Project Checkpoint 1 - Related Work & Plan of Work
| Possible Points | Due Date |
|---|---|
| 50 pts | February 24th - Before Class |
Overview
For the first project checkpoint, you will be writing the related work section section of your project report, as well as a brief plan of work for your project over the course of the semester. Each student or group should meet with Dr. Moran in order to discuss their project plan before turning in this checkpoint.
Checkpoint Instructions
Related Work
Expected Length: (0.75-1.5 pages)
Your overall goal in the related work section of the paper is twofold: (i) you should provide your reader with an categorized overview of the published research that is most closely related to your project; and (ii) you should clearly differentiate the novelty of your work in relation to these related papers. Given the scope of most projects in the course, I would expect each paper to have between 15-25 references, depending on the project.
In order to receive full points for this project checkpoint, your related work section should include the following:
- Taxonomy of Research: A clear taxonomy (i.e., grouping) of the related work which divides it into semantically coherent categories organized as subsections in your project report. See examples of related sections from the papers in our reading list. In essence, you should not talk about each paper individually in a series of disconnected paragraphs. Instead, you should group all of the papers you feel are relevant to discuss into three-four groups, and then discuss the characteristics of each group as a whole. If there are notable qualities about individual papers, feel free to discuss those specifically in the subsection.
- Statement of Novelty: Your related work section is not only for informing the reader about work closely aligned with your project. It is also an opportunity to clearly spell out the novelty of your work. As such, you should include a clear statement of novelty that indicates the key idea behind your project. This may be a the use of a new machine learning technique or evaluation/study methodology. You can either differentiate novelty from each category of your related work in the respective subsection, or you can discuss the novelty in a separate subsection after introducing each category.
Plan of Work
Expected Length: (0.25-0.5 pages)
The plan of work is a tentative schedule of tasks for the project. Research inherently involves exploration and investigating unproven ideas which leads to risk. A clear plan of work with internal deadlines can help to mitigate this risk, and avoid "research tarpits" where too much time is spent investigating a phenomenon that may not help advance the overall ideas of the project. This section of this project checkpoint should include a bulleted list of project milestones with dates and, for teams with of more than one student, who will be working on each milestone.
In order to receive full points for this project checkpoint, your plan of work section should include the following:
- Bulleted List of Project Milestones: These should be divided into three subsections: Background, Approach (or Study Methodology), and Evaluation. Each of these subsections should include the tasks you aim to complete (taking into account the schedule of project checkpoints), in order to successfully complete your project by the end of the semester. Additionally, for teams of more than one person, you must indicate who will be responsible for each task.
Submission Instructions
Project Checkpoints should be submitted as a PDF via Blackboard to the appropriate assignment.