1. Course Project Brief Guideline

2. 2 Start With The Results  You will need to deliver: A report, documenting your results [For the purpose of this course a “result” is strictly concerned with specific computational biology techniques] A 15-20min presentation  How do you get there? Start today Scan the list of topics (to be updated) and choose an area of interest You can elect to develop a survey of the area Or pursue a study to develop new research results solving problems in the area Create a PROJECT PLAN (milestones & deliverables)!!! Budget your time!!!

3. 3 How To Create A Good Survey?  Focus on key results that define the core of the area E.g., progressive alignment for MSA  As well as new emerging ideas E.g., MUSCLE, ProbCons….  A good survey is not a cut-&-paste list of abstracts, it: Identifies the key challenges and problems that the field is trying to answer Contrast the different approaches and key results (ideally providing quantified comparisons) Provides a map of the open problems and emerging approaches to resolve them

4. 4 How To Develop Research Results  There are 4 kinds of results An algorithm Analysis of a mechanism A system design A theory  What makes a result valuable? It is novel and non-obvious It sheds new light on biology or computational biology It is of broad applicability (For an algorithm or a system design: it outperforms existing mechanisms)

5. 5 How To Write The Report Your report should be organized to focus on the following:  What is the research question (s) you considered If you pursued a survey, the research questions are of two kinds. First, the questions addressed by the papers you read. Second, the questions that you considered in trying to develop comparative metrics for the results of these works. If you pursued original research, describe the questions you considered  What are the key results that you obtained What is novel and significant about them  How do your results compare with previous work  Include references

6. 6 Notes  Do not hesitate to ask for help  Build a project plan and share it with me, so I can help  Budget your time!!!!!!