1. Proposal for Term Project
J. H. Wang
Mar. 31, 2017

2. Options and Schedule for Term Projects
Options for term projects
Option 1: team-based system project
i.e., extension to homework exercises
Option 2: academic paper presentation
Only one person, NOT team-based
Tentative schedule for all teams:
Proposal: *required* one week after midterm (Apr. 28, 2017)
Presentations (including demos): *required* in the last four weeks (starting from Jun. 2, 2017)
Final report: before the end of the semester (Jun. 26, 2017)
Slides, source code, documentation

3. Proposal (for System Projects)
A one-page description of ideas about your system
Introduction: an overview of the problem that you’re trying to deal with
Methods: possible issues, and the major ideas on your design or selected tools to solve the problem
Team members: the names and the responsibilities of each individual member *must* be clearly identified
Preferred time slots: your preferred time slots within the last four weeks
A 20-minute presentation that focuses on the ideas of your design, including demo and Q&A
System functionalities and presentations will be counted in the score

4. Proposal (for Paper Presentation)
A one-page description of your selected papers to present
Introduction: an overview of your selected paper which is related to information retrieval
Keypoints: main content of your selected paper including methods, major contribution, experimental results
Preferred time slots: your preferred time slots within the last four weeks
No team work allowed
A 20-minute presentation that focuses on the major ideas in your selected paper and Q&A
Paper quality and presentations will greatly affect the score
Recommended sources: latest papers preferred
Top conferences: SIGIR, CIKM, WWW, JCDL, …
Journals: TOIS, JASIST, IP&M,

5. Possible Topics for Systems
Improvements on your prototype retrieval system based on exercises, e.g.:
User interface: query expansion, relevance feedback (Ch.9), visualization, search-result clustering (Ch. 15) for search-result presentation
Other improvements: more query types (phrase, proximity, wildcard, spell-correction, …), retrieval models, ranking schemes, document collections, …
Any topic that you think interesting and non-trivial to extend from your prototype system, e.g.:
Application of text classification, or clustering in different media
Retrieval and analysis of social media such as blog, news, …
Different platforms, media types, languages: mobile IR, multimedia IR, cross-language IR, …

6. Example: Mobile IR Mobile devices become more and more popular
Smart phones, iPad, …
Growing applications for retrieval on mobile devices
Location-based services
Social, personalized search
User interface: (HCI)
Output: limited screen size
Input: multi-touch technology
Battery: limited power
Capacity: computing & storage
Client-server architecture …

7. Possible Challenges and Issues
Indexing and storage of mobile data
Efficient query processing and retrieval of mobile data
Content adaptation and information presentation for small display
Automatic summarization and personalization of mobile data
Scalable algorithms for large mobile databases
Knowledge sharing among mobile peers
Security and trusted retrieval of mobile data
Location-based search for mobile devices

8. Proposal Submission Due: one week *after* midterm (Apr. 28, 2017)
Submission site:
Your proposal is subject to review and possible modification according to our suggestions
The presentation schedule will be arranged in the last four weeks
Starting from Jun. 2, 2017
Preferred time slots *should* be specified in the proposal
No other time slots available for presentation
No presentation, no score for term project

9. Questions or Comments?