Consider what graduate students do.
Yes, they take classes, but what separates graduate students from
undergraduates? Graduate students do
Reading, analyzing, and writing research papers
Working on research projects (at least in CS)
Presenting research
Giving critical feedback to others' research
These are the things that we will be doing this semester.
Paper summary, presentation, and feedback
(These are assignments, Homeworks 1, 2, and 3)
Written Paper Summary
Write a
Paper summary
of a paper (conference or journal).
See the how to review page.
The summary is due January 25, 2026.
Paper Summary Presentation
You will give a 5 minute presentation
on the paper that you wrote about.
The presentations will be held starting January 27, 2026.
We will do this live.
Project Abstract:
(The project abstract counts towards the project grade.)
The project abstract
is due February 1, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.
Note: the following system appears to work well, but you are advised to keep a
copy of what you type, in case there is a problem.
Use this link
to submit the abstract.
If you want to see what other groups
are doing, click here.
Project Update Video and Feedback
(Homework 3:
The project update presentation counts towards the project grade.)
Your update video is
due February 15, 2026 -
The video should be about 5 minutes.
Please follow the
specifics for this class and
general video project update directions.
Present the current status
of your project, including what you have accomplished so far.
Include any problems you have, and any decisions you made.
Projects should be individual ones or groups of 2 at the most.
Otherwise, follow the
Project proposal guidelines.
Your video should be complete
enough to anticipate questions, and keep in mind that your video
audience will not have seen your initial project deliverables.
We may need to extend presentations to the following class(es), too.
Use .mp4 for the video format.
Use the following links to
submit links to your project update video and
display video links.
Feedback on Other Project Update Videos
After we see the video, we will ask you questions about your project, and
give you feedback.
Feedback is due Sunday, February 22, 2026
(This is assuming that we have seen all of the videos; if not, this
date may be pushed back.)
The feedback that you give to others counts towards the Project grade.
Literature Review and Presentation
(Homework 4: This is an assignment.)
Written Literature Review
Write a literature review,
due March 8, 2026.
Turn the papers (the one you wrote plus the references) through iCollege.
Since this is turned in electronically, the due date is a Sunday.
Also note that your papers should all
be recent (i.e. within the last 1--3 years),
unless you make a compelling argument.
Milestone Checklist 2 Milestone Checklist 2due April 12, 2026. Turn this in through iCollege.
Final Project:
We will have the presentation videos (along with
question and answer sessions) and feedback, but will not have a
written report.
Your presentation should last no more than 6 minutes,
not including time for questions and answers.
Follow these directions for the presentation.
Like previous assignments, we will watch the video you made, then ask
you questions about it.
A link will be provided through iCollege to allow you to turn in "code",
which is anything you can provide to demonstrate all of the wonderful
hard work you've done on your project. This may be used to modify your
final project grade, i.e. hopefully to convince me that you've put in
a lot of effort and well deserve the grade.
Final Exam
Due to the number of students this semester, we will hold the
final project presentations over multiple days.
Remember that feedback to fellow students is a required part of the
assignment, so attendance is mandatory for all final presentations.
Final presentations are April 16, April 21,
April 23 and May 5.
(These dates may change depending on class size. That is, if all
presentations can reasonably fit in 3 days, then we will hold them on
those last 3 days.) You are responsible for making sure that this does not conflict
with any other class that you are taking, and reporting any problems
in the first week of class.
Click here for the
presentation feedback
form.
There are only so many groups that can present their videos in that
time slot; we may also use class-time from the classes immediately
before. In a recent semester there were so many groups that we had
to schedule presentations over 4 classes.
You will NOT do this live; instead, you will show us a video that you
made on your project. The video should last at least 4 minutes, but no
longer than 6 minutes.
Afterward, you will answer questions from the class.
The final video should include game-play, so that we can clearly
see what your game is like.
It would be better to have a small game that works rather than a
large game that does not work.
The Final Exam time-slot is
Tuesday, May 5th, 2026, 16:15-18:45.
All work (except feedback) is due then.