5023 Technical Paper Assignments

NOTE: Each part of this assignment, like others in this class, is 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 completed assignment ahead of time. Do this by submitting it to me during office hours or by sliding it under my office door. Do not send assignments to me through email or leave them in my departmental mail box.

As discussed in the syllabus and in class, those students taking the "grad version" of the course (5023), as opposed to the "undergrad version" (4023), are required to do additional assignments. Those assignments involve choosing a topic, writing a paragraph describing that topic, doing a literature search and turning in a list of references, writing summaries of appropriate technical papers found, making comparisons between these papers, and evaluating the appropriateness of the methods discussed for the Sooner Lunar Schooner mission. Students not taking this version of the course do not need to complete these assignments.

Topic Paragraph

The first step in this assignment is to determine your topic. The topic may be any topic covered in the course textbook (Introduction to AI Robotics, Robin Murphy, 2000, MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-13383-0.) To ensure that your topic is not overly broad nor overly narrow, you should pick a topic to which Murphy has dedicated at least two sections but no more than two chapters of her book. For example, the topic "robotics" is covered in all 12 chapters, so it is overly broad. Similarly, the topic "social entropy" is covered in a single subsection, so it is too narrow. On the other hand, "approaches for reactive robotics" is the topic of a single chapter, so it has an appropriate breadth to it.

Once you have decided on a topic, you are to write a paragraph describing, in your own words, the topic you have selected. (If you are unclear as to what it means to described something "in your own words," please read the Provost's web pages on academic integrity, particularly the documents related to plagiarism.) The point of your writing this paragraph is to ensure that you have looked at your proposed topic in enough depth to make a topic selection appropriate for your work in this course.

Your topic paragraph should be approximately 100-200 words in length. (This is a guideline range. Values somewhat outside this range are acceptable. However, if you go much over 200 words, I may take off points for being excessively verbose.) You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. You should submit an electronic copy of your topic paragraph before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, February 4.

References

The second step in this assignment is to conduct a literature search to find publications describing five different approaches to the topic you have chosen. (Actually, you could conduct part or all of this literature search while determining your topic. However, you are not required to turn in your list of references until after you have turned in your topic paragraph, so you may conduct the literature search second.) The approaches you decide to cover may include those discussed in the textbook (for example, if you have chosen the topic "approaches for reactive robotics," you could decide to cover the subsumption approach which is discussed in your textbook). However, at least two of the five approaches should not be discussed in detail in your textbook.

You will need to find at least one publication describing each approach. The exact number of publications you use is up to you to determine. If you find a single publication that describes an approach in sufficient detail for you to get a good understanding of how it works, that one publication is sufficient. If you discover that the one publication you have found on an approach is insufficient for you to understand that approach, however, then you'll need to find more publications on that approach or move on to another approach.

The publications you use must be refereed technical publications. These include conference papers and journal articles (whether published in print or on the web) but not popular sources such as magazines (e.g., Discover Magazine) or un-refereed sources (such as most web sites, even for departments or labs). Moreover, conferences or journals used should be professional conferences or journals, rather than student conferences or journals. It is okay if some or all of the authors of your selected publications are students—they often are in professional publications! However, the conference or journal should be one in which professionals regularly publish. If you are in doubt about a possible source, you should check with me before using it.

Turn in complete citations for these five approaches. Here are guidelines for what a complete citation includes.

• For journals, a complete citation must include:
  • Article title,
  • Author name(s),
  • Name of journal,
  • Pages, and
  • Year.
  If available, the following should also be included:
  • Volume,
  • Number and/or Month
• For conference, symposium, or workshop proceedings, a complete citation must include:
  • Article title,
  • Author name(s),
  • Conference title,
  • Pages, and
  • Year.
  If available, the following may also be included:
  • Editor,
  • Volume or number,
  • Month,
  • Location of the conference,
  • Primary sponsoring organization(s), and
  • Publisher
  How much of this optional information you include for a proceedings is a judgment call. You should make this decision based on the well-known the event is. If you don’t know how well-known an event is, err on the side of providing too much information, rather than too little. In general, provide as much information as possible for workshops as well as for conferences and symposia in their first few years.

