Course:CPSC522/January2019

January and February Assignments

In January you can do one of the following (and you will do the other in February):

Describe some research that has been published. You should choose two papers, by different authors (no authors in common) where one builds on the other. You should describe the background, and then describe the incremental contribution of one paper over the other. What was the actual contribution of the latter paper? The reader should be able to understand the problem, where it fits into the big picture, the solution proposed and how that solution was evaluated. Add your own thoughts on how successful it was and how it can be improved. See http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~poole/cs522/2019/readings.html for some suggested topics.
Foundations: write a foundational page. This can either be a new page on a new topic, or you can replace an existing topic, if you don't like it. If you replace an existing page you need to create an archive of it, so that the reviewers can judge whether it is an improvement. (I suggest that you start doing the first topic (choosing two papers), and if you find some background that should be covered to understand the papers, write a page on it (or one of the topics, if there are multiple topics in your background).

You need to follow the rules on the main page and you should follow the guidelines there.
Each page should have a principle author. You do not need co-authors but can have co-authors; co-authorship is encouraged. If others help you with your page, you should help them too.
You need to add your page to the table of contents in a position that makes sense. Fell free to edit and change the structure of the table of content to give it a coherent structure.
Please choose a topic that is different from other courses that you have done (or else you need to negotiate with the instructors to make sure you are not counting the same work multiple times).
You should reference (link) to wiki pages and to other research papers as appropriate. It should be clear what the two papers you are describing, but you should also refer to other papers.

January 15 - choose page(s) and start writing
Feb 6 - First draft of page ready for critiquing. The pages are numbered J0-J5. The person who wrote Jn will provide constructive feedback to help J(n+1) J(n+5) mod 6. (I.e., the page before and the page after yours). For the critiquing, write your comments in the discussion tab of the page. Please give constructive feedback --- give the sort of feedback you would like to receive --- and answer the questions on the evaluation page. Authors should feel free to respond to them there too, and actually have a discussion. The critiques are not meant to be anonymous; you are meant to be helping each other.
Feb 7 - Critiques due
Feb 10 - Final pages ready for marking
Feb 12. Marking Completed. You need to mark every page (including your own). Use the template at http://cs.ubc.ca/~poole/cs522/2019/project_eval.py

February 27 - choose pages and start writing
Mar 14 - First draft ready for critiquing. The pages are numbered F0-F5. The author of Fn will provide constructive feedback to help F(n+1) F(n+5) mod 6. (I.e., the page before and the page after yours, in a cycle). For the critiquing, write your comments in the discussion tab of the page. Please give constructive feedback --- give the sort of feedback you would like to receive --- and answer the questions on the evaluation page. Authors should feel free to respond to them there too, and actually have a discussion. The critiques are not meant to be anonymous; you are meant to be helping each other.
Mar 18 - Critiques due
Mar 21 - Final pages reading for marking
Mar 24 - Marking completed. You need to mark every page (including your own). Use the template at http://cs.ubc.ca/~poole/cs522/2019/project_eval.py

Here is a tentative marking scheme. This is subject to change. Feel free to add questions, and edit the questions if they do not make sense.

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means "strongly disagree" and 5 means "strongly agree" please rate and comment on the following:

The topic is relevant for the course.
The writing is clear and the English is good.
The page is written at an appropriate level for CPSC 522 students (where the students have diverse backgrounds).
The formalism (definitions, mathematics) was well chosen to make the page easier to understand.
The abstract is a concise and clear summary.
There were appropriate (original) examples that helped make the topic clear.
There was appropriate use of (pseudo-) code.
It had a good coverage of representations, semantics, inference and learning (as appropriate for the topic).
It is correct.
It was neither too short nor too long for the topic.
It was an appropriate unit for a page (it shouldn't be split into different topics or merged with another page).
It links to appropriate other pages in the wiki.
The references and links to external pages are well chosen.
I would recommend this page to someone who wanted to find out about the topic.
This page should be highlighted as an exemplary page for others to emulate.

If I was grading it out of 20, I would give it: