CS397-CXZ Introduction to Text Information Systems (Fall 2003)

Course Project (Optional)

Introduction

The optional "0.25 unit" course project is only required for those students who have registered for 1 unit. Its goal is to give such students hands-on experience on doing basic or applied IR research. You are expected to work on a small research topic and writing a report about it. Team work is encouraged, but you can also work completely on your own.

General steps

Grading criteria

Project proposal : 30%
Project report: 70%

In addition to the overall quality of the research you have done, the quality of the writing of your report will also be considered when grading. Refer to the guidelines on the proposal and report for what should be included in a report.

1. Pick a topic

You can either pick from a list of sample topics , or choose your own topic. In general, a topic would fall into one of the following three categories:

Evaluation: Empirically evaluate one or more existing text management algorithms in order to better understand these methods, and possibly further improve them.
Original study of basic text management techniques: Propose a new algorithm or method for some known problem, and compare it with a baseline method.
Application: Develop a text management application (e.g., search, categorization, or text mining) using an existing retrieval method.

When picking a topic, try to ask yourself the following questions:

Is the topic addressing an important problem (or an important need, in the case of building an application) ? Would any one care about it, if you solve the problem, or build the application?
Do you have any idea at all about how to solve the problem, or build the pplication? If not, can you reformulate the problem to make it easier?

A good topic is one that addresses a real need, that you like to work on, that you have some idea about it, and that is small enough for you to finish by the end of the semester.

2. Form a team

You are encouraged to work with other students as a team. Teamwork not only gives your some experience on working with others, but also allows you to work on a larger (presumably more interesting) topic.

The course newsgroup (uiuc.class.cs397cxz) may be useful for finding a teammate.

3. Read related work

Once you have chosen a topic, you will need to read some papers to know about what people have already done on the topic, so that you can be sure your idea extends , rather than duplicates, the existing work, if any. The instructor can suggest or help identify relevant papers.

4. Write a proposal

You are required to write a proposal before you actually go in depth on a topic. It will help you define the scope of research and plan the work accordingly over the semester. It will also serve as a basis for grading your project.

If your project involves testing a hypothesis or original research, your proposal should state explicitly all the following:

What your research question is.
Why this is an interesting question to ask and why we would care about the answer to this question.
Whether any existing research work has tried to answer the same or a similar question, and if so, what is still unknown.
How you plan to work out the answer to the question.
How you would evaluate your solution. That is, how you plan to demonstrate that your solution/answer is good or is reasonable.
A rough timeline to show when you expect to finish what.

If your project is to build a software tool, then your proposal should state explicitly all the following:

What the function of your tool exactly is. That is, what it will do.
Why we would need such a tool and who you would expect to use it.
Whether people have already built such a tool or a similar tool, and if so, how yours is different from or better than other tools.
How you plan to build it.
How you will demonstrate the usefulness of your tool.
A rough timeline to show when you expect to finish what.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please specify clearly what you plan to actually finish by the end of this semester.

Your are strongly encouraged to post your proposal on the course newsgroup class.uiuc.cs397cxz so that your fellow students know what you are working on and you may also get some feedback from them.

5. Work on the project

You should reuse any existing tools as much as possible. For example, consider using the Lemur toolkit or any of your assignment work, if possible. There are also many tools available on the Internet. See the resources page for some useful pointers.

Discuss any problems or issues with your teammate if any. Discuss them with other students in the class using the newsgroup (uiuc.class.cs397cxz). Discuss them with the instructor. If you need special support (e.g., more disk space on your account), please let the instructor know.

Consider documenting your work regularly. This way, you will already have a lot of things written down by the end of the semester.

You are all granted permissions to do cgi programming on the CSIL student web server. Detailed information is described in the following excerpt from a message:

I have setup access on the web server for the students in your class.
The web server is www-students.cs.uiuc.edu . In each students CSIL
account they will need the directory ~YOURNETID/public_html/cgi-bin . This
is where their cgi scripts should be stored. The scripts will then be called
with an address like this,
http://www-students.cs.uiuc.edu/~YOURNETID/cgi-bin/YOURSCRIPT

6. Project progress report

Please report your progress informally, but regularly to the instructor, e.g., by coming to the office hours or email messages. If needed, please do not hesitate to request a separate appointment for meeting with the instructor.

7. Present your project (tentative)

It is likely that we will schedule a separate time for all the students who are working on a course project to present their work, depending on whether there is a majority of interest. More details will be posted later.

You should think of this as if it were a short conference talk. In general, you will need to define and motivate the problem, describe your method(s), discuss the results, make conclusions, and discuss how the work can be further improved (i.e., future directions). Think very clearly about the key message you want to convey, and see how you can best use the given time slot to effectively convey the message to people. Since everyone has already listened to your progress presentation, you should try to avoid repeating too much what you have already presented, though you still need to say briefly about the motivation of your work. Grading of the presentation will be more based on the clarity of presentation than based on the quality of the project work being presented. The quality of the project work is the main criterion for grading the project report.

8. Write a project report (due Dec. 20, 2003, Saturday)

You should write your report as if you were writing a short conference paper. You should (1) explain your problem clearly; (2) provide sufficient motivation for your work and explain how your work is connected with the existing/previous work; (3) explain your methods with sufficient details; (4) discuss the research results; (5) summarize your work, draw conclusions if possible, and discuss how you think the work can be further improved/extended. There is no strict length requirement. You may target at anywhere between 6 pages (font 10, single column) and 10 pages (font 11, single column) without counting any necessary appendices. Actually, given the same amount of essential information, the shorter the better; of course, you will have to judge what counts as "essential information". A good report is not just a straightforward description of what you did (Such a paper would probably never be accepted by a good conference); it should demonstrate your research contributions very clearly and convincingly. Thus it is important that you think very clearly about what are the major points you want to make and include arguments and empirical evidence that support your points. For example, you may want to summarize or plot your experiment results in a particular way rather than some other way, because the "particular way" would support your point better. Always keep in mind what exactly you expect your readers to learn from your report, including both positive and negtive findings.

The project report should be handed in by email, and is due on Dec. 20, Saturday.