Course project

All students in the class will write a “mini-paper” as a final project, which can be empirical, theoretical, or both. Students should write up the results in the NeurIPS conference format.

Working in groups

  • Students are welcome to work in groups on the final project.
  • Groups should include at most three students (except with special permission).
  • I will expect a group of two students to put twice as much work into the final project than for a sole-author project, and similarly for groups of three.
  • Students in groups are required to include a “contributions” paragraph in their paper that concretely lists each author’s contributions.
  • The paper length for a final project write-up is 3 + n where n is the number of people in the group that worked on the project, not including references or the contributions paragraph.

Milestones

  • October 12: Each student will add information about topics they find interesting to a project matching spreadsheet.
  • October 31: Each group will submit a short progress report of 1-2 pages. Describe your project and partial progress. Your writeup should include answers (implicitly or explicitly) to the following simplified version of the Heilmeier Catechism:
    • What are you trying to do?
    • How is it done today, and what are the limitations?
    • What’s new in your idea, and why might it succeed?
    • If successful, what difference will it make?
    • What’s the first thing you will try or have already tried to test the idea? Include any initial progress you’ve made so far.
  • December 4: Each group will present their final project during class.
  • December 12: Each group will submit their final report.

Grading

  • Project matching spreadsheet: 3 points.
  • Progress report: 7 points.
  • Writing: 10 points; your final paper should be readable and complete, and it should clearly contextualize your results within prior research.
  • Novelty: 10 points; your project should propose something new (either a new application, method, or perspective).
  • Final presentation: 10 points; your final project presentation should be clear and provide a solid picture of what you did.