SYLLABUS
CGS 4914 -- Senior Design
Computer & Information Sciences & Engineering Department
INSTRUCTOR: Rory J. De Simone
E-MAIL: rjd@cise.ufl.edu
CLASS WEB PAGE: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~rjd/seniorproject.html
OFFICE HOURS: MWF Period 4 or by appointment
CLASS PERIODS: Class will meet irregularly, as follows:
o
Meeting #1 – May 30th,
2007 at 5pm
o
Meeting #2 – June 13,
2007 at 5pm
o
Presntn.#1 – July 6,
2007 from 1 to 5pm
o
Presntn.#2 – July 23,
2007 from 2 to 5pm
July 24,
2007 from 3 to 6pm
o
Presntn.#3 – Aug. 6,
2007 from 2 to 6pm
Aug. 7, 2007 from 3 to 7
ROOM: CSE/E404
PREREQUISITES: Senior Status, last 1 or 2 semesters recommended
DESCRIPTION: This
course is the culmination of your study in computer science and/or computer
engineering, where you complete an individual or group project under the
guidance of a faculty member or outside advisor. The semester prior to
registering for this course, you will have completed a project outline, which
is approved by your project advisor and the course coordinator. This semester,
you will attend the scheduled meetings, and present your work at scheduled
times, as well as prepare a final report. The purpose of these requirements is
to help you develop skills in the written and spoken communication of your work
to others. If you are working in a group of two or more students under
direction of an advisor (e.g., a large software development project), then you
can use this course to develop skills in workgroup communication, interaction, and
cooperation.
The course will begin with two meetings - the first
organizational, and the second emphasizing time management and presentation
skills. There will be three presentations, whose requirements are outlined in
detail on the class Web site and in the PowerPoint Presentations. In summary,
the first presentation (approx. five minutes duration per student) is a concept
review, in which you present an outline of your project, as well as approaches
and literature sources that you plan to use. The second presentation (approx.
ten minutes duration per student) is a design review, in which you present a
summary of the design and rationale or analysis that you are using to guide the
coding of a software project or construction of a hardware project. At the third
and final presentation (approx. 12-15 minutes duration), you will provide the
Course Coordinator with an advisor-graded copy of your Final Report (formatted
per Web site directions), and present the results of your research or
development effort for critical review by the instructor and your fellow
students. Following each presentation, there will be time for questions, which
you must be prepared to answer.
TEXTBOOKS:
There is
no formal textbook for this class, however, you will
find information from the literature (including the Web) that is useful for
your research.
OTHER MATERIAL: You
will need TWO CD-ROMs for your presentations, each of which must be in
PowerPoint format (industry standard). You are also encouraged to post your
PowerPoint presentations on the Web, so you can access them in case your CD-ROM
is corrupted.
EVALUATION: Advisor:
50% -- Instructor/Coordinator: 50%
ADVISOR GRADE will
count 50% toward your final grade, and assesses the Complexity, Completeness,
and Quality of Results produced during the course of your project, as well as
the Quality of your Final Report. The advisor should provide this grade in
conjunction with corrections to your final report. A grading form is accessible
from the class Web site, which the advisors are encouraged to use.
COURSE COORDINATOR/INSTRUCTOR GRADE will count 50% toward your final grade, and assesses the
coherence and quality of your written and spoken communications, as well as
your apparent understanding of your project, in terms of your written report,
presentations and viewgraphs, and the question and answer sessions at the end
of your presentations. The first presentation is not graded, and serves as a
way for the Coordinator to evaluate your presentation skills, with constructive
suggestions for remediation. The second presentation counts 5 percent of final
grade, and the third presentation, 15 percent of final grade. Additionally, the
Coordinator evaluates each student's Final Report for quality of communication,
including English usage, coherence, and completeness, thereby yielding a score
that counts 30 percent of your final grade.
All reports and presentations are due at the scheduled
times. You will be notified via email and the class web site (where emails are also
archived) concerning the dates and times of presentations, as well as the
location of presentation signup sheets. Make-ups may be allowed only for
documented, unavoidable conflicts REPORTED IN ADVANCE AND ALLOWED BY THE
INSTRUCTOR. Only DOCUMENTED emergency medical excuses can be accepted after a
presentation or the final report is due.
FINAL REPORT will
summarize your project, and is to be no more than 11 pages, space-and-a-half
text, including the cover page. The format of the Final Report is described in
detail, section by section, on the class Web site. You must have an
advisor-graded copy of your Final Report ready to give to the Course
Coordinator/Instructor at your final presentation.
SCHEDULE: The course
will not be a regular, classroom-style course of instruction. Instead, there
will be two initial meetings, which will be held at a mutually convenient
evening hour. These meetings are designed to acquaint you with the purpose and
format of the course, and to provide instruction in time management and
presentation skills. The presentations will be scheduled several weeks apart.
For example:
Week 2 - First Meeting (required) Topic: CIS4914 Purpose and Format
Week 4 - Second Meeting (required) Topic: Time Mgmt, Presentation Skills
Week 7 - First Presentation Topic: Concept Review ( 5 min.)
Week 10 - Second Presentation Topic: Design Review
(10 min.)
Week 12 - Final Presentation &
Report Topic: Project Results (15
min.)
GRADING: Standard with
NO CURVING OF ANY SCORES, as follows:
Project Advisor Grade: 50 pts max
Course Coordinator Grade: 50 pts max
-----------------------------------------
TOTAL SCORE 100 pts max
Grade Assignment by Standard Scale:
90 - 100 :
A 85
- 89 : B+ 80
- 84 : B
75 - 79 : C+ 70 - 74 : C 65
- 69 : D+
60 - 64 : D
0 - 59 : E
DISHONESTY: In this
course, academic dishonesty is defined as copying another's presentation, final
report, or work, or claiming to have completed work that has not been done.
Plagiarism of published sources (i.e, without
appropriate attribution) is also a form of academic dishonesty. Note that there
is a not-so-subtle distinction between working together on a group project or helping fellow students, versus directly copying
another's work. This implies that your presentation viewgraphs are to be
unique, even if you are working with other students on the same project. In
such cases, each person should present his or her own work, i.e., the research
or development that you have done as a part of that project, together with a
brief project overview that includes a summary of your part in the project, as
well as how your work interacts with the designs or results produced by other
project members.
Under no circumstances will acts of academic dishonesty be
tolerated. Any suspected incidents of dishonesty will be promptly referred to
the Director for Student Judicial Affairs and the
ACCOMODATIONS:
Students with disabilities requesting classroom accommodation must first register
with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide
documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the
Instructor when requesting accommodation.