Research Methods in Computer Science

CS 5014 -- Fall 1995

 Index number         Meeting time           Meeting location
    9428             MWF 10:00-10:50 a.m.       Wallace 234                

Course Description:

The culmination of the course will be a mini-research problem that is assigned to the class. Each student must design computational experiments to investigate the problem, and then write up the results in the form of a conference paper. One quarter of the course grade is based on the quality of the paper and the success of the experiments.

Instructor:

If you wish to pop in and ask a question outside of office hours without an appointment, I can give you more time if you visit in the afternoon.

GTA:

Texts (required):

Note: Almost all lecture notes used in class are available through the command "~abrams/kms" on sequoia.cs.vt.edu.

Honor System:

Never copy more than 3 words from any reference material onto any written work in this class without enclosing the passage with quotes and listing a citation for the source.

Whenever I learn that a student has violated the honor code, I am obligated to report the violation. If you fall behind, have too many deadlines, can't find time for a job along with classes, please let me know -- but don't cheat.

Grading:

Large literate program					20%

Integrated research paper				25%

Homeworks						25%

Comprehensive final exam 				30%

	(Tuesday, 12 December, 3:25-5:25 p.m.)

	Technical Communication:  take home

	Experimental CS: in class

If you have an excused absence from the Exam on Technical Communication, the weight of the exam will be added to the final exam weight. Examples of excused absences include religious holidays, participation in university sports, attending CS or EE-related conferences, death in the family, or illness verifiable with a doctor's note.

Grade Weight Changes Discussed in the 6 November Class

(1) We will not have the "large literate program" listed in the syllabus this semester.

(2) CS5014 students may choose between two plans on which their grade will be computed:

• PLAN A: Just add the literate program weight (20%) to the homework weight. Thus homeworks go from from 25% to 45% of the final course grade.

• PLAN B: Keep the relative weights of the research paper, homeworks, and final the same. Thus the weights are:

  Research paper: 25%/80%*100 = 31.25%

  Homeworks: 25%/80%*100 = 31.25%

  Final: 30%/80%*100 = 37.50%

So far, Ted and Cheryl have elected plan B; all other students plan A. If anyone else wants to switch to plan B, please send email to abrams@vt.edu.

(3) The lowest homework grade will be dropped.

Reference Materials

The following texts and papers will be used in CS5014. Some items have links to an on-line copy. The remaining items will be put on reserve in the Newman library.

[A] Marc Abrams, Charles R. Standridge, Ghaleb Abdulla, Stephen Williams, Edward A. Fox, Caching Proxies: Limitations and Potentials, submitted for publication, TR-95-12, Dept. of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, July 1995. http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~succeed/WWW4/WWW4.html

[An] Gregory R. Andrews, The 1994 Taulbee Survey. (http://cra.org:80/survey94/)

[AK] R. M. Akscyn, D. L. McCracken, and E. A. Yoder, "KMS: A Distributed Hypermedia System for Managing Knowledge in Organizations," Comm. ACM 31, 7 (July 1988), 820-835.

[B84] J. Bentley, "Programming Pearls: Back of the Envelope," Comm. ACM 27, 3 (March 1984), 180-183.

[B86] J. Bentley, "Programming Pearls: The Envelope is Back," Comm. ACM 29, 3 (March 1986), 176-182.

[B86a] J. Bentley and D. E. Knuth, "Programming Pearls: Literate Programming" Comm. ACM 29,(May 1986), 364-369.

[B86b] J. Bentley, D. E. Knuth, and M. D. McIlroy, "Programming Pearls: A Literate Program" Comm. ACM 29, (June 1986), 471-483.

[C] David Chapman, ed., How to do Research at the MIT AI Lab, AI Working Paper 316, Oct. 1988

[CA] Collected Advices on Research and Writing,
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/how-to.html.

[CS] Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, "Academic Careers for Experimental Computer Scientists and Engineers," Comm. ACM 37, 4, April 1994, 87-90.

[d] Marie desJardins, How to Be a Good {Grad Student,Advisor}, marie@erg.sri.com, March 199

[EWB] "The Job Market for Engineering Graduates in 1993," Engineering Workplace Bulletin, 129 (December 1993)

[KMS] Knowledge Systems, Creating Documents with KMS, KSI document P-004, Version 34, Jan. 1993.

[K] D. Knuth, Literate Programming, Center for the Study of Language and Information, CSLI Lecture Notes Number 27, 1992.

[L93a] L. Lamport, How to Write a Proof, DEC SRC technical report, Feb. 1993.

[L93b] L. Lamport, How to Write a Long Formula, DEC SRC technical report, Dec. 1993.

[N] National Center for Supercomputing Applications, A Beginner's Guide to HTML, pubs@ncsa.uiuc.edu, 1994, http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html.

[NAS] Committee on the Conduct of Science, National Academy of Sciences, On Being a Scientist, Washington: National Academy Press, 1989.

[S] Survival in the Academy, from Internet newsgroup, source unknown

[Sm] A. J. Smith, "The Task of the Referee," IEEE Computer, (April 1990), 65-71.

[T1] E. Tufte, Envisioning Information, Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1990.

[T2] E. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 1983.

[W] R. K. Weatherall, New Realities of Scientific and Engineering Employment: The College Placement Perspective, presentation at the annual meeting of the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (Dec. 1993).

Course Outline