Presentation and preliminary bibliography

Your task for this assessment is to present your agreed subject for the 3,000 word essay. The subject must be agreed in advance between yourself and the examiner. This assessment accounts for 15% of the module mark. Failure on this assessment can be compensated by higher marks on the other assessments.

In principle, the subject of the essay can be the consideration of any current research topic or current technological development in Computer Science. To give you some ideas for potential topics, a list of past - submit proposal topics can be found Essay topics.

The subject for the presentation will be the same for the essay, and so must be chosen with the essay in mind. A good essay will

(i) help the reader to gain an understanding of the concepts involved in the subject area of the essay,

(ii) provide an overview of the current state, possibly together with some historical information of the subject area,

(iii) cover debates, different points of view, open questions, directions of future research and development in the subject area. Of particular interest are topics where there has been or there currently is a debate between two sides holding opposing views, e.g. pros and cons of software patents. In such a case the essay should present both sides and try to evaluate their arguments.

To guide you in chosing of topic, please consult the guidelines for Assessment 4 3,000 word essay. The purpose of doing a presentation and producing a preliminary bibliography for Assessment 1 is to demonstrate that you have chosen an interesting and suitable research topic. For more detailed assessment criteria see Assessment Criteria.

You should submit a topic proposal by answering the Essay Topic assessment for COMP516 in the VITAL system The deadline for submitting a topic is 18:00 Friday 19 October 2012. In the case your topic is found to be unsuitable for an essay, you will be asked to submit a new proposal.

You should spend a total of 15 hours on this task.

Your presentation should be no more that 5 minutes in length and use at most four slides: A title slide, and three more. Your preliminary bibliography should contain approximately ten carefully chosen entries, that must be presented in an appropriately chosen style. We will discuss presentations and preparing bibliographies in the lectures.

General information on presentations can be found at Presentations.

Your slides and bibliography must be submitted in advance of your presentation. Please submit two files,

1. The slides, which can be in PDF or Powerpoint 2007 format, and
2. The preliminary bibliography, which must be a PDF, and should be no more than one page using a 12pt font. NOTE: If you are going to produce a PDF from a Word document, it is recommended that you use CutePDF Writer. An example can be found here.

The files should be emailed to d.wojtczak@liverpool.ac.uk.

Your email should adhere to the following, where you should replace USERNAME with your CS username, e.g., m0xx.

• Send the email from your university email address
• The subject of your email should be: “COMP516 A1 USERNAME”
• Submit both the slides and bibliography in the same email
• The slides should be called USERNAME_s.?
• The bibliography should be called USERNAME_b.pdf

The deadline for submission of your slides and bibliography is 18:00 Friday 2 November 2012.

Earlier submission is possible, but any submission after the deadline attracts the standard lateness penalties. See http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/department/regulations/practical.html for details.

Assessment Criteria

Your presentation and bibliography will be judged on how well they demonstrate that you have chosen an interesting research topic and have a good plan for doing the research for Assessment 4. A good presentation will:

• Provide a high-level view of your research topic and explain why it is interesting.
• Clearly identify a well-defined research question.
• Demonstrate that the research question offers sufficient breath and depth.

A good preliminary bibliography will:

• Identify a range of general and specific high-quality references related to your research question.

This assessment will primarily address the following learning outcomes: That you should:

• have an understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to extend, create and interpret knowledge in Computer Science.
• demonstrate self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems within the domain of Computer Science, and be able to act autonomously in planning and implementing solutions in a professional manner;
• be able to define and plan a programme of independent research.