The purpose of the poster session is for you to demonstrate your ability, both in writing and orally, to describe your project and explain its main findings to others who have no previous knowledge of it. The poster should give a brief description of the project, and summarise its main findings. A diagram is usually illuminating (not to mention attention grabbing) and the text should be made large enough so that people can read it at a distance. Sensible (?) use of colour can be a great eye-catcher. Do not present a blur of text. Rather, you should summarise - you will be able to explain in greater detail when attendees ask questions. The poster should be interesting enough to make people want to know more. Note: Remember to put the project title and your name on the poster. You should create your poster on an A1 sheet of black card which you can collect for the poster session from G11. Your poster will be kept by the Department after the poster session. We will display some of the best posters around the Department, e.g. in corridors, in order to inspire - perhaps they have already inspired you.

If you have developed some software you would normally demonstrate it at the poster session. The software demonstration should be organised. Interactivity is always valued, but make sure you have some pre-canned aspects that you can initially use to explain your project or to fall back on if the interactive demo does not work.  Make sure it is easy to launch with little or no waiting time

The poster session will take place in the Lewin Computer Room and adjacent rooms. The session starts at 2, but you can arrive with your poster to set it up from 1pm - hanging it from the chains that will be provided.

Attendance

Attendance at the poster session is compulsory.  It is part of the formal assessment for your dissertation project. Academic staff will be marking your posters, asking you questions and assessing your performance. There may also be some people from outside the Department, e.g. project clients from other departments and visitors from local companies.

The Poster

The poster should give a brief description of the project, and summarise its main findings. Different subjects have different conventions for posters, and in some subjects they are often little more than printouts of short scientific papers, but that is not the case in computing. Rather, it is expected here that posters should provide a fairly graphic presentation of the main features of a project, in which it is more important to get the key ideas across clearly than it is to present lots of detail of the work done. Consequently, diagrams are important, as they are usually illuminating (not to mention attention grabbing). Also, text should be made large enough so that people can read it at a distance. Sensible use of colour and typography can be a great eye-catcher. Do not present a blur of text. Rather, you should summarise - you will be able to explain in greater detail when attendees ask questions. The poster should be interesting enough to make people want to know more. The aspects of the project that are covered by the poster should include the following:

• the background to the problem that the project was trying to solve;
• the methods used to solve the problem (which, if the project was mainly concerned with developing a piece of software, should include the methods used for analysing the requirements, and the methods or tools used for designing and implementing the system);
• the results obtained (which, if the project was mainly concerned with developing a piece of software, should include the results of testing the system, and the extent to which all of the requirements were met); and
• any conclusions that can be drawn from the project.

Remember to put the project title and your name clearly on the poster, and the name of your supervisor. It may also be appropriate to include the title of your degree, but this is not essential. Physically, the poster should be assembled on an A1 sized board, which is provided by the department: you can collect your board from the technicians in room G11. You are not expected to produce your poster as a single printed sheet to go on the board, since this would require access to a printer that is capable of handling A1 sized paper, and these are extremely expensive. Thus, instead you are allowed to construct your poster as a set of sections, each no greater than A4 size, which you can then print out separately and assemble onto the board using a glue stick or equivalent. You are encouraged to be imaginative about this, in terms of using different colours, sizes and shapes of paper produced from A4 sheets, rather than just laying out a set of A4 rectangles on your board.

The Software Demonstration

Assuming that your project has involved the production of any software at all, then you should expect to demonstrate this as part of the poster session. If this demonstration is likely to require any special hardware or software, then this must be specified when you submit your dissertation and code on MOLE. You must organise your software demonstration in advance, not least to ensure that you don't try demonstrating features of the software that do not work as well as they should! Don't forget to test your software on the network machines if you intend using them - just because code works on your laptop, it doesn't mean it will also work on the network. Interactivity is always valued, but make sure you have some pre-arranged aspects that you can use initially to explain your project, or to fall back on if the interaction reveals parts of the system that do not work.

Assessment

You will be assessed on your ability to summarise your work and professionally present it in an interesting manner. The grade from the poster session will be factored into the overall grade for your project, according to the mark sheets here. Three areas will be focussed on in the assessment process:

• The poster itself: is it a good summary, bold, colourful, attractive?
• The software demonstration: it should work (to whatever extent) and be usable by visitors;
• Oral explanations and question-answering skills.

Checklist

• Are your name, the project title and your supervisor's name clearly displayed on the poster, and perhaps also your MSc programme?
• Does the poster summarise the aims/objectives of the project, the methods that were used, the results obtained and the conclusions that you drew from them?
• Does the software demonstration (if appropriate) have a logical flow? Is it easy to launch (little or no waiting time), and do you have preset demonstrations to show if the software crashes on the day?

Attendees

As well as the academic staff, all sorts of people attend the poster session including some people from outside the Department, e.g. staff from other departments and visitors from local companies.We expect you to be impressive.