Project Proposal Guidelines

Before you write up your proposal, please discuss it with Prof. Goldstein. <% Be sure to sign up for an appointment between 1:00pm and 3:30pm on Thursday, October 17th to meet with Prof. Goldstein in his office (WeH 7122). %> A signup sheet for scheduling meetings will be passed around in class. You are strongly encouraged to send email with your idea to Prof. Goldstein before this meeting.

Your project proposal should be roughly two pages long, and should include the following information:

Group Info:

List the names and email addresses of each member of your group. Groups should contain two people.

Project Web Page:

Include the URL of a web page which you will be maintaining for your group. This web page will initially contain your proposal, and will eventually include your final results, etc. We will be setting up links to these web pages from the class projects web page.

Project Description:

Briefly describe goal of your project (i.e. what research question(s) are you trying to answer?) and what metrics will be used to evaluate its success.

Logistics:

Please address each of the following issues regarding how you will carry out your project:

Plan of Attack and Schedule:

How will you go about completing your project? Please include a week-by-week schedule of exactly who in your group will be doing what. We will not strictly hold you to this schedule (other than meeting your milestone, as described below), but it is important that you have a concrete and realistic plan. Identify what you expect to be the critical path in your schedule. Indicate how the work will be divided among your group members.

Milestone:

Indicate what your group plans to accomplish by November 21st (i.e. about three weeks before the project due date). On that date, you will submit a brief report and give a presentation describing your progress up to that point. Your ability to set a reasonable milestone and to meet this goal will be factored into your final project grade.

Literature Search:

What papers and other background materials have you collected so far to help you in your study? Are you missing anything?

Resources Needed:

What software will you need to conduct your study? Do you have a copy of this software already? (If not, how will you get it?) What hardware or machines will you need to run this software? Do you have all of the resources that you need to conduct this study?

Getting Started:

What work have you done so far on this project (other than writing up this proposal)? Do you have any questions or other constraints that are preventing you from gettings started immediately?

Please hand in a hardcopy version of your proposal on the due date (we don't have class on that day, so you can drop it off at Prof. Goldstein's office, or slip it under his door), and also put an electronic version of the proposal (preferably in html) on your project web page.