Index of Contents
Introduction
This document describes the timetable and assessment of
the MSc dissertation project. It contains a lot of
important information, so please read it very carefully,
and keep it for reference during the remainder of the
course.
Description and aims
The dissertation project is an extended piece of individual
work. You will spend some time working on the project from
the end of Semester 2 onwards, and the project will occupy
all of your time from the end of the spring examination
period until the submission of your dissertation. You will
generally work on a topic that interests you, and have
regular meetings with your supervisor (and/or external
client) to discuss your progress. For all students, the aims
of the project are to encourage and reward individual
inventiveness and application of effort. Additionally,
advanced MSc students (MSc in Advanced Computer Science, MSc
(Eng) in Advanced Software Engineering, MSc in Data
Communications) are expected to produce dissertations that
contain some element of original work. This does not mean
that the project is expected to obtain publishable research
results (although some advanced MSc projects do
produce publishable material), only that the project has to
cover new ground and contain some element of innovation.
Objectives
- Construct a project from initial (perhaps
unstructured) ideas;
- Plan, schedule, monitor and control your own work;
- Defend your ideas in discussions and presentations;
- Use libraries and other information resources;
- Apply tools and techniques from taught courses (e.g.
design and project management tools);
- Communicate your findings through a written report and
poster presentation.
Different types of MSc project
Broadly speaking, there are three basic types of project:
experimental, theoretical and design
and build. Some projects may combine features from
more than one of these types. It is expected that
conversion MSc projects (SSIT, IS) will usually be design
and build projects, whereas advanced MSc projects (ACS,
ASE, DataComms) will be experimental or theoretical. Of
course, this is a generalisation and a project may combine
features from more than one of these types. It is
important, however, that an advanced MSc project offers
scope for making an original contribution to the field.
Design and build
These projects should involve the main activities
associated with the development of a well-engineered
software system for carrying out the particular task
required by the project: requirements analysis,
specification, program design, implementation, system
testing (including field testing and user comments),
documentation and maintenance. Most of these stages are
likely to be included in the report and the reasons for
the various design decisions will be carefully described.
Experimental
These projects involve the investigation and evaluation of
a new piece of technology (eg, an AI search algorithm or a
statistical model for text processing). This may involve a
substantial amount of (software or hardware)
implementation and the application of scientific
measurements and investigations to ascertain its
properties and usefulness. Such a project will necessarily
have a report which will describe the theoretical
foundations of the technology, a description of the
implementation and the experimental procedures used and an
analysis of the results, together with an assessment of
the relationship between the project work and other
published work. Thus there should be a discussion of the
problems of existing methods and how the new ideas
overcome any of these problems.
Theoretical
Project dissertations in this category tend to concentrate
on introducing the relevant concepts with suitable
examples, investigating further examples, making and
testing conjectures, developing theorems and proofs, where
appropriate, and assessing the results, with attention
given in suitable cases to possible applications.
Supervision
You should arrange a meeting with your supervisor as soon
as a project is allocated to you, and you should meet at
least once every two weeks during the remaining project
period (from the end of semester 2 onwards). Many
supervisors will want to meet with you weekly.
For projects with an external organisation, you will be
allocated an academic supervisor (a member of the academic
staff) and an industrial supervisor (a member of the
client organisation). The industrial superivsor will act
as project manager, ensuring that your work remains
relevant to the client company. You will still be expected
to meet your academic supervisor occasionally (if you are
working away from Sheffield, your academic supervisor will
visit you).
You should be prepared for meetings with your
supervisor. Bring along results to discuss and questions
to explore. If your supervisor requests it, you may also
have to regularly submit short reports on your project
work (usually by email). These reports should record the
main milestones of the project, discussing both successes
and failures.
External projects
Curriculum Vitae
Students wishing to apply for an external project
should submit a copy of their curriculum vitae (CV) with
a covering letter. The CV should be neatly formatted for
A4 paper and clearly laid out. The University Careers
Advisory Service can provide help with producing a CV.
It is not necessary to go into great detail about the
course modules being taken, as placement providers will
have received a course synopsis. Students should
concentrate on relevant personal details such as
previous work experience. However, it would be helpful
if students could highlight their particular strengths
and interests from the course and outline their plans
for the future. Regrettably no student can be put
forward for an external project if they have not
supplied a CV.
Responsibilities of the student
Whilst on placement, whether in a company or in another
part of the University, students will be representing
not only themselves, but the University of Sheffield and
the Department of Computer Science in particular. The
projects offered are all real tasks that various
organisations would like done. They all expect useful
results from the placement and will be devoting
considerable managerial time to integrating a student
into their organisation. Whilst on placement the student
is required to:
- Undertake the project to the best of his/her
capabilities;
- Liaise regularly with company and academic
supervisors;
- Comply with company regulations whilst on company
premises or representing that company (e.g. dress,
time keeping, smoking, safety procedures etc.);
- Produce a dissertation for the University at the end
of the project;
- Maintain any confidentiality associated with the
project.
Any student who feels unable to proceed with a project
should discuss the situation with their supervisor. If
this is not possible, then they should speak to the
Director of MSc Courses. Students must not leave a
project without good reason and must inform both
academic and industrial supervisors in writing that they
intend to do so.
Project allocation procedure
The vast majority of projects will be listed on MOLE no
later than Week 5 of the second semester (external project
details may continue to be received and listed after this
date), and each project will have its own discussion thread.
Students should read the project descriptions and identify
those projects which they would be interested in doing.
Leave a note on the relevant discussion thread(s)
registering the fact that you are interested in doing the
project(s), and then contact the named supervisor by
email, asking to discuss the project in more detail.
No projects will be allocated before Week 8 , so you
have plenty of time to investigate the possibilities. Week 8
of the second semester is Projects Week. Taking into
account the various discussions they've had with interested
students, supervisors will decide which student they would
like to have on each of their projects, and will make them
an offer. This offer will be time-limited,
i.e. you will be given a deadline, typically 24 hours. You
may receive offers from several projects, but you can only
accept one of them. To accept an offer, you should
reply to the supervisor saying that you agree to do the
project (the supervisor will then tell the relevant members
of the admin team); you are now committed to doing
that project - you cannot change your mind and accept a
different project later. If you reject the offer (or
if you miss the deadline) the project may be offered to
another student instead. You cannot accept more than one
offer. In addition to any deadline you may receive in
respect of an offer, there is a global deadline at 5pm on
Friday of Week 8. Any students who have failed to secure a
project at that point will be assigned an unallocated
project by the Projects Officer (in practice this happens
the following Monday, so that supervisors have time to
notify us of late acceptances).
Payment
The placement is part of a course of study. The
Department does not provide any financial assistance.
Students should not expect to be paid any wage by the
placement provider although some may be generous and offer
remuneration. There are all sorts of legal implications
for registered students receiving wages and advice about
this should be sought although repayment of expenses
incurred is usually acceptable. If companies wish to
remunerate students as a 'thank you' for their work, we
suggest that they arrange a lump sum to be paid direct to
the student once the course has ended.
Proposing your own project
If a student finds a project for themselves, the
Department must see and approve a project specification
before such a project is accepted. Please submit
specifications to the Project Officer. Any student offered
a placement which they have sought themselves but which
they no longer wish to use should inform the Project
Officer as soon as possible, since it may be possible to
offer the project to other students.
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