Beginning with the Spring 2002-2003 session of SE 690, registered students will follow a more formalized process and fulfill additional requirements in order to complete the SE research course requirement successfully. Some of these requirements affect only new registrants in the course, while others affect all students. The following list summarizes the new requirements and who is affected by them.
- Formal Research Proposal. Students who have not yet done their initial presentation in SE 690 must write a formal research proposal for their research study. This will help the student identify a good research question, a suitable research design, and effective methods to be employed in the study. The proposal elements will include:
- Literature review summary. Once an initial topic is identified, the literature review can help the student identify a specific area of the topic that warrants further investigation.
- Study rationale. Has the study be done before? If so, how will your study advance the understanding of the topic area? Why is this study of interest to others?
- Study problem or purpose. What are the goals of the projects?
- Research objectives. Identify the purposes of the study. What questions will be addressed?
- Research design. An overall plan for answering the research question, including identifying strengths and weaknesses of alternative designs.
- Work plan. Identify tasks and milestones, with approximate dates, for the study.
The proposal should be developed in cooperation with a faculty advisor and, when complete, will be reviewed by two students (both of whom have completed their initial presentation) and an additional faculty member.
The research proposal is required for any student who has not yet completed his or her initial presentation, though it is recommended for all.
- Peer reviews. Any student who has completed his or her initial presentation must perform peer reviews of other students' work. The reviews must be submitted and will be graded.
For SE 690: Two (2) presentation reviews and one (1) review of a final paper.
For SE 696/698: Two (2) presentation reviews and two (2) reviews of final papers.
The reviews will include:
- Summary of the presentation or paper.
- Critique of the organization and presentation of the material.
- Analysis of the content of the presentation or paper.
- An overall evaluation summary.
- Additional comments.
The purpose of instituting the peer review process is two-fold. First, it helps the student whose work is being reviewed to target his or her work to a broader critical audience and provides the student with substantive feedback about his or her work. Second, it provides reviewers with an evaluative perspective on the research process, rather than just a productive (making a presentation or writing a paper) perspective.
Peer reviews are required for any student who has not yet completed his or her final presentation.
- Research-related skills development. All students must attend a short workshop on the process of doing research and a short workshop on making presentations. Usually, these will both be offered during the first few meetings of SE 690 in every quarter. Once a student has attended the workshop, he or she may choose not to attend workshops in subsequent quarters.
Skills development is required for all students.
- Three presentations for SE 696 and SE 698. Students registered for SE 696 (Masters Project) or SE 698 (Masters Thesis) must do an initial, intermediate, and final presentation. The following table summarizes the goals of the presentations for all three SE research courses:
SE 690 SE 696 SE 698 Presentation 1 Initial presentation. Essentially a summary of the research proposal. Reviewed but not graded. Same as SE 690. Same as SE 690. Presentation 2 Final presentation. Present a summary of results, including a demonstration, if appropriate. Reviewed and graded. Intermediate presentation. Present significant intermediate results of the research, including problems encountered and proposed solutions, as well as successes. Reviewed but not graded. Same as SE 696. Presentation 3 N/A Final presentation. Present a comprehensive summary of the final results of the project, including a demonstration. Reviewed and graded. Final presentation. Present a comprehensive summary of the final results of the research, including broader implications and possible applications of the work. Reviewed and graded. Appropriate presentations as specified above are required for all students. All students in SE 690/696/698 must have the approval of the student's faculty supervisor before scheduling a presentation.
SE 690 Research Seminar
Students seeking to fulfill their research requirement through SE 690 (Research Seminar) may choose to do projects in two broad contexts: a moderately-sized system design and demonstration project that demonstrates a new or innovative approach to solving an existing problem, or a technology comparison project. Both project types must identify a research question and how the student would go about finding an answer to the question. The project types differ in how they propose and validate a solution.
- System design and demonstration projects should propose a moderately-sized (comparable to the 1000-line guideline for SE 450 final projects) programming solution that demonstrates how the research question would be answered.
Example: Design a framework for delivering web applications to mobile devices. Implement the core elements of the framework and provide a demonstration. Compare with other similar frameworks.
- Technology comparison projects should choose a cutting-edge technology, infer the question that the technology seeks to address, and analyze how well two or more existing solutions answer the question.
Example (circa 1998): Study the proposed standards, APIs, and supporting tools of XML. Develop a set of small demonstration programs to show the feasibility of the technology using real world examples and show the relative strength and weakness of the API's and tools.
SE 696 Masters Project
SE 696 (Masters Project) projects build upon the system design and demonstration project in SE 690. Whereas an SE 690 system design and demonstration project demonstrates how the research question would be answered using demonstration code, an SE 696 project actually implements a substantial portion of the solution. Note the differences in the following two examples: the first suitable for SE 690, the second suitable for SE 696.
Example (SE 690): Design a framework for delivering web applications to mobile devices. Implement the core elements of the framework and provide a demonstration. Compare with other similar frameworks.
