Research Paper Assignment

CS 435

Winter, 2004

As an important part of the course requirement, each student will participate in a group project to prepare and submit a research paper on a topic related to the course material. This has several objectives. One of these, of course, is additional knowledge of the subject matter. More significant is the opportunity to explore the vast quantity of relevant technical literature available and to gain some familiarity with the sources of information on this or other computer science subjects. Additionally, group projects are valuable preparation for the kind of work environment that most students will find after graduation. Finally, the development of written communication skills is critical to career development.

Class members will form their own groups. Each group will consist of either three or four students, and the group will prepare a single paper on a mutually agreed upon research topic. Each member of the group will receive the same grade for the paper. Make sure that your group can meet frequently, but note that much of the collaboration can be done by email. Form your groups quickly, select a leader/coordinator, and choose a topic. Some class time will be provided for this purpose during the first week.

•Form your group

•Select a leader/coordinator

•Turn in a list of the group members, indicating which person is the group leader

The paper is to be no less than eight pages, and no more than twelve pages in length, plus the reference list and title page. It must reflect a breadth of investigation of the literature that results in at least six cited references (six different books or articles). At least three of these references are to be journal articles from different journals from the "approved list" provided. This means three different journal titles, not different issues of the same journal. Additional references may come from any appropriate books or articles. The course text may not itself be used as one of your six minimum references, but it does have an excellent bibliography that may be helpful in your research.

Note particularly.

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

Articles published in scholarly journals have received the approval of the members of the editorial board of that journal. These are scholars and other experts in the subject. The editorial board serves to ensure that all articles published are reliable, valid, well-written, and accurately documented.

Not true of a web site. Anyone can have a web page. I can have one, you can have one. Web pages carry no guarantee of reliability, validity, accuracy.

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

Articles published in scholarly journals have received the approval of the members of the editorial board of that journal. These are scholars and other experts in the subject. The editorial board serves to ensure that all articles published are reliable, valid, well-written, and accurately documented.

Not consistently true of “trade magazines” and the “popular press” (available on magazine racks). Some are better than others in this regard.

Caveat lector.

"Approved List" ACM Computing SurveysACM Transactions (all)Acta InformaticaAnnals of the History of Computing AT&T/Bell System Technical JournalCommunications of the ACMComputer Architecture NewsComputer JournalComputer Systems Science and EngineeringComputers and SecurityComputing SystemsFuture Generation Computer SystemsIBM Journal of Research and DevelopmentIBM Systems JournalIEEE ComputerIEEE Journal (all)IEEE Transactions (all)Information and ManagementInformation Processing and ManagementInformation Processing LettersInformation SystemsInternational Journal of Supercomputer Applications and High Performance Engineering Journal of AlgorithmsJournal of the ACMJournal of Computer and Software EngineeringJournal of Computer and System SciencesJournal of Parallel and Distributed ComputingJournal of SupercomputingThe Journal of Systems and SoftwareJournal of Systems Architecture: the EUROMICRO JournalOperating Systems ReviewParallel ComputingPerformance EvaluationProceedings of the IEEEReal-Time SystemsScience of Computer ProgrammingSIAM Journal (all)SimulationSimulation Practice and TheorySoftware--Practice & ExperienceTheoretical Computer Science Plus:

Proceedings of Computer Science Conferences (ACM or IEEE sponsored)

The paper is to be double spaced, with parenthetical references to a reference list. See the accompanying handout for the format to be used. It is strongly recommended that you use a spell checker. Do not use any special type fonts (other than italics), and do not put the paper in a cover or binder. Just staple once in the upper left-hand corner.

The first stage of the paper project is to prepare a “prospectus.” This will consist of description (approximately one page) of what the paper is going to be about, and a list of the references that will be used. Additional references may be added later, but this initial list must meet the test described above. This prospectus will have a title page, the overview of the paper, and a page (or more) for the reference list. This prospectus is to be submitted no later than Thursday, February 5. It will be graded (spelling, grammar, format) and that grade will be ten percent of the grade for the paper.

The second stage will be to resubmit the prospectus, correcting any deficiencies noted on the first submission. This revised submission is to be turned in by Thursday, February 19. This will count as another ten percent of the paper’s grade.

Two copies of the completed paper are to be submitted no later than Thursday of the ninth week (March 4). Late papers will not be accepted. Papers will be graded on content (scope, accuracy, value, interest), and on form (style, grammar, spelling, etc.). A paper that does not adhere to the rules presented will receive a severely reduced grade. All three submissions must be signed by all members of the group.

Example Topics for a Research Paper: Distributed DBMS Database Security Database Integrity The Future of Object Oriented DBMS Client-server Architectures The Network Model Multimedia Databases The Entity Relationship Model Intelligent Databases Improving Performance in a DBMS Database Recovery Query Optimization Next Generation Database File Servers Error Detection and Prevention in DBMS The Hierarchical DBMS Model CASE Tools for DB Design and Development Database Machines Data Warehousing Data Mining

Searching in the Library Shelves

Searching by Computer

“Paper Trail”

“Scholarly” articles will have references to other scholarly articles. These, in turn, will have references, etc.

Use of References

• Handout tells why

– To give credit to your sources

– To enable the reader to refer to those sources

• And how

– Explains parenthetical reference method

– Gives examples

– Lists the rules

Use of References•

–

– To enable the reader to refer to those sources

•

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Too often one cannot “refer” to a web page because it isn’t there any longer.

The “scholarly journals” can always be found (somewhere) for reference.

“The first generation was the mainframe. The second was the minicomputer. The third was the personal computer.”

The fourth? The 386.

“The 386…is the kind of breakthrough that …could remake the market.”

“The fourth generation operating system…Unix…Unix will be the first ‘universal’ operating system.”