11-744 - Experimental IR
Jamie Callan

PROJECT MEETING GUIDELINES

The second half of the course is the 'lab' portion of the course, in which you build a competitive system and conduct experiments to find out how well your ideas worked. You may work alone or in a group. Groups are expected to address more ambitious or broad issues because they have more resources.

The project is half of your grade. It is expected to be a serious, sustained effort throughout the semester, not a last-minute dash to the finish.

You should view the weekly project meetings as similar to the meetings that you probably have each week with your research advisor. You are expected to show demonstrable signs of progress, or at least serious effort, each week. Some weeks your progress may consist of tool acquisition or programming. Some weeks it may consist of preliminary experiments and failure analysis. This is a research effort, so it is understood that some weeks may produce more frustration than tangible rewards, however that shouldn't happen often.

Each person or group will be given time to discuss their progress and current status. You may use slides if you wish to show examples, however it is not necessary to do so.

You must provide the instructor with written notes that provide a high-level perspective on your progress toward your goals, work that you did that week, experimental results, interesting examples, etc. Your notes may be brief (e.g., 1-2 pages) and informal. This is not a writing exercise, and you are not writing a paper. You are simply demonstrating steady progress towards your goal. Don't spend more than 10-15 minutes preparing these notes. Bring these to class.

Group projects may present one set of notes, however the notes will probably need to be a little more extensive to cover the work of all members.

If you must skip a project meeting, send a progress report by email. Email reports should have slightly more detail to help me understand what you did, because I won't have the ability to discuss them with you and ask you questions.


Copyright 2011, Jamie Callan.
December 10, 2011.