Seminar Presentations

Seminar Project Guidelines and First Presentations

The goal of the final project is to produce a well-researched paper plus a related more "experiential" component on some topic in computer security. The experiential component can be writing a program to implement some algorithm related to your project or it may involve experimentation with and/or analysis of some related software.

The research component of the project will involve doing general research on the topic to learn the issues involved (what the problems are, what is difficult, what some solutions are both current and those that are the subject of current research, etc.) and the current research in the computer security field. You must include information from at least one computer science research paper describing a specific research study.

The final paper must be a formal paper that includes a bibliography and proper citations. The length of the paper will depend on the mix of research/experiential component in your project. In general it will be at least 5 pages long and most likely should be longer to meet the requirements.

As you know there will also be formal presentations of the projects at the end of the course. The due date for the project is the date of the first presentations. Due date for the first full draft of the paper will be one week before the paper is due. That draft will undergo a review by peers and Dr. Ingram. Any problems identified in the draft, such as a need for better organization or a need for additional research, should be addressed in the final paper.

Possible Final Presentation Dates: To allow 20 minutes for each person (this includes question time and transition time) we need 5 hours and 20 minutes so I would like to schedule 6 hours. We will use the 3 hour exam time on Monday May 2 (8:30 - 11:30) but need 3 more hours. If we use 3 hours outside of class there will be 3 class hours cancelled. The options I see are:

Use class time at the end of the semester as currently listed on the syllabus (April 18, 20, and 25).
Use 3 hours on reading day (Tuesday April 26).
Use 3 hours on Saturday, April 30.
Use a 3 hour exam block when no one in the class will have another exam. From our class discussion it seems Thursday, April 28 at 8:30 (Block 9 exam - block 9 meets TuTh 8:30 - 10:00) is the only option.

Presentations (Friday, Monday, Wednesday - April 1, 4, 6) - Project Outline

Each person will give a 10 minute presentation on their final project. The presentation should basically be an outline of your project. At this point you should have made substantial progress including having at least 4 sources you will most likely use in the project. This should not be an "off the top of your head" presentation. In particular, it should include:

Your topic - the broad area and the narrower focus you plan to address. Any concepts or terminology we have not covered in class will need to be explained.
What questions or issues you plan to address and how (what will be research in the literature, what will be your own contribution such as a program that implements something you are studying or an experiment that tests something you are studying)
What information you have found so far and where you found it
What information you need to find (or would like to find)

Requirements:

PowerPoint Slides with your main talking points and diagrams to help the audience understand any concepts you introduce. Your slides should have minimal text but should help the audience follow you by showing the main points. (NOTE: You may use any other presentation software that will run on Windows 7 on the classroom computer.)
The last slide of the presentation should list the correct citation for at least 4 resources you have used so far.
The presentation must be sent to Dr. Ingram at least two hours before class.