ECS 267

WIDE-AREA DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION SYTEMS

Winter 2004



SCHEDULE and READING LIST



The intend of this course is to explore challenges and research issues that arise when scaling information systems technology to a widely-distibuted environment such as sensor networks or the Internet. This course is intended to be highly interactive. The main activity will be discussions based around a set of papers. All students are required to read technical papers, to answer specific questions, and to prepare new questions prior to class discussions. In addition. each student is required to lead the discussion on one (or more) of these technical papers. There are no exams. The students are required to complete a project. A selection of technical papers addressing specific topics will be used. No textbook is required.

Project

The class project can be chosen from a wide range of topics. Make sure to discuss your project proposal with the instructor well before the proposal presentation deadline. Individual details can be discussed in one-to-one meetings set up with the instructor. The topics of interest for this lecture include (but are not limited to) those in the Course Outline. Project topics can be of a wide-range of topics provided that it is approved by the instructor.
Students will present their project proposal (see the schedule) and prepare the related literature survey report. The final project report will be in a paper format in MS Word.

Proposal Presentation Guidelines

    Bring along a copy of all references (two-sided print-out); write its publication information at the top of first page and the link info (e.g., www.cs.rutgers.edu/...) at the bottom of the page.
    In the proposal write-up (in MS Word) include the link to all references.
    Make sure to reply these questions:
      Why is the problem important?
      What has been studied and not studied by other researchers?
      What is the expected contribution?
      What is the plan for performance evaluation?
    The deadline for the proposal report is 27th January. In addition to the report itself (including references [XXXYY] where XXX is the first three letters of the first author's last name and YY is the year of the publication), prepare a more detailed list of references with their links with 1/2 sentence comments on the paper in a seperate Word file - including those referred to in the proposal report.

Status Report Guidelines

Status Report should be in a paper format; it should be your draft paper for the final report, where sections are clearly marked with what will be completed by the project deadline. Please use MS Word format and include the link information for all papers referenced.

Homeworks

Homeworks (2 total) will be of various formats. Homeworks will include the literature survey for the project that will be lead by the student. The homework might also be in the form of a reference search in a specific topic assigned by the instructor or in the form of written replies to the three questions:

    What is the contribution of the paper?
    What are the strengths/weaknesses of the paper?
    Do you have a controversial statement about this paper? (bonus point)

for the papers that will be discussed in class. The homework will be announced in class before the presentation date (if relevant to a presentation).

Paper Presentation

You will lead the discussion on at least one paper in class. Last, but not the least; your interaction in class will constitute a major role in your overall grade.
 

Paper Presentation Guidelines

    Bring along a copy of all references of the paper (two-sided print-out); write its publication information at the top of first page and the link info (e.g., www.cs.rutgers.edu/...) at the bottom of the page.
    Make sure to reply these questions:
      What is the contribution of the paper?
      What are the strengths/weakness?
    Prepare questions to the class
    Use an example of your own and target for visual presentations.
    Clearly indicate material of others.

    For tips by others on paper reading/presentation see:
    Spencer Rugaber, GaTech, How to Read a Research Paper
    Ashwin Ram, GaTech, How to Present a Paper
    Maja Mataric, USC, How to Present a Paper
    Armando Fox, Stanford, Paper Writing and Presentations


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