project_proposals [PATS2]

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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, and supervisors available for a module are pre-assigned and visible to you when project selection starts. It is sometimes possible to add another member of staff, if they voltuneer.

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; staff proposals are visible to students on the degree programmes the proposal is intended for. Here we discuss how to write and submit your own project proposal. The process is the same for students and supervisors, and both kinds of proposals should provide the information outlined here.

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' interests, availability and expertise.

To a lesser degree, this equally applies to **staff proposals**: there is no guarantee to find a student who can or wants to do a particular staff project, nor do members of staff have to supervise all their own proposals. However, members of staff are expected to supervise a certain number of projects (PATS indicates this in the supervisor list if the project coordinator uses that feature), and a student who does not select a proposal will be assigned a random supervisor who has project slots left. In this case, the student and supervisor should discuss what the project should be, but it is likely to be taken from the supervisor's or student's (if feasible) proposals.

**Deadlines** for proposal submission (and selection) are announced via e-mail and visible in the PATS Tasks section.

===== Projects =====

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; to apply, where appropriate, knowledge, skills and techniques taught throughout the degree programme; to further oral and written communication skills; and to practise investigative, problem-solving, management and other transferable skills. The management and execution of the project are the student's responsibility, but they should seek and take advantage of advice from their supervisor.

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, often exciting project ideas arise.

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, computational or experimental approach. This means not every project produces a piece of software. If you are addressing a research hypothesis, your main product may be the evaluation of some experiments or a theoretical result. In brief, the better the problem you are addressing is defined, the further through the systems lifecycle you should expect to progress.

**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, thoroughly tested program that meets all the identified needs of the client. However, a project that aims to validate a government policy in a particular area might only achieve the development of a model to confidently simulate the main factors influencing that policy and identify the research agenda in terms of specifying precisely the data requirements to allow a full investigation of the relevant factors. A scientifically oriented project may focus on the practical or theoretical evaluation of an algorithmic approach and compare it with other approaches. This may involve some implementation but does not require fully functional software. 

Importantly, **your project must solve a problem**. That means it cannot simply produce a literature review, discuss existing solutions of some form, etc. You should demonstrate you are aware of the **background and context of the problem**, clearly **specify the problem** you are aiming to solve, work and report on **how you solve the problem** and **evaluate your solution**. Note that you may not necessarily have to achieve a positive result. E.g. if it is not clear at the start that your approach will be successful, but based on the background, it appears to be a suitable direction to explore, then your evaluation producing a negative result is still useful (of course, this is different if you are trying something that is known not to work / where it is hard to find a justification of why to try it). For a specific proposal, it can be very helpful to discuss what you are expected to achieve and how to deal with any risks with a supervisor.

===== Writing a Proposal =====

To submit a new project proposal, go to "My proposals" in PATS' navigation bar, which takes you to a section listing your own proposals. There you can add new proposals, edit or delete existing proposals and make them available for selection.

To create a new proposal, go to the "New Proposal" tab and enter a proposal title and description. If you are a student, the proposal will automatically be assigned your degree scheme (check in your profile that your degree scheme there is correct and contact the project coordinator if this needs to be amended). Staff should select the degree schemes for which their proposal is suitable from the list provided. This is important as the project must be related to the degree studied, particularly for any specialisms. Staff and students are advised to check this carefully.

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", instead of "Final Year Project Management System").

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.

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, human material or human data (Human Research)
  * Any **legal issues**, especially **intellectual property** and **licensing**, that may apply. Note that the foreground work on the project belongs to the student, but background and sideground or industry involvement can create additional requirements. Cardiff University's research support may have to be involved for further advice, but they cannot legally represent the student.
**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.

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.

PATS' project **[[https://pats.cs.cf.ac.uk/archive|archive]]** contains some example projects that may help you write your proposal. Note that you can do similar projects to those there, but not //exactly// the same.

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's proposal with a different supervisor. Still, you must ask the proposer for permission (and acknowledge them suitably in the documents as the source of the proposal). Generally, if there is a source for the proposal, parts of it or maybe just a useful related resource, you should cite it (author/location or URL in a compact citation format is sufficient).
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