For your final project, you need to pose a question, design a
framework in which to answer the question, conduct the research, and
write up your experience and results. There will be five deliverables
for this project which will count toward your final project grade: a
project proposal and research plan (10%), midterm project status
presentation (10%), an extended abstract (10%),
an in-class presentation (20%), and a final report (50%). You are
encouraged to schedule periodic project status meetings with the
instructor.
- Project proposal and research plan due 2/13
Your project proposal should clearly state the goals of your project
and the research question you are investigating. Describe why you
think the project you are proposing is interesting and important.
Your research plan should include (1) related work that shows you have
enough background in the area to know that you are not simply
reproducing someone else's work, (2) hypotheses about the conclusions
you expect to draw from the work, (3) experimental setup which
describes what experiments you plan to conduct and how you plan to do
your measurements, (4) a description of hardware and software you will
need for your work so that we can make sure we have it available, and
(5) a detailed schedule for your work including dates and milestones.
- Project status presentations on 3/20
Each group should present a 15 minute talk with slides regarding their
project. The talk should include motivation for the work, related
work, a summary of the key research idea, current implementation
status, and any preliminary results. Groups should provide
hardcopies of their slides for the instructor.
- Extended abstract due 4/10
An extended abstract is a condensed version of your paper. It should
be 5-6 pages, double column, 10 point font, single space, and 1 inch margins.
You should have most of your research completed at this point. The abstract
should include a complete discussion of all related work, a complete
description of the research ideas, including mechanisms and algorithms
developed. It should provide a complete description of experiments that
have been done or will be done to validate the work, though some experiments
and data may still be missing. Your abstracts will be
reviewed and returned to you with comments which you should take note
of in writing your final report.
- Project presentations on 4/24
Each group will give a presentation on their project in class.
Presentations should be 15-20 minutes, with about 5 minutes for
questions afterwards.
- Final report due 4/30
The final report is a research paper. Reports should be roughly 10-20
pages in length, including graphs, diagrams, and citations. Reports
should not be more than 20 pages. Report format should be the same
as that of the extended abstract, double column, single space, 10 pt font,
and 1 inch margins. You should complete the writing
early enough that you have time to reread your work and critique it
with the same rigor that you applied in reviewing other papers for the
course. There should be a complete description of experimental results
with all support measurements and data.
You should be honest and state shortcomings in your work.
You should discuss future work and possible follow-on projects.
Several of these reports may be suitable for submissions to an
operating systems conference such as Usenix or OSDI. I will be glad
to work with you to turn them into submissions.
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