Course Description

In this course, you will explore multiple research areas of computer science by reading and presenting research papers. In addition, you will write a survey research paper, which, for those of you doing a senior project, will help prepare you for your project in the spring.

Coursework

  • Attend 12 colloquium talks throughout the year, unless you follow the old requirements which requires attendance of all talks.
  • Read the weekly papers and participate. Participation includes attending class, posting on Piazza by 5 pm the day before the presentation, and participating in the paper discussion.
  • Participate in two paper presentations (typically in groups of two).
  • Lead two paper discussions (typically in groups of two on the same day as you present).
  • Give two 1 minute presentations on your survey paper topic.
  • Write a survey paper (see survey paper guidelines below for more details).

Instructor & Lectures

Instructor:

Alexandra Papoutsaki
222 Edmunds,
Office Hours: MWF 2-5pm and by appointment
apaa2017@pomona.edu
www.cs.pomona.edu/~apapoutsaki/

Lectures: F 11:00 am - 12:15 pm, Edmunds 129

Schedule

Week Day Topic Presenters Homework
1) Sept 06 Welcoming
2) Sept 13 Lecture 2, How to Read A Paper and How to Write a Good Paper and 3 shell scripts to improve your writing Senior Project meeting at 5 pm on 09/11
3) Sept 20 As We May Think and Mother of All Demos Ethan, William B. Senior Project ranked list of topic/advisor pairs due at 5 pm on 09/18
4) Sept 27 A relational model of data for large shared banks Connor, William A. Latex exercise due at 5 pm on 09/27
5) Oct 04 A few useful things to know about machine learning James, Nikolas Paper topic and references due at 5 pm on 10/04
6) Oct 11 Deep Learning and optionally TensorFlow: A System for Large-Scale Machine Learning Henry, William B.
7) Oct 18 Virtual Memory, Processes, and Sharing in MULTICS and Thirty Years Later: Lessons from the Multics Security Evaluation Esteban, Gabriel Annotated bibliography due at 5 pm on 10/18
8) Oct 25 ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct and Protesting Project DragonFly and Boeing 737 MAX report Berto, Connor
9) Nov 01 The moral character of cryptographic work Bernardo, Henry Survey outline and introduction due at 5 pm on 11/01
10) Nov 08 The future of crowd work and Soylent: A word processor with a crowd inside James, Nikolas
11) Nov 15 User-defined gestures for surface computing and Usable Gestures for Blind People: Understanding Preference and Performance Berto, Ethan
12) Nov 22 Detecting Personality Traits Using Eye-Tracking Data and The Mental Image Revealed by Gaze Tracking Esteban, William A. Survey paper (or project plan) draft due at 5 pm on 11/22
13) Nov 29 Thanksgiving
14) Dec 06 Avaaj otalo: a field study of an interactive voice forum for small farmers in rural india and Can Technology End Poverty? and The Design of Eco-Feedback Technology Bernardo, Gabriel
15) Dec 13 No class meeting Survey paper (or project plan) due at 11:59 pm on 12/13

Note: Some papers have been found in seminar courses by Rett Bull, Michael Greenberg, Jeff Huang, and Michael Bernstein.

Paper Reading and Presentations

Each week, we will have one or more research papers we will be reading and discussing. Each person will give two presentations throughout the semester in a group. The presentations should be 20-30 minutes. We will use the rest of the class meeting for discussion.

If you are presenting: Read through the paper(s) early. Read the paper(s) again! Sit down with your presentation group and discuss the paper. Setup a meeting with Prof Papoutsaki to talk about the presentation at least two days before the presentation. By 5 pm of the day before the presentation, post discussion topics/questions on Piazza for the paper. Practice presentation at least once as a group and show up 10 minutes before class to setup. Within a week after your presentation, meet with Prof Papoutsaki to get feedback about your presentation and to review peer feedback.

If you are NOT presenting: Read through the paper(s) early. Read any confusing parts again. By 5 pm of the day before the presentation, post on Piazza for the paper(s). Possible things you might post about include: a summary of the paper(s) (if you're the first to do this), something you found confusing about the paper(s), an answer to a previous question, something you found interesting about the paper(s), etc. I don't expect your posts to be a 10 page essay, however, it should show that you read the paper(s), thought about it and put some time and effort into participating on the forum.

Survey Paper

A survey paper provides research background and analysis of a focused area of research. For those doing a senior project or thesis, the survey paper will be related to the topic of their project. For everyone else, the high-level topic(s) will be defined by the CS190 course instructor.

You will complete your survey paper in a number of steps:
  • LaTex Exercise: You will reproduce a document.
  • Paper topic + 10 references: Identify the topic of your survey paper and at least 10 papers related to the topic. Half of the work will be finding the papers and half will be narrowing down and defining the topic. Even for those who aren't doing a senior project, you will still need to identify a subfield of the high-level topic(s) defined by the instructor. Your submission should include a few sentences describing your topic of interest and ten properly formatted citations. A citation should be of the form seen on the template for the senior exercise.
  • Annotated bibliography: Read your initial 10 papers and others you discover along the way. For each paper you read, write a paragraph or two summarizing the paper. This will become your annotated bibliography. See A Guide to the Senior Exercise for formatting instructions.
  • Outline + introduction: A critical part of a good survey paper is that the author should provide some good analysis and organization of the subfield that the paper discusses. A survey paper is not simply a paragraph by paragraph summary of papers. Your outline should consist of the section and subsections that you plan to have for the paper. Use descriptive section names for these headings. You should also include the text for your introductory section. It should give a very high-level overview of the paper topic and also outline how you have organized your paper. You do not need a bibliography, though you should include preliminary citations already where appropriate.
  • Draft: The survey paper should be at least 6 pages and at most 10 pages long and should cite at least 10 papers, though it's likely that you will cite more. You must also include at least one figure or table that you generated (though more might also be helpful). The draft should be a complete draft, i.e. should have all of the sections filled in, though it may be a little rough and some of the sections might still be missing a paragraph or two. It should be formatted already using the style guide.
  • Final paper: The final version of the paper should be properly formatted, meet all the requirements outlined in the draft (length, number of citations, table/figure), be free of any grammar or spelling issues, be well organized, and should include changes made to address the review feedback.

    Students working on a group senior project should talk with their senior project advisor and 190 instructor since the requirements will vary slightly.

Grading

Attendance is required. Two absences, with advance notice, are allowed. Absences without notice or in excess of two with notice will result in a one grade point (on a 12 point scale) deduction from your final grade.

  • 40% Research paper presentations (20% each)
  • 25% Class participation
    • 15% In-class discussion
    • 10% Piazza questions
  • 35% Survey paper:
    • 4% LaTeX exercise
    • 4% Paper topic + 10 references
    • 4% Annotated bibliography
    • 4% Outline + one section
    • 4% Draft
    • 15% Final paper
If you don't turn in a final paper, you won't get any credit for the survey paper milestones, putting you at risk of failing the course.

Academic Honesty

CS190 follows the CS Academic Honesty Policy and the Pomona Academic Standards.

As we will be reading real Computer Science research papers, you will often find yourself having more questions by the end of the paper. This is natural and I encourage you to read the related work to understand the bigger picture. Nevertheless, all work submitted in this course should be your own. That means that you need to give proper credit to the sources you have used in the form of citations. This applies to books, papers, software, websites, and even informal conversations. If you are unsure, it is safer to ask the instructor.

Failure to abide by these rules is considered plagiarism, and will result in severe penalties. The first offense typically results in failing the assignment and referral to the appropriate college office or committee—which may mean further consequences, a rather unpleasant situation for everyone involved.