CS 5970 — Technical Paper Presentations

NOTE: The hardcopies of the parts of this assignment are due at the beginning of the class period. This means that if you are even a minute late, you lose 20%. If you are worried about potentially being late, turn in your assignments ahead of time. Do this by submitting them to me during office hours or by sliding them under my office door. Electronic copies are due by 4:00 pm on the due date. Submit them through D2L before the time they are due. Do not send assignments to me through email or leave them in my departmental mail box.

Each student will present two technical papers to the class. Students will propose papers for their presentations and the instructor will approve or reject these proposals. All papers must come from the primary, peer reviewed literature in evolutionary computation (broadly defined). For the first of these papers, students will turn in draft slides that will be reviewed by the instructor who will provide feedback that the students should use to improve their slides for the presentation. Students may choose to create draft slides for the second paper as well, and the instructor will provide feedback on these slides if provided, although this is not a course requirement.

Draft Slides for First Presentation

For the first presentation, students must prepare draft slides.

• The first presentation will be 15 minutes long with a discussion period of 20 minutes.
• You should use no more than 15 slides during your talk (although you may prepare additional slides for use during the discussion period).
• The first review presentation will cover these points:
  1. The domain/application.
  2. The problem to be solved or question to be answered.
  3. The motivation for solving this problem or answering this question and why evolutionary computation is involved.
  4. The hypothesis.
  5. The approach and methodology.
  6. The experiment(s).
  7. The results.
  8. The conclusions.
  9. Future work.
  10. Discussion questions. You should have at least five questions that you can ask of the other students in the class to spur discussion. These should be included in your slides but do not count toward the 15 total for the presentation.
• Make the slides high-contrast. (No white letters on a pink background or vice versa.)
• Keep each slide simple. Limit each slides to a few list items, one equation (or two very simple equations), a simple figure, or a table with very few columns and rows. There is no need to try to put your entire paper on a slide or to try to spell everything out in great detail. You will be talking and can provide sufficient detail with what you say. The slides should be for main points only. Allowing the slides to ramble on and on, or to contain excessive repetition, or other similar problems, will only detract from their usefulness. While I am grading you on your slides, I don't need them to explain the whole of your paper to me. I have your paper for that. The purpose of your slides is to support your talk. Blah, blah, blah. Do you get the feeling this is getting longer and longer but not saying anything more? Well, okay then; do not make your slides like this paragraph. Make them like the opening sentence or two, which had all of the points without all of the words.
• Have an overview slide near the start of your talk and a review or summary slide near the end.
• If you use colors, use them for important points only. They should not distract your audience.
• For additional ideas on how to give a good presentation, see my presentation on how to give a good technical presentation.

You should submit an electronic copy of your draft slides before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Monday, September 27.

Final Slides for First Presentation

For both presentations, you need to turn in final slides. For the first presentation, I will provide you with feedback on your draft slides to aid you with your revisions. You should submit an electronic copy of your final slides before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Monday, November 1. When you submit your paper copy of your final slides, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your draft slides.

First Review Presentation

You must also actually present your review to the class. As stated previously, your first presentation will be 15 minutes long with 20 minutes for discussion. I may call on you to give your presentation on any of the scheduled presentation days. I will not announce the exact presentation schedule ahead of time. This means that you will need to attend class all of these days and be ready to present when called on. You will not be graded on your actual speaking (except that you will lose points if you fail to give a presentation). The presentation grading will be for the slides. As stated above (under "Final Slides for First Presentation"), you will need to turn in the final draft of your slides for grading.

Draft Slides for Second Presentation

Draft slides are not required for your second presentation. However, should you choose to create draft slides for this presentation and provide them to me a week or two before your second presentation, I will attempt to review them and provide you with feedback that you can use to prepare the final slides for your second presentation. If you choose to provide me with draft slides, you will need to resubmit the graded paper copy of your draft slides along with your final slides.

Final Slides for Second Presentation

Your second presentation will be 30 minutes long with a discussion period of 45 minutes.

Your second presentation should cover the same 10 points as the first presentation.

In addition to the points covered in your first presentation, your second presentation must include a critical evaluation of the work. The term ’critical’ here does not mean negative. Rather, it means, like any good critic, you should thoroughly evaluate the approach and methodology, in a principled way, and give your best judgment as to its strengths and weaknesses. The critical evaluation is worth half of the review points and should be extensive.

Also, your second presentation should include at least 10 discussion questions, rather than the five required for the first presentation. As with the first presentation, these questions should be included on your slides but do not count toward the presentation total (which is 30 slides for the second presentation).

You should submit an electronic copy of your final slides before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday November 17.

Second Review Presentation

As with the first review, you must also actually present your second review to the class. As stated previously, your second presentation will be 30 minutes long with 45 minutes for discussion. I may call on you to give your presentation on any of the scheduled presentation days. I will not announce the exact presentation schedule ahead of time. This means that you will need to attend class all of these days and be ready to present when called on. You will not be graded on your actual speaking (except that you will lose points if you fail to give a presentation). The presentation grading will be for the slides. As stated above (under "Final Slides for Second Presentation"), you will need to turn in the final draft of your slides for grading.