Requirements: T-0.050 Introduction to Postgraduate Studies in Computer Science, Spring 2005

Passing the course will require following four things:

Attendance to the lectures
Practice talk on a selected topic
Preparation personal research plan
Exercises

Passing is based on active participation. The formal requirement is submission of a "Written Course Report" that describes the details of your activity.

Please, remember that the idea is not to overwhelm you with a huge work load during the spring. Considering a 1-credit course that would be unreasonable. Therefore, if there are some parts that would be particularly laborous because of a specific reason, find alternative ways of handling the task.

Attendance to the lectures

The basic rule is that passing the course requires attendance to the lectures/events of the course. However, it is possible to write a report of the topics handled in the gatherings that you were not able to attend.

Details are given in the section "Written Course Report" below.

Practice talk

It is important to practice presentations. To pass this course, you need to give a talk in one of the occassions organized for this purpose or to provide evidence of a similar activity including both a presentation and following others' presentations. You are also expected to provide constructive comments on others' presentations.

If you are unable to to give the talk during the course and to comment on others' presentations, there is an alternative way to pass this part of course requirements. Details are given in the section "Written Course Report".

Exercises

Postgraduate study / research plan

Write down your current postgraduate study plan as a research plan.

The results will be a thought-out discussion of 4-8 pages on what you plan to do in your graduate studies.

Please, write the plan as if it were to be submitted to Academy of Finland or some other funding agency with the following information:

name of the researcher in charge,
title of the research,
background and significance of the research nationally and internationally,
objectives and methods
- objectives of the research
- hypotheses and research methods
- schedule and intermediate objectives for the research
- ethical questions or data protection problems
results
- expected research results and their significance
- practical applicability of the research results and their potential exploitation
- publication and other dissemination of the research results
means and resources
- list of courses that support the research
- optionally an annotated bibliography of about 3-5 works that are relevant for the research (please, see http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/skill28.htm) (in practice, it may be wise to work on articles that you are already familiar with or that are highly relevant for your future research; even though this part is optional, it is good habit to have an annonated bibliography already in an early stage.)
- other sources of information and resources

Referee report

It is your task to select one paper close to your own interests, read it, and provide an evaluation of it using a copy of the IEEE standard review form (available electronically http://ewh.ieee.org/tc/sensors/SJ/review_form_SJ.htm)

For some suggestions on how to review papers, at least in the more technical areas of computer science, see "Referee's Guide" by Ian Parberry (http://hercule.csci.unt.edu/ian/guides/referee.html).

Parberry's guide discusses mainly the task of reviewing journal articles.

Written Course Report

In order to pass the course, you will finalize a written course report that has the following table of contents.

Please, take the habit to fill in things into your report during the spring. That way you ensure that submitting the report on time will not be too stressful.

Contents of the report

All four sections need to be properly included in order to pass the course.

1. Reports of attendance

Reports of attendance are to be written per each gathering during the course. There are two options:

(1) If you have attended, please write just a short comment about the basic contents (3-5 lines) like:

I attended the session on 27th of January. For me, the most interesting things was ... I would have liked to learn more about ...

(2) If you have not attended you need to write a half to one page description of the topic at hand based on the material provided at the web page and possibly also on what you find yourself. What is required is some reflection on the theme: what it means to yourself, how do you approach the theme in your own studies and research.

The gatherings/themes to be covered are listed below (please use the numbers and titles in the sections of your report).

1.1. Dissertation and Ph.D. life cycle
1.2. Publishing papers
1.3. Use of literature in scientific writing

1.4. Scientific methods and paradigms
- Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic: Scientific Methods in Computer Science. Conference for the Promotion of Research in IT at New Universities and at University Colleges in Sweden, Skövde, 2002.
1.5. Intellectual property rights
1.6. Peer reviews
- "Referee's Guide" by Ian Parberry (http://hercule.csci.unt.edu/ian/guides/referee.html).
1.7. Research on Computer Science and Engineering

1.7.1. SimLab, Enterprise Simulation Laboratory
1.7.2. Theoretical Computer Science
1.7.3. Software Business and Engineering
1.7.4. Computer and Information Science
1.7.5. Information Processing Science
1.7.6. Telecommunications Software and Multimedia
1.7.7. Software Business Research

2. Presentation

To the report two main items are to be included: (1) own presentation (slides), comments of one's own presentation and summary of others' comments, and (2) constructive comments on 1-2 other presentations.

