CS270 -- Class Projects

Rich Wolski --- Winter, 2009

this page last updated: Sun Jan 4 12:33:24 PST 2009

Class Mailing List

Your first assignment is to sign up for the Class Mailing List. This is not an optional assignment. You must do so by no later that January 9, 2008 or you risk serious consequences with respect to the outcome of the course. We will use the class mailing list to communicate information about the organization of the course, including changes that can have significant bearing on your participation. You MUST sign up for the mailing list in this class.

Written Class Projects

In this class, your team is to write either a research paper or a survey paper of no more than 10 pages in length (using IEEE two-column formatting for journal publication). The page budget does include figures but does not include references.

If you choose a survey paper, it must cover the state-of-the-art in an operating system topic. That is, you cannot simply survey the papers we read in this class. Operating systems is a broad field, but it does not include everything. If you have concerns about the relevance of your survey topic, consult with me or the TA early and often. Also, writing a survey paper can be quite challenging. I have prepared some notes on what makes a good survey paper, at least from the perspective of this class.

If you choose to write a research paper, it must constitute operating systems research, which again, mandates that it be current and topical. Clearly it is not necessary to craft a paper for publication during the quarter (although doing so is certainly feasible). The expectation here is that the paper will be complete except for a full set of results and that it will contain at least one relevant result that points to the worthiness of the work. I have, again, prepared notes on what will make a successful research paper with respect to this class.

Either paper is due on the final day of class during the quarter which is March 11, 2008. No late work will be accepted.

What to Turn In

Please turn in a PDF copy if your paper by emailing it to rich@cs.ucsb.edu by no later than 1:00 PM PDT on March 11, 2008. In addition, you must submit copies of all the of references you cite in your paper. DO NOT emailthe references with your paper.

Instead, make a compressed tar file of any references you have gathered from electronic sources and make that tar file available via some (e.g.your personal) web page. Include the URL for the references in your submission email.

Any references that you do not source electronically you should copy and hand in on the last day of class.