CS 689: Research Methods in Computer Science

Fall Semester 2009

Instructor: Chris Lüer, PhD
Email:
Office: RB 442
Office hours: see instructor's Web page

Lecture: Tu, Th 5:00 - 6:15 pm, RB 122

Description - Materials - Policies - Schedule

Description

Catalog description:
689 Research Methods in Computer Science. (3)
Discussions on research areas in computer science, scientific methods of research, and dissemination of research. Requirements include presentations and written reports that demonstrate proficiency in presentation tools and techniques, statistical and experimental design techniques, and library and literature searches.
Prerequisite: CS 570.

Materials

Required Textbooks:
Leedy, Paul; Ormrod, Jeanne. Practical Resarch. 9th edition. Pearson Education, 2009.
Zobel, Justin. Writing for Computer Science. 2nd edition. Springer, 2004. — Author's site with additional resources.

Literature databases:

Grades and handouts are posted to Blackboard. However, we do not use Blackboard for grade calculations.

Policies

Cheating. Consequences of cheating in this class: the course grade is lowered, possibly to F. No team work is allowed in this class unless explicitly stated. Material that is copied from books or Web pages has to be quoted and the source must be given. Copying material without citing the source is plagiarism and is considered cheating. Be aware of the Ball State University Student Academic Ethics Policy.

Attendance. There is no grade for attendance; however, there may be unannounced quizzes. There is no make-up for missed quizzes. Oral participation is expected.

Email. Emails to the instructor and the TA must be sent from a BSU account; this is the only way for us to verify your identity. Emails from other accounts may be ignored. Please make sure that your mailbox does not overflow, or you may miss emails from the instructor.

Grading.
Participation, homework, quizzes 20%
Final exam 20%
Project 50%
Chapter presentation 10%

If you receive 93.3% of the total course credit, you will get an A. If you receive 90.0%, you will get an A- or better. If you receive 86.7%, you will get a B+ or better, and so on.

Students with special needs or disabilities. If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please let me know as soon as possible.

Schedule

The schedule is subject to change.

Week	Topic and Readings Tu	Topic and Readings Th	Assignments due
1	Introduction: Research	Introduction: Computer Science Denning. Is Computer Science Science?
2	Research, LO 2 (Adam)	Paper presentations: Deb: Agrawal, Chari, Software Effort, Quality, and Cycle Time David L: Gorla, Lam, Who Should Work with Whom? Adam: Conforti, Cornuéjols, A Class of Logic Problems Solvable by Linear Programming Soumik: Tang et al., Email Data Cleaning	Paper presentations
3	Paper presentations: Ryan: Kaikkonen, Full or Tailored Mobile Web? Chaitanya: Vegas et al., Maturing Software Engineering Knowledge through Classifications David C: Wang et al., Multipath Live Streaming via TCP Charles: McFall, Dershem, Davis, Experiences Using a Collaborative Electronic Textbook Zach: O'Sullivan, Dingliana, Collisions and Perception	Paper presentations: Logesh: Mehta et al., Detecting Image Spam Using Visual Features and Near Duplicate Detection Achyuth: Ge et al., Agile Development of Secure Web Applications Venkata: Iwasaki, Miyaki, Rekimoto, Expressive Typing Snehal: Balaji, Ahuja, Critical Team-Level Success Factors of Offshore Outsourced Projects	Paper presentations
4	Library instruction (meet at Bracken)	Basics of research; Using the library; References
5	Literature surveys; LO 3 (Zach), 4 (David L)	Research ethics: Zobel 13; Presentation technique: Zobel 14
6	Survey Adam, Assumptions and Expectations by the Younger Generation On Future Computer Technology David L, Formation and Interaction of Programming Teams in a College Course Setting Snehal, Critical Risks in Outsourced IT Projects Venkata, Authentication using typing patterns	Survey Achyuth, Software Ergonomics Soumik, Cleaning dirty data from online sources Logesh, Proxies for Preventing SQL Injection Attacks Charles, Instructional Experiences with Electronic Textbook Components David C, Improving multimedia streaming in wired networks using TCP	Survey draft
7	Survey Zach, Human Centric Indoor Navigation Techniques Ryan, Bot Detection in MMORPGs Deb, TBA Chaitanya, Testing at Early Stages of the Process Dung, Adaptive Web page layout algorithms for small devices	Survey (Anup, TBA); Quantitative research: LO 9 (Achyuth), 10 (David C)	Survey; Survey critique
8	Quantitative Research: LO 11 (Snehal, Deb)	Qualitative Research: LO 7 (Soumik); Research Proposals: LO 5 (Charles), 6 (Ryan)
9	Research proposals; Zobel 10 (Chaitanya), Zobel 11 (Venkata)	Research report: LO 12 (Logesh); Zobel 9
10	Guest lecture, Dr. Zage	Guest lecture, Ms. Ahmad
11	Proposal presentations (Venkata, Dave L, Adam)	Proposal presentations (Ryan, Deb, Zach, Soumik, Dung, Dave C)	Proposal draft
12	Proposal presentations (Achyuth, Charles, Chaitanya, Logesh, Snehal)	Serc Workshop	Proposal; Workshop report
13	Serc Workshop	Proposal presentations; Research methods in CS Shaw, Writing Good Software Engineering Research Papers Patterson, How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia
14	no class — Thanksgiving	no class — Thanksgiving
15	Project presentations (Deb, Charles, Logesh, Adam)	Project presentations (Achyuth, Soumik, Dave L, Ryan)	Final report draft
16	Project presentations (Venkata, Zach, Chaitanya, Snehal, Dave C)	Review	Final report

Final Exam: Wednesday, December 16, 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm

Chris Lüer.