CSE191 Presentation Project: Special Topics in Discrete Structures

Introduction

Discrete Structures is a course full of abstract topics – predicate logic, proof techniques, sets, relations, functions, graphs, trees, etc. Some students will experience complete satisfaction from this level of topical abstraction, but most of you will become annoyed in at least one instance. That is, you’ll be asking yourself that age-old student question: “Why do we need to know this?!” Enter: this project.

Purpose

The primary purpose of this project is to expose you to real-world applications of Discrete Structures, thereby garnering both your appreciation and interest in the course material. Additionally, this will give you a little bit of experience with computer science research. Finally, you get to practice your “people skills” – teamwork, writing, and public speaking.

Assignment Specification – Please note the changes to the specification as of 10/10/07

This semester, you can elect to present a special topic in Discrete Structures. This assignment has now become optional. You can elect to do this assignment and have the grade count for 20% of your overall course grade, or you can choose not to do the assignment, and your 20% will be re-distributed to the other parts of the course (2% for turning in your option form on time and complete, 3.5% added to each of your exam grades, and 4% added to your homework grade).

If you elect to do this assignment, you will be working with a group of 5 people. You may select the members of your group; else they will be selected for you. There will be a form available for group selection given in class as well as on the website.

The first form you must fill out is an option form for this assignment. These option forms are only available in class. These option forms must be turned in by the beginning of class on Wednesday, October 17.

If you option to complete this assignment, group selection forms must be turned in at the beginning of class on Friday, October 26. This is a multistage project.

Stage 1: Executive Summary

You will turn in your executive summary on Friday, November 9 at the beginning of class.

In this first stage, you and your group members will select a topic related to course material. Note that the topics MUST pertain to course material, so the instructor will enforce these bounds on topic selection. You and your group members must determine an appropriate depth of topical coverage for your presentation and paper. From there, you should figure out what specific aspects of your topic you’d like to discuss. Write an executive summary that is no more than one half page double spaced in length to be turned in by the due date. The instructor will review your executive summary for its appropriateness for this project as well as looking for issues of scope. You will receive feedback about your choice.

I will not allow every group to do a project on the same topic. Therefore, if there are multiple groups with the same topic, an arrangement will be made with the groups and the instructor to vary the projects in some way.

Where should I look for topic ideas?

Any chapter in the text could provide you with ideas for where the topics of this course are used. Check out the problems at the end of each section, or the problems described in the text. Sections that deal with applications of the course material specifically are: 1.5, 1.6, 2.3, 4.2, 4.3, and all of chapters 5 & 6. Another way to find interesting topics is to search for the name of the topic on the Internet and look for applications of that topic.

Stage 2: Project Planning

This stage will last at least three weeks. It commences when you receive the feedback about your topic from Stage 1.

In this second stage, your group will actually plan out and do the research to complete the project. You will need to keep in mind that you are required to submit both a project report and complete a presentation about the topic you have chosen.

Presentation

Your presentation should convey in 10-15 minutes (depending on the number of groups) the content, topic, and results of your project. It should answer the following questions: What did you research? What information did you find? How does the topic apply the discrete structures material learned in class? Why was the topic originally interesting to you and your groupmates? Do you still find it interesting now? The only restriction on format is that if your presentation is a set of PowerPoint slides that you simply read content from, be warned that your grade will be very low for this part of the project. If you are using PowerPoint or a similar program, you should limit your slides. I encourage you to investigate alternative presentation formats. Consider incorporation of the chalkboard, Wolf Visualizer, overhead projector, poster, Java (or language of your choice) program execution, guided discussion, song/dance, etc. BE CREATIVE! [Let it be known that creativity points, which will be given frugally, will be bonus.]

Keep in mind that your group is being charged with the responsibility of educating your classmates about your topic and its relevance to the course; that includes the responsibility of maintaining student interest in your presentation.

Project Report

Your project report will be considerably longer than the presentation. The final report should be between 6 and 10 pages double spaced not including references or a cover page. Your paper should have references. You should have a minimum of two references for your topic/paper/presentation.

The paper should address the same questions as the presentation, but in greater detail. Special emphasis should be spent to indicate how your topic is an application or use of discrete structures material. The paper will be due on the last day of classes for all groups.

Stage 3: Presentation Execution

Presentations will be the last week of classes. A schedule will be posted soon.

You will have 10-15 minutes to execute your presentation depending on the number of groups. You should try very hard to involve all members of your group in the presentation, but due to the limited time, you will be allowed at most one person to “sit out” the presentation. That means, if your group has 4 members, three members must speak during the presentation. All four members may speak during the presentation as well. Note that speaking should be distributed evenly amongst the speaking members of the group. All of the usual public-speaking criteria exist here: clarity, volume, eye-contact, etc. During your presentation, your peers will rate your presentation. Their opinions about your presentation can potentially have a positive or negative impact on your grade.

Audience Evaluation and Peer Evaluation

Presentations will be evaluated by audience members. Attendance will be taken during the presentations and failure to attend all the presentations will result in a significant reduction in your personal presentation grade (or a reduction in your exam/HW grades if you choose not to participate in this project). Failure to complete evaluations for all the groups will also result in a significant reduction in your personal presentation grade. Comments are strongly encouraged for the groups and will be returned to members of the group anonymously. Please be constructive for the group comments.

You will also be asked to evaluate your peers for this project. Negative (or positive) evaluations from your peers will impact your grade.