MSc Projects Outline

MSc in Computer Science 2015-6

Oliver Ray

04/12/2015

Contents• Project Timeline• Research Skills• Project Interviews• Project System• Project Types (I, II, III)• Factors when choosing a Project• Other sources of ideas• Student Case Study• Staff Case Study

Project Timeline

… dec jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep

07 14 21 28 04 11 18 25 01 08 15 22 29 07 14 21 28 04 11 18 25 02 09 16 23 30 06 13 20 27 04 11 18 25 01 08 15 22 29 05 12

TB 1 CV JAP TB 2 EV TB 2SRW

SAP SV

Projectinterviews

Projectproposals

Project allocation

Posterdemo

thesis

literature list

synopsis

research review

workplan

project execution(Individual Project)

progression

Project specification(Research Skills)

Projectwriteup

https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/project/MSc/

A note on Progression• Marks for taught units are considered by an exam

board in June and the results will be announced at the end of June

• If you fail any units you won’t normally be allowed to start your project until you have passed any resits in September– this is official university policy!

• In this case, you will give your poster/demo in late December and submit your thesis in mid January– This will delay your graduation!

https://www.bris.ac.uk/engineering/currentstudents/gradschool/summerresults.html

Research Skills

https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Teaching/Resources/COMSM2202

/

Project Interviews

https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/project/MSc/interviews.html

• You should start thinking about your project in TB1 as you must find a supervisor by wk14 at the latest

• This is a competitive interview process so you will need to go prepared and be able to sell yourself

• All students need to define their own project using the skills they will learn on Research Skills unit

• But staff will help you to get started by putting some initial draft proposals into our Project System

• Students really need to be proactive in all aspects of their projects (self-motivation is the key to success)

• Start approaching staff as soon as possible; don’t get left behind

Project System (MSc)

https://wwwa.fen.bris.ac.uk/COMSM2202/projects/index.jsp

Project Types• Type I: Implementation – build a novel piece of software /

hardware using concepts from Computer Science. The added value will mainly come from the design and evaluation.

• Type II: Investigation - work on an open research problem to find new results or new methods. The added value will come from the analysis of requirements, design and evaluation.

• Type III: Theory - developing models / theories to explain an idea in Computer Science. The added value will come from the mathematical analysis above that already in the literature.

• Any combinations of the above!

https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/project/MSc/MScProjectGuidelines.pdf

Factors when choosing a Project

• CV/Portfolio - What do you want to do in the future? • Passion – Which topics do you enjoy the most?• Skills – What are your strengths and weaknesses?• Personality – Which members of staff to you get on with?• Ownership – You must take responsibility for your project!

– Regularly check the projects list and do some background reading– Contact the supervisors: email them; go to their office, talk through the

project; demonstrate your understanding; be willing to contribute your thoughts on the directions the project could take

– Remember most projects can be adapted to suit your interests and skills; most projects will evolve over time anyway

– Remember other projects can be suggested; you are encouraged to propose your own ideas, but you must find a supervisor to champion them

Other sources of ideas: PhD

https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/admissions/phd/projects/phd-projects.jsp

Other sources of ideas: UG

https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/project/ideas/staff.html

Other sources of ideas: Web

http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~oray/

Other sources of ideas: Papers

https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=3vwgzlUAAAAJ&hl=en

Other sources of ideas: Groups

http://www.bris.ac.uk/engineering/departments/computerscience/research

/

The Bottom Line• The task of specifying a good MSc project is a continuous

process of refinement that requires a significant amount of effort and background knowledge

• It is simply not practical for staff to formalise all of the ideas or interests they have, so there is no substitute for doing your own research and going to talk to staff in person

• The best projects will most likely be done by students who are already thinking about their projects and talking to staff (i.e. taking responsibility without being told what to do)

• SO GET OUT THERE!

Student Case Study: Nov 2015

Hi Oliver,

I'm looking forward to your lecture. I'm just emailing to ask for some initial advice about choosing a realistic project: from either an area in which I have more experience (Law-related technology), or one for which I have less experience but far more enthusiasm (dance-related technology).

After you mentioned that I would be taking Research Skills this year, I decided to take a look at the unit pages and read some of the handbook. I was really excited to learn of your interests in social dancing and in legal reasoning.

I hope this is not too early, pre-emptive or presumptuous, but I'm hoping you could advise me about choosing a realistic project from one of those areas. I've had and researched ideas for both (below), but it would be really helpful to know which direction would be most advisable to explore more. My current ideas are as below. If you do have the time, and it's an appropriate stage, then many thanks in advance for your advice.

Student Case Study: Idea #1

Law: More efficient machine classification of legal documents - trying to find quicker ways (both computationally, and pragmatically in a business sense) of accurately identifying what long legal documents are about. (Should be comfortably within my knowledge and ability.)

Student Case Study: Idea #2

Dancing: Learning exercises to teach social dancers how to hear and respond to the music's beat more accurately. This would involve researching the biological/knowledge-gap some people have problems hearing and moving to the beat, and designing some software exercises to help train them to do this better. (Should be comfortably within my knowledge and ability.)

Student Case Study: Idea #3

Dancing: "Silent" tap shoes: Using wireless, pressure sensing and MIDI technology to let tap dancers dance with minimal noise, sending synthesised sounds from their feet to a headset, rather than out as a nuisance to the world. May also involve using physical sound-proofing. (I would need to learn a lot to implement this in hardware, but if the circuitry is kept relatively simple, execution should still be possible for me). 

Student Case Study: Idea #4

Dancing: Typing using dance moves: designing a workable 'alphabet' from a well-defined set of dance moves, and using motion detection, gesture recognition, and keyboard input technologies to implement it. (This would require the most new learning, and would be the most risky in terms of my ability to execute it. But it's the one I would most love to do! Wondering whether even doing one part of it - the alphabet design, using some computer science technique to find the most commonly combined and least strenuous dance motions to include - would be an appropriate project?)

Staff Case Study: Nov 20151) Modelling of collective decision making in social insects

https://sites.google.com/site/computationalantlab/home

2) Energy aware Software Compilation

http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~cb0094

3) Sports Analytics

4) Relational Data Mining / Nonmonotonic Reasoning

5) …

THE END