The Final Year Project Preparation

The Final Year Project Project Preparation

What the final year project is Double and Single Project? The majority of you are doing the double project. This is the normal Honours project. The double project is worth two modules. Some of you are doing the single project. This is for the E-Business degree and for some of the combined honours routes. The single project is worth one module.  This talk is relevant to both forms.

 Importance of the Project

The majority of you are doing the double project so I'll talk about this. The project is important. The mark from the double project is weighted equivalent to two modules. If there's a borderline case in the Exam Board then one of the things we consider in making a final judgement is the final year project. May have implications for employment. 

Importance of the Project

The Final Year Project: has no exam and no other assessment. Therefore, the project is a substantive and important piece of work.

What the Project is Two parts:

• Mini-paper (hand-in November) - 25%
• Project (hand-in April) - 75%
• Schedule — September, 2010. Deadline for submission of project proposal — October, 2010.
• Submission of a technical plan — November, 2010.
• Submission of mini-paper — April, 2011.
• Submission of project report — May, 2011.

Poster session

Mini-paper

November - submission of minipaper, 25% of the total mark, 2,000 - 2,500 words (3-4 pages), single-spaced, 12-point Arial font. References, appendices, diagrams and figures do not count. It is the word count of the paper itself. Marking scheme can be found on elearn (Web-CT).

Mini-paper — an academic paper about a topic within your discipline. A literature review rather than research. An original piece but using existing literature. You must pick a topic which is relevant to the project. 10% of the mark is the application of ideas from this paper to the project.

Mini-paper examples

Database technology, programming technique, description of a shader technique,evaluating system performance. So a description and evaluation of a technique, method, approach, algorithm or technology.

Mini-paper and Project

The two should be interlinked. Do something that directly aids your project. Carry on with work on your project whilst doing the mini-paper. Do not stop after you've done the mini-paper.

Project Report

April - submission of report. May - poster session 75% of the total mark.  50 pages, diagrams and figures within the text do count towards the page size. References and appendices do not count. Marking scheme can be found on elearn (Web-CT).

Project types

Two types of project:

Research route —project or research development project or development route. Research project does not mean survey. A research project is not about "researching" a topic, i. e. reading about a topic. Research means undertaking an experiment (or experiments) in order to discover data. At the heart of a research project must be one or more experiments. Recommend that you do "Research Topics in Computing" as your optional module. 

Research project examples

Demographics of computer game players:

Questionnaires (150+) and structured Interviews. Comparison of a standard computer keyboard with a virtual keyboard: tests using a set of subjects, included logging the typing speed of users with the two types of keyboards. Best approach is to phrase a research project topic as a question.

Research project examples

You cannot just choose to follow the research route. You must get agreement from you course leader. You must submit your proposal to your course leader about and he or she must agree to it. Typically you choose a research topic that a member of staff is interested in.

Development Project

• Product development
• Report about the product
• Why are you doing the project
• Statement of the problem or requirements documentation.
• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation
• Testing
• Evaluation
• Development project ideas
• Bibliographic database (ontology)

Fashion/clothing web site which allows clothes to be matched to size. Interfaces used by young children. A tech demo.  The display and processing of sound signals. A road planner. A music analyser. 

Project ideas

Course leaders will do a project session with you. Your course leader will be talking to you about project ideas. The projects are course specific. There is a list of staff interests on elearn (Web-CT). 

• What subjects do lecturers teach the project ?
• Your project must be relevant to your degree.
• Your project must have academic worth and apply academic standards, e. g. of analysis and evaluation, writing style, background reading.
• You need to back up statements.
• You need to write the report in a formal style, e. g. third-person.
• You need to supply references and a bibliography. All references must be in Harvard format.

The project of your work needs to be placed into an academic context. Wikipedia is a good starting point but it is not an academic site. The internet is a wonderful research tool but you need to go beyond it. Use the library, provide sources, e. g. quick sort algorithm. Do not cite me as your source - I did not invent the algorithm. Do not cite Wikipedia, provide a reference to the original article.  Be clear as to your topic, make it completely clear as to what you doing. Your project should have a clear purpose. You need to be able to state this.

For example, you are implementing a real-time, interactive database with rigorous error-checking. You are implementing 3D dynamic visuals. Structure: a common structure:

• Abstract
• Ashort summary of the work.
• Introduction
• Design, methodology.
• Body of work, broken up into chapters
• Testing and Evaluation
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

 Supervision

Technical Supervisor provides technical support, regular group meetings. Meetings are timetabled. Supervisor gives more general support, e. g. writing skills, research approaches, etc. One-to-one you must demonstrate progress. Main advice — to produce a good project you need to work. Read around the subject. What you need to do ? You need to start the process now, decide upon a project before the summer break begins. The details of the project can be revised as you progress. Talk to potential supervisors, identify a potential supervisor. Hand-in a project proposal. We expect you to work over summer the project. Find an interesting topic, investigate it and write up discussion using the literature. Do some interesting and suitably challenging development. Write it up with a discussion of alternative techniques and designs. 

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