distinct activities –Choose 4 main chapters, one for each activity –Sections in each chapter address Design, Implementation and Evaluation. –Consider design of each activity separately but to consider the implementation and evaluation of them together. Overall aim is to make it easy for the reader to understand the points you are trying to make

Plagiarism You will have used many sources of information, vital any quote properly acknowledged where used in the text and in bibliography If your program includes any pieces of code which you did not write yourself, then you must identify them and say where they came from. For example, if you copy an implementation of a particular algorithm from a book, you must make it clear that you did not write those lines of code Under no circumstances should copyright material be included in a project report without the proper permissions having been obtained, and any such inclusion should be agreed with your supervisor

General guidance csm00 Even though title is final year – contents does cover research methods and skills

PDP Session 3pm Friday 15 th September, 2006 (tomorrow) –Matthew Casey Starting to think about skills needed Examples from past MSc students in PDP booklet