Final Year Project Workshops

1. Final Year Project Workshops Workshop 1 – Planning Cornelia Boldyreff Department of Computer Science University of Durham

2. Important Points to Note • Dr Paul Callaghan (email: P.C.Callaghan@durham.ac.ukis the project coordinator this year. • Reallocation of supervisors: changes in staff over the summer mean thatsome people will have different supervisors. The revised allocationlist will shortly appear on the undergraduate notices page. • Project workshops: Dr Cornelia Boldyreff will give these in the first term. All will be at 9 a.m. in CG 60. The next workshop will be in week 4. • Note that these workshops are compulsory for _all_ project students(both CS and SE projects).

3. Project Web pages • Web page information: Important information for the projects is locatedon the pages listed below. Read these carefully - they are the mainsource of information about projects. In particular, note the project deadlines. • Introductory notes http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/ug/handbook/mods/y3proj/project.html (CS) http://www.dur.ac.uk/cs.tqa/latestversionsubmodule.php3?submodule=SEProj (SE) • Full detailshttp://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/ug/handbook/mods/y3proj/proj-furtherdesc.html (CS) http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/ug/handbook/mods/y3proj/SEproj/SE_index.html (SE)

4. Change to Assessment • Only affects assessment for the CS projects: From this year, your supervisorwill be one of the report and oral exam markers, the other being anotherlecturer in the department. • This arrangement is already the case for SEprojects. • (The previous arrangement was to have two independent markers with the supervisor contributing process marks.)

5. Responsibilities of the Supervisor • to give guidance about the nature of the project and the standard expected, about the planning of the project, about literature and sources, about techniques and methods and about any problems of plagiarism; • to maintain contact via regular tutorial meetings; • to be accessible within reason at other times for giving advice to the student; • to give detailed advice on milestones; • to request written work as appropriate and return such work with constructive criticism within a reasonable time; • to ensure that a student is made aware of any inadequacy of progress, or of standards of work below those expected; • to encourage the student to produce early draft chapters, to comment on them critically and return the comments promptly. If the studentdoes not do so, this is the student's responsibility.

6. Responsibilities of the Student • to agree on a schedule of meetings with the supervisor and to attend such meetings; • to take the initiative in raising problems, however elementary they may seem; • to maintain the progress of the work in accordance with the milestones and objectives agreed with the supervisor; • to contribute to planning the project and monitoring progress against the plan; • to keep a project log for recording results, ideas, references etc. acquired as the project progresses; • to determine the contents of the report and of oral presentations; • to present draft chapters to the supervisor before the Easter vacation. There is no obligation on supervisors to read drafts during the vacation. • In summary, the management of the project and the course that it takes, are ultimately the responsibility of the student.

7. First Deliverable Due - end of week 2 • Preliminary plan: you need to produce a one-page (minimum) plan by the end ofweek two, and hand it electronicly as well as in hard copy to the office. • Hard copy is required as these will be distributed back to your supervisor who will discuss the plan with you.

8. Key Objectives of today’s workshop • Detailed planning of the basic deliverable phase and "abstract“planning of the later phases, to be followed by a 2nd planning exercise afterthe January benchtest to clarify planning for the remainder of theproject. (Plan for plan revision!) • Decomposition of the basic deliverable into a partially orderednetwork of components, to help you to prioritise tasks anddefine ways of making initial rapid progress. • Consider time management to allow students to schedule your activities interm 1 and to raise any forseeable problems with supervisors.

9. Planning your project • Work in project groups – 4 or 5 students at most • Each group to identify together the key tasksinvolved in their basic deliverables, an ordering on those tasks and anynew skills you think you will need to do the project successfully. Use GANTT or PERT charts. • Important in each case to state the project goals and what your basic deliverable entails – start with the project description from your supervisor. • Plan regular meetings with your supervisor every two weeks. • Concentrate on planning for the basic deliverableto get a clear plan for tackling that over the next3 months. • And plan to re-plan later on as your project progresses and you have a better understanding of your project enabling you to predict how design choices made now willaffect their later goals.

10. Some fixed points • SE Projects – Design Review at end of term 1 • All projects – Presentation at beginning of next term and Benchtest with supervisor • Project Hand-in – 1 week after Easter break

11. GANTT Chart http://searchcio.techtarget.com/

12. PERT Chart http://searchcio.techtarget.com/

13. Further details on Planning • Chapters on Planning in Project books • Consult past project reports – plans found in chapter 1 of the report. Also see: • SE Notes on Project Planning • On-line Notes based on these at http://www.dur.ac.uk/cornelia.boldyreff/ASEI/ASEIlect2.ppt