In this course, you are expected to do an oral presentation of a selected topic as a taped video. This task is mandatory to get a pass grade. Students may also opt to submit constructive feedback to three other assigned video presentations in addition to their own presentation.

Advising times: November 28, 11-14
Booked times:
1100-1120 M&J
0900-0920 G&V
0920-0940 E&F

The target audience for your presentation is your fellow students in the course. The presentation should introduce the assigned topic to them by giving a good overview and explanation.

Even though this task is called "presentation", it actually involved a number of subtasks:

• Forming a presentation group of two students
• Pick a topic
• Doing a literature search for the chosen topic
• Reading up on the topic
• Preparing what to show and what to say
• Recording the presentation
• Submitting your presentation to the student portal
• Watching and giving feedback to three other presentations assigned to you (only needed if you aim at a higher course grade than a "3")

Forming a presentation group

Presentations will be done in teams of two students. Find a presentation partner either by asking around in the classroom, or by using the student portal to mail other students in the course.

Pick a topic

We provide a list of suggested topics that you can choose your topic from. Each topic can only be covered by one presentation group - if your favorite topic is already taken you have to pick another.

You can also chose a topic of your own that is not on the list. However, your choice must first be cleared and recorded with the teaching staff before you can continue with the preparations.

When you have chosen your topic, mail the teaching staff that will mark that topic as taken. If several students e-mail interests for the same topic, the topic will be assigned according to the first come, first serve principle. (Topic requests before the first lecture will be silently ignored, though.)

Doing a literature search

Once the topic is chosen, you must find information about what you are going to present. Students are expected to be able to do a literature search on their own that extends beyond Wikipedia into at least 2 "whitepapers", research papers, or book chapters etc. It is often effective to use references given by Wikipedia and the course text books. This is a very important part of the preparations, so be careful when searching for high quality information sources and selecting which to use. Part of our evaluation is based on your ability to find relevant and trustworthy references.

Reading up on the topic

When you have finished your literature search, you should start reading up on the topic. It is common that you during the reading phase discover that you are missing some information in the references. If so, go back one step and locate additional references that fills in the information gaps. Your ability to find comprehensive information will be judged.

Preparing what to show and what to say

You will record a presentation with slides and an audio track. However, you are free to extend that presentation to demonstrate software, an image of yourself during the presentation etc., - as long as your presentation can be contained in a video file of 10-15 minutes.

When preparing slides, use simple, concise slides that do not contain too much (spellchecked) text. Structure your presentation so that there is a natural flow in what you present. What is being shown on the screen in your video should be clearly readable even at moderate resolutions like 800x600 points.

Write a manuscript for your audio track and rehearse what you are going to say until you think it is good enough for the final recording.

Recording your presentation

Once you have prepared, it is time to record the presentation on your computer. There are several options to chose from in terms of software for recording. The formal requirements on the file that you submit are:

• It should be 10-15 minutes long
• It should contain, at a minimum, a video with slides with your voice as an audio track
• It should be stored in MP4 or AVI format

There are many different pieces of software you can use to produce a recording. Some presentation software includes the option to record audio to a presentation for sharing or broadcasting. A more general approach is to produce a screencast, where you record a part of your computer screen together with audio. One free web-based service for producing screencasts is Screencast-o-matic, which works on Linux, OS X and Windows.

The resulting video file must use a standard codec producing MP4 or AVI container format. It should be able to play under Linux, OS X and Windows without installing any extra software. Please try to keep your video size down by using low frame rates and a reasonable resolution. We will provide a discussion area in the student portal where you can ask questions and give other students tips on what software to use and how to produce your presentations.

When your presentation is finished, it should be uploaded it to the student portal.

Submitting your presentation

To participate in the opposition/feedback round, upload your presentation before the deadline of Dec 5, see also the schedule page.

Please follow the instructions below when uploading the presentations.

In the student portal page for this course, there is a discussion forum part named "video presentations". Your presentation should be submitted as a new topic in that forum.

• Login to the student portal and go to the page for this course
• Enter the video presentation by choosing "Video presentations" below the "Forums" heading in the left margin
• Start a new topic by clicking the "New topic" button
• The new topic editing box appears
  • As subject, type the name of your chosen presentation topic.
  • In the message body, specify:
    • The names of all members in your presentation group
    • The references you have used as background material for this presentation (titles, authors and links if applicable)
  • At filename, click the button to pick your video file from the hard drive (MP4 or AVI format)
  • At description, specify your chosen presentation topic again
  • Press Submit
• Verify that the video attached to your new entry can be downloaded and viewed
• There, you're done!

Opposition / Feedback

We will produce a list that specifies who will give feedback to whom. Each student will be assigned three presentations to give feedback on. Note that this subtask is not mandatory but increases your chances to get a higher grade.

The list will, at least, be e-mailed out to all students so you know what presentation and to whom you will give feedback, as well as posted to the video presentations forum in the student portal.

Once you have been assigned three presentation, your task is to view those presentations and produce constructive feedback on them. This means that you should point out what you thought was particularly good, interesting and relevant in the presentation so that the presenter get feedback on their performance. The purpose of the opposition/feedback is not to bash other students and point out flaws; the feedback should be given with a positive attitude with constructive comments and suggestions (if you have any). If it should be the case that you find severe flaws in the presentation, take that off-line with the presenter rather than in the forum online.

How to submit your feedback? Go to the discussion thread that has the video presentation on and type in your feedback as a reply to your assigned presentations.

Here is an example of a video presentation from previous year with comments.

The presentations are graded by the teaching staff. It will based on the performance:

• of the actual oral presentation; how well you present and structure the material,
• the content of your presentation; the material chosen, difficulty level, choice of references and comprehensive it is,
• your the feedback - how constructive and useful it is for the presenters.

A presentation that does not meet the passing quality must be completely re-done.

If you submit your video presentation after the deadline, see schedule page, you will not be able to give feedback to others. Late hand-ins will be graded at a later time, possibly not before the end of the academic year.