The purpose of the assignment is:

• To learn how to find information in professional scientific magazines and journals
• To be able to summarize, evaluate and present material from the literature
• To write a paper in a team of 2-4 persons and to give constructive critique on papers written by another team.

Writing a paper

You write a paper about a topics selected from the course areas. The paper should be based on scientific articles that you yourself select and evaluate. The selected topics should either be more in-depth compared to Computer network II papers and seminars, or other topics which you think looks fun. You will work in teams of 2-4 students.

List of term paper topics

The papers will be presented on May 27 (possibly also May 28). Each team will get 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for the opposition. You need to organize both parts so that you say the most important things during these times. The course estimated time for the assignment is four full-time weeks (three weeks for the paper and one week for preparing a presentation and an opposition on a another paper) for each team member. You need split the work yourself between the members, but you are not allowed to split in such a way that some of you do the writing while others do the opposition. All members must participate in all phases of this assignment.

More information about writing a term paper

Your role as an opponent

You should also make an oral opposition on a paper written by another team. This means that you have to study the background area for the paper and give constructive comments on the paper when it is presented. The purpose of an opposition is stimulate a discussion about the choice of material and the conclusions. The idea is to give constructive critique in order to improve the paper. As an opponent, you are not expected to grade the paper, or to correct formulations or the language.

In summary, you will study two topics: one as author and one as an opponent. In the process of writing, presenting and opposing a term paper, you will work with the material in the same way as "real" scientific papers are written, presented and judged by others.

More information about presenting and opposing on a term paper

Timeline

The deadlines for turning in the term papers will be strictly followed. Late submission of term papers will be silently ignored and will not be graded. Also, you cannot do a presentation at a time other than the allocated day(s).

Submission deadline of topic proposals - March 27, at 12:00

The team may select up to three topics in order of preference and mail (it-dkom3@listserv.uu.se) them to the instructors for approval. (We will check if there are other students who are also interested in the area so that you can team up.) If there are two teams who are interested in the same topic, we will suggest different aspects of the topic or suggest an alternative topics. Approval will be started to be mailed out March 28.

You will be assigned a course instructor or a graduate student who will advise you how to organize the paper and to help you how to find relevant (and mandatory) references. Advise times will be scheduled and you can sign up for different times. These times and location will be announced on the course web page.

• Please, search for references and think about the objective of the paper before meeting the adviser in order to make the meeting effective.
• Email with a preliminary outline (Table of Content) with intended references to the main instructor and/or your advisor before a scheduled meeting or no later than April 3. The outline should not be longer than a page.

Guidance - physical/email/skype meeting - prel April ZZ, and/or April NN, 15-16 .

Deadline for turning in the paper is May 14, 16:00 This is a strict deadline. You should submit your term paper to your adviser's mailbox, preferable as a zip-file of pdf:s (paper copies should then be scanned into pdf-files). Enclose copies of your articles that you basing the paper on in order to save time for your opponents.

Your adviser will check the quality of the paper so that it is suitable for opposition. If a paper does not meet the quality threshold, we will contact you and ask for a revision (at latest May 16) before distributing it to the opponent group. Note - meeting the quality threshold does not automatically means that the paper has passing quality for the course. It only means that it is possible to do a meaningful opposition on the paper.

Revised papers must be turned in no later than 17:00 on May 20 by submitting a paper or pdf-file to the adviser's mailboxes and a pdf-file to the opponents.

Distribution of papers to opponents

The papers will be distributed as soon as possible to the opponents, but no later than May 21.

Presentation and opposition days are May 27 and 28. Detailed presentation schedule will be announced on the course web pages. In case you have a special request for a time for your presentation or opposition you must also send an email about your request to your adviser no later than May 20.

Mandatory participation

The participation of all students writing term papers is mandatory during all paper presentations. In addition, participation for everyone is mandatory during the project presentations. Students doing projects are of course welcome to the paper presentations! All presentations will also be open for faculty and graduate students at the department.

Grading

Each team will be graded according to the following factors:

• The paper, content, organization and conclusions
• Presentation of the paper
• Opposition of another team's paper

Different weight will be given to these grading factors and the final grade for the term paper will be U, 3, 4 or 5. More information on grading can be found at the course internal pages.