For your final project, you need to pose a question, design a
framework in which to answer the question, conduct the research, and
write up your experience and results. There will be four deliverables
for this project which will count toward your final project grade: a
project proposal and research plan (20%), an extended abstract (20%),
an in-class presentation (20%), and a final report (40%). In
addition, you must schedule a project status meeting with the
instructor as discussed below.
- Project proposal and research plan due 2/29
Your project proposal should clearly state the goals of your project
and the research question you are investigating. Describe why you
think the project you are proposing is interesting and important.
Your research plan should include (1) related work that shows you have
enough background in the area to know that you are not simply
reproducing someone else's work, (2) hypotheses about the conclusions
you expect to draw from the work, (3) experimental setup which
describes what experiments you plan to conduct and how you plan to do
your measurements, (4) a description of hardware and software you will
need for your work so that we can make sure we have it available, and
(5) a detailed schedule for your work including dates and milestones.
The project proposal and research plan should be 5-6 pages.
- Project status meetings on 3/21, 12:30-4:30pm
Each group must meet with the instructor for a 20-minute project
status meeting on 3/21. The status meetings will occur during class
and during office hours after class. A signup sheet will be posted
for groups to sign up for meeting times.
- Extended abstract due 4/11
An extended abstract is a condensed version of your paper. It should
be 5-6 pages. You should have most of your research completed at this
point. The abstract may not have all the related work and some
experiments and data may still be missing, but it should contain the
key results and motivation for your work. Your abstracts will be
reviewed and returned to you with comments which you should take note
of in writing your final report.
- Project presentations on 4/11, 4/18 and 4/25
Each group will give a presentation on their project in class.
Presentations should be 15-20 minutes, with about 5 minutes for
questions afterwards. A signup sheet will be posted for groups to
sign up for presentation slots.
- Final report due 5/1
The final report is a research paper. Reports should be roughly 10-20
pages in length, including graphs, diagrams, and citations. Reports
should not be more than 20 pages. You should complete the writing
early enough that you have time to reread your work and critique it
with the same rigor that you applied in reviewing other papers for the
course. You should be honest and state shortcomings in your work.
You should discuss future work and possible follow-on projects.
Several of these reports may be suitable for submissions to an
operating systems conference such as Usenix or OSDI, though those of
you shooting for this year's
OSDI will have to
complete your reports earlier as a result of the 4/25 OSDI paper
submission deadline. I will be glad to work with you to turn them
into submissions. You will receive comments on your extended abstracts
before your final report is due, so be sure to leave some time to
address the comments raised from the reviews of those abstracts.
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