CSIS
496 – Senior Seminar
Identification
of Topic and References (10% of Final Grade)
·
Identification and approval of topic by
instructor.
o Title of topic and a one or two paragraph description of the topic must be submitted to the Moodle site by Tuesday, January 24.
o You will be notified by my feedback on the Moodle site as to the approval/disapproval of your topic by Thursday, January 26 at the latest.
o You are encouraged to discuss your potential topic with the instructor prior to this time to increase your chances of having it approved. Typically I will not allow more than one student to research the same topic (first-come, first-serve with respect to topic approval).
o You may follow this link to websites that I frequently use to research various computer science topics.
o Topics that students chose last year can be viewed at this link.
· Written Proposal (Due Tuesday, February 7) including a one or two page overview of topic and detailed bibliographic citation of proposed references.
o The written proposal is due on this date regardless of when your proposal presentation is scheduled.
o References may include textbooks, journal/magazine articles and other professional publications such as user manuals.
o You are encouraged to use refereed journal articles or textbooks as your primary sources since they have been refereed by a panel of professionals in the field. Web Sites often reflect only the opinion of the author and should only be used as secondary sources or sources of more current information. At best, you should regard all Web Sites with skepticism and be aware of potential author bias.
o I realize that, for certain topics, Web sites may be the only ones available or the most appropriate. You should obtain my approval if you plan to use strictly WebSite-based references.
o You should use a technical writing text or one of the Internet Writing Resources to resolve issues of grammar and style and for examples of approved bibliographic citation formats.
o You must identify at least ten references which you feel you have a reasonable chance of obtaining through sources such as original copies of books and journals, interlibrary loan and the internet. The FLC library is extremely weak with respect to computer science references that are stored on-site. I strongly encourage you to use interlibrary loan.
o The FLC Library’s Home Page at this link provides a nice starting point for literature searches.
o As a member of the ACM, I am a subscriber to the ACM Digital Library and can obtain copies of ACM articles for you through the digital library. Just send me an email containing a link to the article you would like a copy of and I can download it for you.
o CITIDEL is another excellent digital library for the computing sciences.
o Your CSIS professors all have a personal library that they are often willing to share with you.
· Ten minute presentation of Topic Proposal. (Tuesday, February 7).
o Each student will conduct an oral presentation of their topic proposal using MS Powerpoint or other similar presentation software.
o
A printed
copy of Powerpoint slides must be handed in to the
instructor (printed as 6 slides per page) at the beginning of your
presentation.
o Please refer to these guidelines for conducting presentations.
o The Penn State Engineering Department has prepared the following 3 presentations to help teach you how to conduct more effective presentations, I highly recommend that you study them (you might want to view them in Note Pages view to see how the author designed them):
1. Visual Aids
2. Delivery
3. Examples of Effective Slides using the Assertion/Evidence Format
o The instructor will use this form to evaluate your presentation.
o You can refer to the The Online Writing Center at RPI for even more information on conducting effective presentations.