Overall Marking Scheme
CISC 500 is in part a microcosm of what happens with graduate-level theses; hence it has a research proposal, thesis document, and presentation, albeit with appropriate standards for a smaller research project than with graduate work.
- 25% Research Proposal, preliminary Literature search, and preliminary Methods due 6 pm Thursday November 16 (for 2023-24). This is not the short summary used to justify enrolling in the course. It includes a goal or hypothesis (as needed) for your research, general description of background literature and knowledge related to your work and a brief and preliminary review of methods that you would take on. Please include the agreement regarding item #3 in your deliverable.
- 35% thesis document, due before the presentation ideally (see #4). The deadline is 8am March 28 2024 but may be changed at the supervisor’s discretion.
- 25% other work, to be submitted to the supervisor by the end of Winter term classes (April 8 for 2023-24). The nature of this work is negotiated between the supervisor and student and specified in the proposal/literature review. It might, for example, include some software developed as part of the project, or some other contribution to the supervisor’s lab’s work that wasn’t naturally part of the thesis document.
- 15% presentation, by the last day of Winter term classes (April 8 for 2023-24) at the latest, and earlier at the supervisor’s discretion. This is a 15-20 mins talk to a small audience, including the supervisor and preferably a few more people, such as members of the labs of the supervisors. It presents the key accomplishments of the project with a level of detail suited to a technical audience with some familiarity with the broad area under investigation but not familiar with the details of the research.
#1-#3 are graded by the supervisor according to guidelines supplied by the coordinator. #4 is graded by the supervisor, with input from the rest of the audience.
Although there is only one deadline in the Fall term, students should expect to do roughly half of their total work by the end of December.
Literature Search and Proposal
Before you begin research, you need to have a reasonably thorough understanding of what has been done in the area before, and a reasonably clear idea of what you will do. The proposal document is similar to the Introduction and Background chapters of a graduate-level thesis, albeit with less exacting standards. Also you will add a preliminary and brief draft of your Methods chapter to this. Your supervisor will give letter grades to two components:
- 85% A main body with a topic-appropriate balance between literature search, proposal and the brief methods. For some work, extensive background reading is needed to understand the issues and the methodology needed, but the proposed work is a reasonably easy-to-evaluate extension (albeit requiring substantial effort to achieve). Others might be new problems with less background literature, but in need of extensive work on establishing methods and criteria for judging the quality of the results. Work out an agreement with your supervisor in advance of writing the proposal.
- 15% Quality of writing — spelling, grammar, paragraph organization, clarity of explanations
In addition, include a description you work out with your supervisor on what work, besides the thesis document, you will deliver by the end of the research project, and how it will be evaluated. This could be a piece of software, some experimental data, or anything else that doesn’t fit neatly into a thesis document.
Thesis Document
These guidelines may be revised during the Fall term.
This should follow the same format as a graduate thesis: an introduction defining the topic and the claim you are defending, a revised and extended literature search, one or more chapters describing the work you did and the results you achieved, and a conclusion and description of future work.
- 10% introduction and conclusion
- 15% revised literature search
- 60% description of the work you did and the results you achieved
- 15% quality of writing
Other Work
Since this varies tremendously from project to project, you should agree on a grading scheme with your supervisor at the time you describe this work in the proposal.
Presentation
You will give a 15-20 minute presentation highlighting the big picture of what you have accomplished to an audience consisting of at least your supervisor, and preferably a few other people such as other members of the lab you were working in. The grade will be based on:
- 70% quality of presentation, taking into account both presentation skills, content, and level of detail
- 30% ability to answer questions.
Presentation at a conference can substitute, provided it meets the above requirements.
Academic Regulations.
