Master's Project/Thesis Seminar (4005-893-01)

Spring 2012
Classes: Mondays 4-6:50pm
Room: GOL-3520 (Golisano College)
Instructor: Richard Zanibbi, Email: rlaz@cs.rit.edu, Phone: (585) 475-5023
Office: GOL-3551 (Golisano College), Office hours: Tues. and Thurs. 10am-noon or by appointment

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Pre-Proposals and Project/Thesis Web Pages

Student Project/Thesis Web Pages (Spring 2012)

Pre-Proposals

[ A LaTeX pre-proposal template is available here. Note that the headings are to identify key aspects of the proposal, and are not required for the final pre-proposal submission. ]

By their nature, research projects involve uncertainty. A pre-proposal is a tool for working identifying and thinking about the key elements for your project or thesis, to try and reduce uncertainty and help you finish in a timely fashion. You will refine a number of versions of your pre-proposal over the quarter.

A pre-proposal briefly identifies the following in no more than 2 pages:

  1. A research problem or task, including a hypothesis (testable assertion) for theses. This needs to include key references (3-5) on current work related to the project/thesis, which establish the context and foundation for the proposed project.
  2. The intended approach (i.e. methodology) to be used in devising a solution. For a project, this may detail the libraries and/or tools to be used, and the high-level architecture of the system. For theses, this also commonly involves algorithm(s) to be modified or developed.
  3. The means by which the outcome of the research project will be evaluated. For projects, what are the inputs and outputs for the system, and how will quality be measured (e.g. correctness, integration, time, space)? For theses, the evaluation will be an experiment (empirical) or proofs (theoretical) comparing existing and devised solutions, with the ultimate goal of testing the hypothesis.
  4. An analysis of the potential outcomes: under what evaluation outcomes are the project aims achieved, or the hypothesis confirmed or rejected? Under what conditions might other things be observed and/or learnt?

Project/Thesis Web Pages

You will set up a web page for your project/thesis. To start, you can provide appropriate headings, and summarize the problems/area that you intend to pursue research in. Examples are provided below. Note: this web page should be located within your CS computer account web page, in ~/public_html on the CS computing system).

Project/Thesis web pages should include a link to the pre-proposal, proposal, and final report/thesis. A summary of the project or abstract should also be provided.

Project/Thesis Web Pages for Winter 2011-2012 (Section 2)

Other Pre-proposal and Web Page Examples