Good Papers and Good Research Jennifer Widom Stanford University Shamelessly drawn from Research Principles Revealed “Research Principles Revealed” Codd Award talk at SIGMOD 2007 Shamelessly drawn from Research Principles Revealed “Research Principles Revealed” Codd Award talk at SIGMOD 2007

Jennifer Widom 2 My Recipe for Database Research Project Pick a simple but fundamental assumption underlying traditional database systems Must reconsider all aspects of data management and query processing Drop it Many Ph.D. theses Prototype from scratch

Jennifer Widom 3 My Recipe for Database Research Project Pick a simple but fundamental assumption underlying traditional database systems Drop it Example “simple but fundamental assumptions”  Schema declared in advance Drop:  Persistent, relatively stable data sets Drop:  Data elements contain known values Drop:  Application provides the data Drop: Semistructured data Data streams Uncertain data Crowdsourced data

Jennifer Widom 4 My Recipe for Database Research Project Must reconsider all aspects of data management and query processing Reconsidering “all aspects”  Data model  Query language  Storage and indexing structures  Query processing and optimization  Concurrency control, recovery  Application and user interfaces Foundations Implementation

Jennifer Widom 5 My Approach To develop a new type of database system:  Consider all of them  In this order  Solid foundations first, then implementation Data Model Query Language System

Jennifer Widom 6 In Reality As research evolves, always revisit all three  Solid foundations first, then implementation Data Model Query Language System Applications

Jennifer Widom Disclaimers This “foundations-driven” approach doesn’t work for everyone “My recipe for a database research project” 7 Some prefer a system-driven approach traditional and large-scale

Jennifer Widom 8 Disseminating Research Results  Don’t wait  No place for secrecy (or laziness) in research  Every place for being first with new idea or result Post on web, inflict on friends SIGMOD/VLDB conferences are not the only place for important work Send to workshops, SIGMOD Record, …

Jennifer Widom 9 Disseminating Research Results Make software available and easy to use  Clean, documented APIs  Run-able over web Make experiments reproducible and extendible  Provide code and data

Jennifer Widom The Publication Process  Brutal  Unfair  Random  Fill in your own negative adjective 10 But we have to live with it (for now) But we have to live with it (for now)

Jennifer Widom The Publication Process My rule of thumb: One rejection Two rejections Three rejections Plenty of crazy stories: Strong Reject  Best Paper Award (paper unchanged) Desperation Venue  Top-100 CS Papers Poor-Writing / Acceptance Correlation 11 Meaningless Still meaningless Maybe meaningful But do heed referee suggestions But do heed referee suggestions

Jennifer Widom What’s a Researcher to Do? 1. Develop a thick skin 2. Consider alternative venues 3. Recognize that impact comes in many forms  Unpublished papers  Public software  Formal and informal presentations  Casual conversations 12

Good Papers and Good Research Jennifer Widom Stanford University Shamelessly drawn from Research Principles Revealed “Research Principles Revealed” Codd Award talk at SIGMOD 2007 Shamelessly drawn from Research Principles Revealed “Research Principles Revealed” Codd Award talk at SIGMOD 2007