Assignment Presentation Guidelines

Each assignment presentation is fifteen minutes. Since at least half of that time should be allocated for discussion and questions, you'll need to plan carefully to be able to concisely cover the major points. You'll not be able to explain more than six to eight slides.

Content of slides is far more important than elaborate graphics; neatly hand-drafted transparencies are fine. Use architectural concepts rather than programming constructs in your explanations.

1. Spend a little time on your analysis of the problem. What are you given? What must you produce? What are the driving factors? (Make it VERY clear what the make-or-break issue is.) What are the essential elements of the problem? And how does this fit into defining a problem frame? Are there issues with the frame(s) you chose? How did you resolve them? (Give more than just a what, explain why you selected a given frame.)
2. Architectural diagrams should be clear. Use examples from the text and lectures as models. Check all diagrams to see that components and connectors are labeled, and that distinguishing symbols are used for components and connectors of different types. Connector differences can be indicated with solid versus dashed arrows, for example. Components might have double versus single lines on the boxes.
3. What alternative solutions did you identify? What were the issues with each, and why did you choose the solutions you did? What type of analysis did you do to evaluate your choices?

A suggested outline for your presentation follows:

[0] title slide 

[1] informal statement of problem 

[2] analysis of the frame 

[3-6] For the two parts of the problem: 

	given architecture 

	alternative architectural solutions and choice 

Remember, be concise! There is a lot of ground to cover in 7.5 minutes, so decide how to get the main points across most effectively in your allotted time.