CS 595 - Design and Analysis of Distributed System Infrastructures, Spring, 2004

CS 595 - Design and Analysis of Distributed System Infrastructures

Project Description

The goal of the independent project is to give the student the opportunity to explore directions not covered (extensively enough) in class. In addition, the student will have a chance to share her results with the class.

The project will be self-guided. Students are to pick a topic related to peer to peer systems, and develop an idea with the instructor. Because the class is linear (i.e., one topic after another), the student can decide to start the project whenever she feels. The project can take as little as one month, depending on when we cover a particular topic.

All project topics should be approved by the instructor. A project can be either a research paper or an addition to the peer-to-peer system being built in class. Students may turn in drafts or progress reports for the instructor to review. Regardless of how a student does her project, everyone will be evaluated with the same standard of quality. I therefore highly recommended that students regularly get their projects diagnosed by the instructor.

There are some guidelines to writing a research paper or doing a programming project. Besides the actual "meat," the writeup must also contain:

Introduction - Describe and motivate the topic.
Related Work - What else have people done in the area, and how is the project related.
Conclusion - Summarize the contents of the project, including the significant parts, and describe the future of your topic.
Bibliography - Make your work credible: Cite the sources of your information!

These requirements are meant to help a student guide her work, and be more scientifically rigorous.

Project results will be presented to the class at the end of the semester.

Note that programming projects must also follow the same guidelines as those required for the class programming assignment.