How to get the maximum marks for the effort put into your Final Year Project

1. How to get the maximum marks for the effort put into your Final Year Project Chris Price

2. Why is this important? • Because it will make a big difference to your degree • A good 394 project mark can go a long way towards bumping your degree class • It can help you get the job you want afterwards - portfolio for employment

3. Say you had average of 45% in 2nd year, and in 3rd year you continue getting mostly 45s. Just 50 credits of 60 would get you a 50% and a 2(ii) degree. Ditto 55% average in 2nd year and 50 credits of 70 (or 8 of 65) and you would get 60% and a 2(i). The 394 is 40 of those 50 credits and it is in your control. On the other hand, failing the 394 tends to screw up your year completely - no degree Modular System - brief explanation Best 80 credits of 3rd year Worst 40 credits of 3rd year Best 40 credits of 2nd year Worst 80 credits of 2nd year Good 3rd year marks count three times as much as bad second year marks!

4. What this lecture will cover • What the final delivery should look like • Plagiarism • Marking scheme for 394s • Lifecycle for 394s • What help can you expect? • What you should be doing now

5. What your final delivery will look like • NOT a one person group project with all the waterfall documents • Made up of: • Main project report: Should include all necessary information to decide how well you have done • Appendices • CD-ROM • Appendices / CD-ROM are just supporting evidence

6. Main project report • Wants to show that you: • analysed and understood the problem • approached design in an intelligent way • solved a reasonably difficult technical problem • were able to learn from that experience • Read the online requirements and follow them • Start keeping a (attributed) log now of information for the final report

7. Examples of problem areas with main project reports • Report that doesn’t tell us what the project is supposed to achieve • Report that doesn’t tell us what was and wasn’t achieved • Report that doesn’t tell us how it was achieved • Report that doesn’t tell us what you have learned from the experience

8. Appendices • Useful supporting material that is too detailed for main report but useful • e.g. entity-relationship diagrams and data flow diagrams • Output from selected test runs • Important extracts from your code • “Voluminous appendices are unwelcome”

9. CD delivered • Must work - check accessing files when you have written it on a machine other than your own • Should contain a deliverable version of your software with instructions (***Think now) • Should contain all source code for your project • Should contain all of final report material

10. Important issue - plagiarism • See student handbook and 394 website for details, these slides are only intended to illuminate with some examples • What is plagiarism? • Claiming someone else’s work as your own • Different degrees of it, but try to avoid them all by careful attribution of the work in your report

11. Plagiarism - unfair practice • Claiming someone else’s code as your own • e.g. taking a program from SourceForge, deleting attribution and putting your own name at the top of the file • Using someone else’s text as your own • Taking pages of text from a web page or book and incorporating them in your report without referencing the web page or book

12. Plagiarism - bad practice • Not making clear what parts of your system you have done and what parts were got from elsewhere • For example, if you were building an MP3 player, you would very sensibly use Java Media Framework API to make it. You need to make clear in your report what Java Media Player does and what your code does • Not making clear where you are quoting a referenced book • e.g. although you might have mentioned a web page, where you use it, all text from it should be in quotes, and be followed by a reference (see web page)

13. Marking guide for 394s (1) • Quality of work done (80%): • Project Progress Report (this term) (10) • Preparation and analysis (10) • Design (10) • Implementation and testing (10) • Critical Evaluation (10) • Technical Achievement (10) • Initiative (10) • Presentation quality of dissertation (10) • But note that much of the marking depends on the right information being in the dissertation

14. Marking guide for 394s (2) • Interview and demonstration (20%): • Student insight into project work and related topics (10%) • Student’s technical achievement in the project as judged at the interview and demonstration (10%)

15. Highest level reference - example assessment criteria (1) 1st: 70-79% • An excellent body of work demonstrating a deep insight into the problem and presented as such. • Written components will be professionally presented in both layout on the page and logical structure. They will also be very well presented in an appropriate style and will be grammatically of a very high standard. • Demonstrates an excellent insight into the technologies employed and uses appropriate terminology accurately. Implementation components will be very well finished and will at least completely fulfil the functional requirements. • The project as a whole will demonstrate a strong commitment, and will have been approached in an organised and well motivated manner. • Results and products of the project are likely to be of publishable research quality and/or of a standard comparable to that found in the products of industry leaders.

16. Highest level reference - example assessment criteria (2) 2(ii): 50-59% • A body of work which shows insight into the problem in most aspects. • The documents will be structured in a reasonable way which allows them to be easily read, but may be lacking in structure, clarity and grammatical quality. • Displays an adequate level of  insight into technologies used and mostly uses terminology appropriately. Implementation components will probably be incomplete in some relatively minor aspects, and may omit some of the more advanced pieces of work. • The project as a whole will have been approached in an organised manner. • Results and products of the project would require significant rewriting and improvement to be of publishable research quality and are likely to be of a standard significantly below that found in the products of industry leaders.

17. Highest level reference - example assessment criteria (3) Fail: 30-39% • A body of work which shows poor insight into the problem or which demonstrates an inappropriate, inadequate or incomplete response. • Written components will typically fail to accurately or completely describe the work done and will often contain little indication of which parts of the problem are understood and which are not. Documents often show a lack of structure, comprehensibility, clarity and grammatical quality. • Failure to demonstrate  insight into the technologies used and lack of or inaccurate use of the appropriate terminology. Implementation is probably drastically incomplete, severely misguided or severely hampered by inability to use the technologies required. • The project as a whole will have been approached in a disorganised manner and will demonstrate a lack of commitment. • Results and products of the project will be poor and incomplete and will be well below publishable quality and of a standard very significantly below that found in the products of industry leaders.

18. How marking is done • Marked independently by two members of staff • Resolution together of any discrepancies between them • Higher level reconciliation / review by CS394 module coordinator and by external examiners

19. Lifecycle for 394s (1) • Should you use the group proj guidelines? • Yes, but not all of them • Single person projects can be simpler • Forget detailed configuration control • (BUT KEEP BACK-UPS) • If you’re delivering a product, don’t neglect user evaluation

20. Lifecycle for 394s (2) • Pay attention to elements of lifestyle, but evolve a style sensible for YOUR project: • Only need relevant information in your project report: • e.g. don’t need a “Requirements spec” document in group project style, but DO need a list of requirements • Be careful with claims of what process you are following: e.g. you are NOT following XP… • Important: Deciding deliverables and reducing risk (balance will depend on project)

21. What help can you expect? • You are supposed to be developing through your course: • Level 1: “Do stuff you are shown how to do” • Level 2: “Do harder stuff with help” • Level 3: Critically review, consolidate and extend a systematic and coherent body of knowledge, utilising specialised skills across an area of study; critically evaluate new skills and exercise significant judgements on a range of situations; accept responsibility for determining and achieving personal and/or group outcomes. • This is the main test of that growth • Supervisor is there to help and advise… but YOU are the person who must make this work

22. What should I do this week? • Think about what interests you • Think about what kind of job you want • Read material on project web site: www.aber.ac.uk/~dcswww/Dept/Teaching/CourseNotes/current/CS39440 • Look at lists of projects • Find one that fits what you want or invent one and find a supervisor (we will say more next week) • Get looking at relevant technology and do some experiments

23. New this year - industrially driven projects • Give more direct evidence of your ability to build useful things • Very useful for career opportunities • We act as a buffer between you and the company

24. Projects available in this area • Monitoring motor drives from iPhone • Monitoring motor drives from Android • Bible Society name "translator" • iPhone charity donation app • Attractions in Wales iPhone app • Projects for helping the visually impaired • Email myself (cjp) or Andy Starr (aos) if you are interested

25. Extra advert • Optional iPhone course on Wednesday afternoons • In Sun lounge • 3pm-5pm • You're welcome even if NOT doing an iPhone App for final year project • Need your own Mac... • Email me if you are coming