Research Methods in Computer Science

The goal of this course is to prepare undergraduate students to engage
in research in Computer Science.

Target audience(s):

• Students that want to get involved in research as an undergrad with a CS faculty member
• Students considering going on to grad school in CS
• CCS students preparing for their mid-residency review

Students will have the opportunity to both get a sense of the breadth of Computer Science research, as well as exploring a single topic of their choice in some depth.

More specific goals include:

• being able to explain what makes some work publishable research,
  while other work is not
• being able to state research questions
  
• being able to explain the various ways in which CS research is
  published and disseminated (e.g. conferences and journals),
• developing and demonstrating the ability to perform a literature search
• developing and demonstrating a familiarity with various areas of
  research in CS, particularly those represented by CS faculty at UCSB

Course Activities:

(1) Faculty Research Presentations, and Response Papers

A central component of the course will be attending a series of presentations
by UCSB CS faculty members, each of which will present an overview of
their research. Faculty members will be presenting these talks as a way of
recruiting students into their own research labs. Students enrolled in the
course will be expected to attend these talks, take notes, and write a brief
response to each talk (approx 1 paragraph).

This response may cover such points as

• a summary of the main points the student understood,
• questions about parts of the talk that were not clear
• questions following up on the parts of the talk the student found particularly interestin
• notes on the effectiveness of the presentation

These presentations will occur Fridays from 2-3pm.

There will also be a 30 minute discussion (3-3:30pm) immediately following each of the
faculty talks with the students from this course, and the instructor.

Students may earn 1-2 units by participating in this aspect of the course alone,
depending on the number of such talks the students attend, the quality of the
written responses, and the level of participation in the follow-up discussions.

(2) Lecture/Discussion on Research Methods

In addition to the faculty lectures and the follow up discussion (1.5
hours per week) there will be two 75 minute lecture/discussions each week (for a total
of 4 hours).

These additional lectures will be scheduled based on the availability of the students that enroll in the course, and are interested in participating in this component.

These lecture/discussions will cover:

• how CS research is typically conducted
• typical roles of faculty, graduate students, undergrad researchers)
• major areas of computer science (particularly those represented at UCSB)
• how to find a research topic
• how to find a faculty advisor
• how to do a literature survey (annotated bibliography)
• how to distinguish between projects that are, and are not publishable
• how to prepare a technical paper that can be submitted for publication
• how to give a talk in Computer Science

There may also be some discussion of CS content, as needed—e.g. if a large proportion of the students in the class need a tutorial on some topic (e.g. Networks, AI, Compilers) in order to understand some of the papers or talks, we may take some class time for this as well.

These lecture/discussion support the assignment component of the course,
described below.

(3) Assignments

Student may earn additional units for the course (beyond the 1-2 units earned by participating in item 1 above), by completing one or more of the following assignments.

(a) a literature survey/annotated bibliography on some topic of interest
(b) giving an oral presentation on one (or more) papers of interest to the student
(c) preparing a proposal for a particular research project, both in written and oral form, with a problem statement, proposed work, and survey of related work.

Normal workload: Students can expect to earn 4 units if they

• complete at least one literature survey ("a" above)
• make at least two oral presentations ("b" above) in an successful manner
• earn 2 units by participating in the faculty presentation/response component
• attend and participate in the lectures/discussions

Students completing more than this may be eligible for additional units.

These assignments may be "staged"--that is, smaller components of each of these
may have earlier due dates than the overall finished product. Students will be
expected to respect these due dates. In each of the cases above, the topic
must be approved by the instructor in advance.

How credit for CCS courses works

This course is offered as a course in the College of Creative Studies, but it is open to all undergraduate students at UCSB. Courses in CCS do not have grades in the traditional sense.

Thus, there is no risk to your GPA in enrolling in the course.

Here is the explanation—see the CCS student handbook for more details (the following is excerpted from there)

"The grading system for courses offered by CCS is focused on accomplishment, a combination of Pass/No Record grading and variable unit credit. For each course taken in the College, the student enrolls for a specific number of units of work that he or she plans to do during the quarter, from 1 - 6 units... At the end of the quarter, the instructor of each course determines the number of units each student’s work merits (based on the quantity of work done at high quality level). If you earn no units of credit, the course does not appear on your transcript..Though there are no letter grades in CCS classes, students are expected to maintain a high level of quality in all the work they do to fulfill academic requirements."

Background needed to take this course

This course will be a stretch for all of us. We will be listening to talks and reading papers about cutting-edge research. It will be over our heads a good bit of the time, and we will have to work very hard just to begin to understand what we are reading.

• If that sounds exciting, then this course may be right for you.
• If not, then you should probably not enroll.

I am not establishing any hard and fast rules about preparation. If you are willing to work hard, and swim in the deep water, where you will often not be able to touch bottom, you are welcome.

However, ideally, students enrolling in this course will have completed one of the following:

• the first quarter of the College of Creative Studies CS program: CCS CS1A, 2 OR
• the following courses from the lower division of the College of Engineering: CS10,20,40

Completion of CS 130A and CS138 are also very helpful—students with this background will potentially get more out of the course. However, if you don't have that background, don't let that stop you if you are very interested—the course can be repeated for additional units.

Students that have not completed at least CS10, 20 and 40 with strong comprehension of the material should probably not enroll.

Questions?

Contact Phill Conrad at pconrad@cs.ucsb.edu

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