2.1. Own presentation
Please include in the report your own presentation slides, comments of one's own presentation and summary of others' comments. If you have attended the course talk occassions, this part can be rather short.
If you were not able to attend, you need to follow the following instructions: report your presentation in another public occassion providing details of the occasion. You also need to analyze yourself your presentation and ask another person comment on your talk.
For the evaluation, please use the following question list:
- Did the title correspond to the contents of the talk?
- Did the speaker take into account the profile of the audience?
- Did the speaker say enough of the contents but not too much?
- Did he/she use clarifying examples
- Was the use of visual aids satisfactory: Were the slides helpful? Were the fonts large enough? Was the use of illustrations useful?
- Did the speaker connect to audience or did he/she, for example, avoid eye contact?
- Did the speaker succeed in timing: did he/she finish the talk on time? Was it too short?
2.2. Others' presentations
If you have attended the course talk occassions, this part can be rather short. Please, tell whose talks you are commenting and provide some constructive comments.
If you are not able to attend the talks during the course, please attend a doctoral dissertation and comment on the lectio precursoria using the question list above. Remember that lectios are meant to be understood by the relatives etc. who are not experts in the area. Therefore, you do not find a defence in your area. You can go to any defense at HUT or even at University of Helsinki. There are hundreds of opportunities during this spring.

3. Research plan

Please, follow the instructions provided above in preparing your research plan.

4. Referee report

Please, follow the instructions provided above in preparing the referee reports.

- - -

Important dates

The deadline for submitting the report is 20th of June, 2005. Submissions arriving late may be processed much later (during spring 2006) than the ones arriving on time. This rule is in place because of the need for efficient use of resources and to practice meeting deadlines that is important in researcher's career.

Submission

The report should be send to prof. Timo Honkela (timo dot honkela at hut dot fi) as a pdf file. The parts on attendance can be written in English, Finnish or Swedish in colloquial style. Other parts are written in English using formal style.

Resources

Thanks are due to prof. Pekka Orponen for this collection of resources. Links have not (yet) been checked.

HUT resources

[1] HUT Electronic Academic Dissertations
[2] Tietotekniikan osaston jatko-opinto-opas / Guide for Postgraduate Studies at HUT DCSE
[3] M. Airila, M. Pekkanen, Tekniikan alan väitöskirjaopas. (Guide for Graduate Studies in Engineering, in Finnish.) TKK Hallinto-osaston julkaisusarja 2002/3.

Graduate Studies & Academic Life

[4] P. J. Feibelman, A Ph.D. is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival in Science. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1993.
[5] Collected Advice on Research and Writing in Computer Science (CMU)
[6] Iowa State Univ. CS Grad Info Page
[7] J. E. Littlewood, B. Bollobas (Ed.), Littlewood's Miscellany. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
[8] P. B. Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist. Harper & Row, 1981.
[9] PhDs.org: Science, Math, and Engineering Career Resources
[10] E. M. Phillips, D. S. Pugh, How to Get a Ph.D.: A Handbook for Students and Their Supervisors, 3rd Ed. Open University Press, Buckinghamshire, 2002.
[11] Sci.research.careers FAQ
[12] W. Stallings, Computer Science Student Resource Site
[13] UMBC CS Graduate Info Page

Writing in General

[14] Bartleby Books Online
[15] The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Ed. The University of Chicago Press, 1993. (FAQ)
[16] Merriam-Webster Online
[17] OED Online

Technical Writing

[18] V. Booth, Communicating in Science: Writing and Speaking. Cambridge University Pres, 1984.
[19] M. Davis, Scientific Papers and Presentations. Academic Press, New York, NY, 1997.
[20] R. A. Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 5th Ed. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
[21] N. J. Higham, Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences, 2nd Ed. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, PA, 1998.
[22] D. E. Knuth, T. Larrabee, P. Roberts, Mathematical Writing. The Mathematical Association of America, 1996.
[23] S. G. Krantz, A Primer of Mathematical Writing. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 1997.
[24] Lähteiden käyttö ja viittaaminen tutkimksessa (P. Karonen). (Literature Use and Citation in Research, Finnish & English.)
[25] J. Zobel, Writing for Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, Singapore, 1997.
Technical Writing in Computer Science (J. Zobel)

TeX/LaTeX

[26] M. Goossens, F. Mittelbach, A. Samarin, The LaTeX Companion. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1994.
[27] G. Grätzer, Math into LaTeX, 3rd Ed. Birkhäuser, Boston, 2000.
[28] L. Lamport, LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, 2nd Ed. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1994.
[29] T. Oetiker et al., The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX. 2002.
TeX Resources on the Web

Presentations

[30] I. Parberry, Speaker's Guide, 1993.