1. Final Year Project Workshops Workshop 1 Planning

2. Important Points to Note Project Workshops will be Thursdays at 09:00 in CM 107 These workshops are compulsory for all project students

3. Project Web Pages Web pages are located off the Computer Science pages www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science Full details at: /ug/mods/y3proj/proj-furtherdesc.php

4. General Advice 1.Start early. Put in enough work. If you do not do enough, you will fail. 2.Conversely, do not spend the whole of the Easter vacation on your project at the expense of your revision. A double module project currently represents only one third of your final- year assessment, translating into one fifth of your overall degree mark. You cannot afford to neglect the other two-thirds of your final-year mark.

5. General Advice 3.The dissertation and the project itself must use and apply Computer Science. This above all is the major weakness of past projects. 4.Include a first-class literature survey. 5.Include RESULTS. A project without results and an evaluation of them is useless.

6. Responsibilities of the Supervisor 1. to give guidance about the nature of the project and the standard expected, about the planning of the project, about literature and sources, about techniques and methods and about any problems of plagiarism; 2. to maintain contact via regular tutorial meetings; 3.to be accessible within reason at other times for giving advice to the student; 4. to give detailed advice on milestones;.

7. Responsibilities of the Supervisor 5.to request written work as appropriate and return such work with constructive criticism within a reasonable time; 6. to ensure that a student is made aware of any inadequacy of progress, or of standards of work below those expected; 7.to encourage the student to produce early draft chapters, to comment on them critically and return the comments promptly. If the student does not do so, this is the student's responsibility.

8. Responsibilities of the Student 1.to agree on a schedule of meetings with the supervisor and to attend such meetings; 2.to take the initiative in raising problems, however elementary they may seem; 3.to maintain the progress of the work in accordance with the milestones and objectives agreed with the supervisor; 4.to contribute to planning the project and monitoring progress against the plan;

9. Responsibilities of the Student 5.to keep a project log for recording results, ideas, references etc. acquired as the project progresses; 6.to determine the contents of the report and of oral presentations; 7.to present draft chapters to the supervisor before the Easter vacation. There is no obligation on supervisors to read drafts during the vacation

10. First Deliverable Due: End of Week 2 Preliminary plan: you need to produce a one-page (minimum) plan by the end of week two, and hand it electronically as well as in hard copy to the office. Hard copy is required as these will be distributed back to your supervisor who will discuss the plan with you.

11. Planning Now: Detailed planning of the basic deliverable phase and "abstract“ planning of the later phases, After the January benchtest to clarify planning for the remainder of the project. (Plan for plan revision!)

12. Planning Decomposition of the basic deliverable into a partially ordered network of components, to help you to prioritise tasks and define ways of making initial rapid progress. Consider time management to allow you to schedule your activities in term 1 and to raise any foreseeable problems with supervisors.

13. Planning Your Project identify the key tasks involved in your basic deliverables, order on those tasks and any new skills you think you will need to do the project successfully. Use GANTT or PERT charts. Important in each case to state the project goals and what your basic deliverable entails – start with the project description from your supervisor

14. Planning Your Project Plan regular meetings with your supervisor every two weeks. Concentrate on planning for the basic deliverable to get a clear plan for tackling that over the next 3 months. And plan to re-plan later on as your project progresses and you have a better understanding of your project enabling you to predict how design choices made now will affect their later goals.

15. Some Fixed Points SE Projects – Design Review at end of term 1 All projects – Presentation at beginning of next term and Benchtest with supervisor Project Hand-in – 1 week after Easter break

16. Further Details Chapters on Project Planning in books ASE Lecture on Planning /ug/mods/y3proj/slides/ASEIlect02.ppt

17. Summary Take not of these workshops and the documentation as failure to do so in the past has resulted in students attaining very poor marks and even failing completely Start early. Put in enough work. If you do not do enough, you will fail.