COM495/6: Research Seminar
Introduction
The CS faculty at Connecticut College
believe that undergraduate research is essential for CS majors. The ability
to conduct independent research is probably the main characteristic of interest
to universities when considering graduate school applicants and it is also of
interest to employers who want innovative employees. Not only is undergraduate
student research the wave of the future, it is one of the major strengths of
the Connecticut College Computer Science Program. In addition, since CS tends
to be strongly interdisciplinary there are many opportunities for crossdisciplinary
work with these research projects. The most likely areas of collaboration are
with art, music, biology, physics, economics, chemistry, neuroscience, psychology,
and philosophy.
Required for Computer Science Majors
COM495 (offered every fall) and COM496 (offered every spring) are
required courses for computer science majors. Students who would normally take
independent studies to do research will sign up for these courses. The instructor
assigned to the course will be the course coordinator. Students will be doing
the research directly with faculty in their area of interest. Please see the
CS Research Page for available
areas of research. It is desirable, but not required, that students contact
the faculty member you will be working with before enrolling in the course.
Course Description
Practicum in computer science research. An introduction to research
methods and implementation of a major project. Students will read, present, and
discuss technical papers; write a research proposal; make weekly reports; raise
issues for class discussion; complete their research; write a technical paper;
and do a public presentation. May be repeated unlimited times for credit.
Prerequisite: 300 level course in the area of computer science research.
Student Learning Objectives
-
Literary research – Students will present the instructor with a list of pertinent
previous works.
- Read and understand technical papers – Students will write
summaries of previous works; these will be part of the final paper Introductions.
- Technical accomplishment – Students
will be expected to produce a research work that is at least at a level appropriate
for an undergraduate senior. The goal will be that they produce significant
research that is presentatble and publishable in a peer reviewed conference.
- Effective
written communication – Students will be expected to write a technical
paper that is ready for submission to a technical conference. Those projects
that lack the significance for publication will be published internally as
technical reports.
- Effective oral communication – Students will present
their work at departmental events and possibly technical conferences.
- Collaboration – Students
will have the opportunity to work with other students and/or faculty on
their projects. They will be expected to work together as a research group
and will be graded on their participation in helping other students with
their issues that they present during class meetings.
Discussion
The course will meet weekly with a 2.5 hour session. In the
first few class periods, research essentials will be covered by the instructor
and there will be a field trip to the library to learn how to use it to do literature
searches. After that, the weekly meeting will be for students to discuss their
research projects (all the students in the class will present their progress
and raise issues for discussion) and for one student to present a research paper
pertinent to the topic they are studying. The students will be required to develop
a schedule, write a research proposal, complete their body of research, write
a technical paper, and do a presentation at the end of the course.
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