CISE Senior Project - Supervision

There are two key supervisory people for this course - your project advisor and the CIS 4914 course coordinator, whose roles are described as follows:

The project advisor is usually a faculty member, although in some cases, the person can be a professional from outside the faculty. The advisor should be thought of as your "client", similar to a situation where you are working in industry and are developing software for a commercial client of your company. You are responsible for finding an advisor and determining what project you will pursue, within the first two weeks of this semester. It is suggested that you meet with a CISE undergraduate advisor if you have questions about how to facilitate this process.

It is important to note that you will work throughout the semester directly and frequently with your project advisor to achieve final project completion. You should maintain regular contact with your advisor. Often, e-mail is the best vehicle for this interaction; however, you and your advisor should investigate the best means for communication.

The course coordinator will periodically monitor your progress during this semester. The CIS 4914 coordinator will handle Departmental administration of the course and will be responsible for assigning a grade based on your written and oral reports. Your final grade for CIS 4914 will be determined as a result of input from both your advisor and course coordinator.

It is important to note that it is not the task of the course coordinator to help you with your work, help you correct programming problems, participate in writing the report, etc. Completion of the project is your task, which you may (or may not) choose to complete with your advisor's help.

There is thus a clear distinction between your advisor, with whom you meet frequently, and the course coordinator, with whom you have contact four times during the semester (initial organizational meeting, topic/advisor report submission, midterm meeting, and final project presentation).