You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it.

You should submit an electronic copy of your references before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, February 11.

Draft Review

The third step is to select any one of the five approaches for which you have found publications, and write a review of it. The review will have three components:

1. Approach Summary. You are to write a summary that includes the main ideas behind the approach. This summary does not need to compare this approach to any other. However, it should be detailed enough that a reader familiar with different approaches to the same topic should be able to recognize that the approach you are summarizing is, in fact, different.

   Please Note: Taking the first line or two from each paragraph in a paper, stringing them together, and changing around a few words here or there to make things read better, is NOT a summary. It is plagiarism—a form of academic misconduct. Any time you quote a source, you must include the quotation in quotation marks and clearly indicate the source of the quotation. If you find yourself with more than a couple of brief quotes in each summary, then you are quoting too much. To summarize a paper, you need to (1) read it, (2) understand it, and (3) briefly relate its main points in your own words. If you don't have your own words to describe the approach, that probably means that you don't understand the paper—you'll need to go back to steps 1 and 2 and visit me during office hours as needed to help you with step 2. (I don't expect most students to have problems understanding the difference between a summary and plagiarism. This message is for those few who do.) Again, if you don't understand what it means to describe something "in your own words," please read the Provost's web pages on academic integrity, particularly the documents related to plagiarism.)

   The summary should run from  1.5 to 2  3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line,  50  25 lines per page. You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. (Again, this is a guideline range. Values somewhat outside this range are acceptable. However, if you go much over 2 pages, I may take off points for being excessively verbose.)

2. Internal Evaluation. Once you have summarized the approach, you should give a critical evaluation of it. The term 'critical' here does not mean negative. Rather, it means, like any good critic, you should thoroughly evaluate the approach, in a principled way, and give your best judgment as to its strengths and weaknesses. As you have not thoroughly investigated other approaches to your topic yet, this evaluation will be internal. That is, you will evaluate whether the authors present an approach consistent with the objectives they have set for themselves and that seems to fit together as a coherent whole.

   The internal evaluation should run from  1.5 to 2  3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line,  50  25 lines per page. You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. (Again, this is a guideline range.)

3. Application Evaluation. In addition to the internal evaluation, you should give a critical evaluation of the approach with regard to the Sooner Lunar Schooner mission. Think of the kinds of characteristics the approach should have and discuss whether the approach in question has these characteristics and to what degree. You should include both your reasoning and your conclusion as to how suitable each approach is for the task.

   The application evaluation should run from  1.5 to 2  3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line,  50  25 lines per page. You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. (Again, this is a guideline range.)

You should submit an electronic copy of your draft review before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, February 18.

Final Review

The fourth step is to revise the draft review, based on the feedback you have received. The final review will have all of the same parts and will be the same length as the draft review. It will simply be a better version of the draft. You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it.

You should submit an electronic copy of your review before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class.  Due: Wednesday, March 4.  Due: Monday, March 9. When you submit your paper copy of your final review, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your draft review.

Draft Slides

The fifth step is to prepare draft slides for your in-class presentation.

• Each presentation will be 15 minutes long with 3 minutes for questions and answers.
• You should use no more than 15 slides during your talk (although you may prepare additional slides for use during the question and answer period).
• Each review presentation will cover the same three components as your written review:
  1. Approach Summary,
  2. Internal Evaluation, and
  3. Application Evaluation.
• 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. Acceptable electronic formats include OpenDocument Presentation (.odp), OpenOffice.org 1.0 Presentation (.sxi), Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP (.ppt), and Portable Document Format (.pdf). Please note that Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) format is NOT acceptable. Due: Monday, March 23.

Final Slides

The sixth step is to revise your draft slides for your in-class presentation, to get them into their final form. 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, March 30. When you submit your paper copy of your final slides, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your draft slides.

