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+ | ====== Project Proposals ====== | ||
+ | You can take on a **project proposed by a supervisor** or **propose your own project**. The latter gives you the opportunity to work on something you are specifically interested in, but there is no need to propose your own project, and there is otherwise no difference in the requirements or assessment of the project. Note, supervisors must be a member of staff at the School Computer Science and Informatics, | ||
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+ | As soon as you are set up on PATS, you can **write your own proposals**. They will be **visible** if they are marked as available and project selection has started (see **[[Project Supervision]]** for how to select a project). Student proposals are only visible to supervisors; | ||
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+ | You can submit **more than one proposal**, but please keep the number of proposals reasonable and rather make sure you write **one or two excellent proposals**. This will make it much more likely that you find a supervisor for your project. You can **still choose a staff project** later, even if you propose your own project. If you propose your own project, there is **no guarantee** that there will be a supervisors for it. This will depend on the quality of your proposal, its feasibility to be executed, and the supervisors' | ||
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+ | To a lesser degree, this equally applies to **staff proposals**: | ||
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+ | **Deadlines** for proposal submission (and selection) are announced via e-mail and visible in the PATS Tasks section. | ||
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+ | ===== Projects ===== | ||
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+ | The **purpose of the project** is, in the context of the degree you are studying, to integrate various aspects of the taught material and to demonstrate your (academic) research skills and your (professional) analysis, design and implementation skills. It allows you to conduct in-depth work on a substantial problem to show individual creativity and originality; | ||
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+ | As a general guideline, **a good project aims to solve a problem related to your field of study**. You can pick a general area you are interested in and try to find a specific problem you could be working on. Instead of solving a complete problem, you can also work on a partial solution or some particular aspect of a larger problem, possibly simplified to make it feasible for the duration of your project and the level of the degree. If you are unsure of the specifics, you can also discuss a rough initial idea for a project with a supervisor to find something suitable that can be executed in the module context. Out of such discussions, | ||
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+ | When you **choose a project**, you should do so carefully to reflect the focus of the degree programme you are enrolled in, your interests (the project needs to keep you interested for its duration) and the ability of the academic staff to support you throughout your project. Projects vary widely in the problem they address and the products they deliver at the end. While the main product of some projects is a piece of software or hardware, others produce a systems model or design, and yet others may address some research hypothesis using a theoretical, | ||
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+ | **For example**, a project that seeks to develop a logistics planning system for a small business or voluntary organisation would be expected to provide a fully operational, | ||
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+ | Importantly, | ||
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+ | ===== Writing a Proposal ===== | ||
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+ | To submit a new project proposal, go to "My proposals" | ||
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+ | To create a new proposal, go to the "New Proposal" | ||
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+ | When choosing a **title** for your proposal, make sure it refers to the core topic of your project. Do not make the title too general (like "A Computer Game" instead of the specific type of game you wish to write) or provide too many details ("A System to Manage the Selection, Allocation, Deliverable Submission and Marking of Final Year Projects", | ||
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+ | Provide the following information in the **description** of your project. Note that it is expected to be plain text, and any other formatting may not be preserved or even make it hard to read; there is a 4,000 character limit. The idea is to provide a concise description akin to an abstract: | ||
+ | * Two or three sentences providing the essential **context and motivation** of the project. | ||
+ | * One sentence summarising the **general problem to be addressed**. | ||
+ | * Two or three sentences explaining the **detailed issues** to work on. | ||
+ | * Two or three sentences outlining an **approach how to address these issues**. You may extend this to include multiple potential approaches here and also indicate expected results. | ||
+ | Take this as a suggestion for what to write in which order. Of course, other formats can also be suitable, but the problem and approach to address it should be apparent. | ||
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+ | In addition, the following project-specific issues may have to be addressed: | ||
+ | * Describe any **special resources** needed, e.g. non-standard hardware, special software, etc., that are either available via university, some other source or the student may own already. If they are not available, then the project may not be feasible. | ||
+ | * Indicate if the project requires **ethical approval**. This affects any project involving human participants, | ||
+ | * Any **legal issues**, especially **intellectual property** and **licensing**, | ||
+ | **Student and supervisor are responsible for ensuring that the project can be executed in principle**. Make sure you check this with suitable risk management before you agree to do a project. | ||
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+ | Staff may also wish to discuss the **skills needed** to execute the project and the skills that must be acquired during the project. Similarly, students may want to indicate that they have or are willing to acquire any specific skills for their proposed project that would usually not have been covered by the course. | ||
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+ | PATS' project **[[https:// | ||
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+ | Obviously, **the project proposal must be your own**, in your own words, even if there may be overlaps between problems and topics with other work; this includes project proposals from other students and supervisors. Sometimes it is possible that you can work on someone' |