last updated: 13 February 2004

CM50175 -- Research Project Preparation


This page holds some information that was on the course's front page at various points in 2003.

Information about Project Supervisors

You can find the complete list of Computer Science Staff on the Department Staff Page.  Not all of these people will supervise many students from this course, though most might be accessable if you have something you'd like to do particularly close to their area of interest.  Your most likely supervisors are Barry, Bradford, Bryson, Davenport, De Vos, Duke, Fitch, Fuhrmann, Hall, Paddon, Padget, Pym, Richardson, Vorobjov and C Willis.  There is more about department research interests on our Research Pages.  Those pages link to a word document which describes Bath staff's individual research interests (which I translated into HTML).

Additional supervisors for MMT in previous years have been included Robert Watson, Duncan Allsopp, Adrian N. Evans, P.J.Leonard and D M Monro.  You can find contact information for them from the Bath University People Finder.   Example MMT projects from last year.

It is also possible to have supervisors from other departments, but they are not under the same obligation to supervise as most (but not all!) of our staff are.  So you may want to approach them personally to ask about projects.  Alternatively, if they submit project proposals, they will also be linked here.

To help you remember things you learned about the supervisors from the talks you've seen, I've saved the link to Schedule for Staff Presentations as well as the list of Proposed Projects (by Supervisor).

A spare/electronic copy of your project selection form.

What to do Next

Soon you will be allocated your new project.  Unfortunately, many of you have chosen the same staff members, so be aware that many of you will be getting your second or third choice.  I've moved the information about staff and projects into "Lecture Notes & Other Useful Information", so that you can remind yourself of the details of the supervisor you were allocated.

Once you find out who your supervisor is, your next task will be to choose a project area.  Remember that it is possible more than one student who chose the same project were allocated to a single supervisor.  Also, when you start talking to your supervisor in more detail, you may realize another project is more appropriate or interesting for you than the one you chose initially.

As soon as you find out your allocations, please schedule an appointment with your supervisor!

What to do in April

By 1 April you should be half-way through your 80 hours of private study on your project proposal.  You should have found and read a great deal of related research and have some notion of what your project will look like.  In April, you  should be writing up your literature review and structuring your project proposal.

Last Minute Proposal Advice

Your project proposal is nearly due!  Here are two problems / mistakes I've been seeing & hearing about:
  1. Structure!  Make sure you have written one, coherant document. ( The introductory `essay' is a chapter/section that serves as an introduction!) Make sure each subsection has its own introduction and conclusion.  A dissertation has introduction & conclusion chapters; a chapter has introductory and concluding paragraphs; a paragraph has introductory and concluding sentences.
  2. Don't forget, it's a proposal!  Do spend some time describing what you expect to do, when you expect to do it, and what you will do if things take longer or shorter than you expect.  Remember, this is a discussion document that will also help you communicate with your supervisor.  You won't be marked off for having an unreasonable plan if your plan shows you have thought & done research, but you will get marked off if you don't actually make a proposal in your proposal.
FAQs About The Proposal


Feedback on Proposals

Right now you're wondering if you will ever get your proposals back, or at least some feedback.  The answers are sort of and yes, respectively.  You will be getting the marks sheets back, or at least copies of them, which have most of the comments.  They also have the raw score you were given (by me), but this might not be the same as your final mark as the program board could still change it.

On the other hand, we need to keep the proposals, but some of them have comments written on them as well, so I will be giving them back to your supervisor.  Hopefully your supervisor will reread your proposal, and then talk with you about it.  You  may want to print out another copy of your proposal & then make notes of any comments on your own copy.  Next year we will have the students submit two copies and we will separate the final marks from the feedback so those students won't have to wait so long.  Sorry that you were the year to do this debugging.

In some cases neither you nor your supervisor will be able to read my handwriting.  Sorry about that.  Email me if you want to come visit -- if there are enough of you I will set up office hours.

See also generic feedback on the project proposals.


and finally...

Dear curious students --- most of the content on this page is still from last year, but much will be similar this year so feel free to look.  

page author: Joanna Bryson