Review Presentation

The seventh step is to actually present your review to the class. As stated previously, each presentation will be 15 minutes long with 3 minutes for questions and answers. I may call on you to give your presentation on Monday, March 30 or Wednesday, April 1. I will not announce the exact presentation schedule ahead of time. This means that you will need to attend class both 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", you will need to turn in the final draft of your slides for grading on Monday, March 30.

Draft Technical Comparison Paper

The eighth step is to write a draft paper that covers all five approaches to the topic you have chosen (see "References" above).

For each approach, you will provide an approach summary and internal evaluation, as you did in single approach review (see "Draft Review" above). The length of the approach summary and internal evaluation for each approach will be the same as it was for the single approach review. That is, each approach summary will be approximately  1.5 to 2  3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line,  50  25 lines per page, for a total of  7.5 to 10  15 to 20 such pages for all five summaries together. Similarly, each internal evaluation will be approximately  1.5 to 2  3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line,  50  25 lines per page, for a total of  7.5 to 10  15 to 20 such pages for all five internal evaluations together. (Once again, this is a guideline range. Values somewhat outside this range are acceptable. However, if you go much over  20  40 pages for all summaries and internal evaluations together, I may take off points for being excessively verbose.) As you have already completed this exercise for one approach, you may include the text of your final review within this overall paper and concentrate your current effort on completing the remaining four reviews and internal evaluations.

Further, your paper must include a comparison of the five approaches, pointing out both similarities and differences between them. As with the internal evaluations, this will be a critical comparison. (Again, the term 'critical' here does not mean negative. Rather, it means, like any good critic, you should thoroughly compare the approaches, in a principled way, and give your best judgment as to how they stack up to one another.) The basis for your comparisons will be the individual criteria put forth by the authors of each paper, other criteria you have learned from the textbook or other sources you have encountered while researching your topic, other fundamental engineering and computer science criteria that you have learned in your academic career (e.g., space and time complexity of algorithms), and any other criteria you deem relevant. The comparisons of all five approaches should run a total of  5 to 10  10 to 20 pages in length, with at least  one page  two pages clearly laying out the criteria you will use in comparing the approaches. A table summarizing the comparisons would be welcome but is not sufficient to constitute the entirety of your comparison. Instead, your comparison must include significant text (and possibly figures) to help the reader understand how each approach compares to the others on each comparison criterion.

In addition, your paper must include an application evaluation for the one approach you deem best, based on your comparison of all five approaches. As with the single approach application evaluation, this application evaluation will be with regard to the Sooner Lunar Schooner mission and will run from  1.5 to 2  3 to 4 pages in length at roughly 80 characters per line,  50  25 lines per page. (Again, this is a guideline range.) Iff the approach you covered for the single approach review is the approach you deem best, based on your comparison, you may use the text of your individual review application evaluation as the application evaluation in this paper. If, on the other hand, you determine that another approach is superior, you will need to write up a new application evaluation for the approach.

Finally, your paper must include a complete set of references for all the approaches covered, plus any additional sources you are using for your comparison criteria. The contents of these references are covered above under "References."

You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. To conserve paper, you should print all of your documents for this class on both sides of each sheet of paper when practical and should make an extra effort to do so with this large document.

You should submit an electronic copy of your draft paper before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, April 8.

Final Paper

The ninth and final step is to revise the draft paper, based on the feedback you have received. The final paper will have all of the same parts and will be the same length as the draft review. It will simply be a better version of the draft.

You should double space this document, so that I have room to write comments/corrections on it. To conserve paper, you should print all of your documents for this class on both sides of each sheet of paper when practical and should make an extra effort to do so with this large document.

You should submit an electronic copy of your paper before class through D2L and turn in a printed copy at the start of class. Due: Wednesday, April 22. When you submit your paper copy of your final paper, you must also resubmit your graded paper copy of your draft paper.