Example (SE 696): Design a framework for delivering web applications to mobile devices. Implement a substantial part of the framework and provide comprehensive demonstrations on different devices. Compare with other similar frameworks and show the advantages and uniqueness of your framework
Other suitable SE 696 projects would be:
- Prototypes of software engineering tools for use by a software developer.
Example: Design and implement a new tool for automatic code generation (or testing, verification, requirements elicitation, etc.). Compare with other similar tools and show the advantages and uniqueness of your tool.
- Addressing a traditional problem using an innovative approach or original solution.
Example: Design and implement an efficient index scheme for object oriented databases. Show how your solution is an improvement over other approaches.
Students who find that they wish to expand their SE 690 system design and demonstration project may revise their research proposal, register for SE 696, and expand their work into a full-scale Masters project.
SE 698 Masters Thesis
An SE 698 Masters Thesis requires the student to carry out a theoretical or statistical solution to a significant research question. For example:
Example: Propose a design pattern language for a new application domain. Show that the patterns in your language are new and different from known patterns.Example: Design and carry out an empirical study on the effectiveness of pair-programming practices.
Students with a suitable SE 690 project who find that they wish to expand upon their work, may revise their research proposal, register for SE 698, and expand their work into a full-scale Masters thesis.
There are two formats of presentations for the SE seminar:The initial/preliminary presentations are usually in the short format. The final presentations must be in the long format. The initial presentation should includ the following:
- The short format: 15-20 minutes presentation with 5 minutes Q&A.
- The long format: 25-30 minutes presentation with 10 minutes Q&A.
The final presentation should include the following:
- Problem definition: what are you studying or developing?
- Background: why is it important? what has been done and by whom?
- Detailed plan: what are your deliverables and timeframe for completion?
All presentations must use either PowerPoint or StarOffice slides. To schedule a presentation, a title and 200-300 words abstract in HTML must be received by the instructor two weeks in advance. The presentation slides must be received by the instructor 48 hours before the scheduled presentation, or the presentation will be cancelled.
- Problem: what have you studied or developed?
- Results: what have you accomplished?
- Demo, if applicable
- Discussions: what are the significance and advantages/disadvantages of your results?
- Conclusion and future work.
You should practice and time your presentation, so that it will not exceed the time limit.
You must submit the final report for review and receive a preliminary approval before you can schedule the final presentation. Allow ample time for the instructor to review the final report: two weeks for SE 690 final reports and four weeks for M.S. Project (SE 696) final reports. It is common that the final reports will go through a few iterations of reviews and revisions. The final approval of the report will be given after the presentation and after completing all the necessary revisions. Students should plan to make their initial presentations during the first quarter or at the beginning of the second quarter of participating SE 690. The main body of the work is to be carried out between the time of the initial and the final presentations. After the initial presentation, there is usually a substantial amount of work for the final report and final presentation. Students should allowed minimum one quarter time between the initial and the final presentations. Students should not plan to have their initial and final presentations given during the same quarter.Final Deliverables
Important: The specific requirements of deliverables of each project or thesis are at the discretion of the research advisor of the project or thesis.SE 690 Final Report
- A final report. The main body of the report should be about 10 to 15 pages.
- Software, includeing project code, documentations, examples, installation instructions. All documentations and instructions must be in HTML.
- Final presentation slides.
MS Project
- A final report. The main body of the report should be about 25 to 50 pages.
- Software, includeing project code, documentations, examples, installation instructions. All documentations and instructions must be in HTML.
- Final presentation slides.
MS Thesis
- A thesis. The main body of the thesis should be no less than 50 pages.
- Software, includeing project code, documentations, examples, installation instructions, if applicable. All documentations and instructions must be in HTML.
- Final presentation slides.
- Seven hardcopies of the thesis for binding.
Requirements of Final Rpoerts and Theses
- The final report or thesis must include: title page, abstract, table of contents, main body, references, and appendices.
- The main body usually consists of the follwoing sections
- Introdution:
- briefly defines the problems and outlines the solutions/results/recommendations;
- provides an overview of the rest of the document.
- Background
- discusses the backgroud and prerequisite knowledge for readers to understand the probelms and the solutions/results/recommendations.
- Several sections that
- discuss the probelms as well as the solutions/results/recommendations in detail;
- for a development project, discuss the architecture and design of the project;
- discuss potential applications, if applicable;
- compare your solutions/results/recommendations with others, if applicable;
- Conclusion and future work
- summarizes the main contributions;
- discusses future work and directions.
- Lengthy code fragments and documentations should be included as appendices.
- The final report or thesis may also include dedication, preface, and index.
- The fonts used for the main text should be no larger than 12 points and no smaller than 10 points. The main text should be single spaced.
- The final report or thesis is considered your work. Thus all verbatim excerpts, illustrations, or diagrams from other sources (including books, articles, web pages, notes, course materials) msut be
Voilations are considered plagiarism. Consult the university's Academic Integrity Policies, when in doubt.
- enclosed between quotation marks for in-line quotes, or block-indented for block-quotes,
- within the limit of "fair use", and
- with citation after each occurance.