Project/Thesis Guidelines (CS 297/298/299)

Project Guidelines

Key Steps:

1. Enroll in CS 200W (if necessary)
2. Find an advisor
3. Understand the rules about plagiarism
4. Enroll in CS 297
5. Submit application for candidacy.
6. Form a Committee of three members including your advisor.
   At least 2 members (including your advisor) need to be a Tenure/Tenure Track faculty member at the Computer Science department, 菠菜网lol正规平台. The 3rd member needs to hold at least an MS degree. You must do your CS 297 and CS 298 with the same advisor.
7. Submit CS 298 (or 299) proposal and graduation form.
8. Enroll in CS 298 (or 299)
9. File application for award of degree
10. Defend your writing project/thesis
11. Submit your report for publication

Timelines:

First Semester (Preparing for the CS Project)
Second Semester (The CS 298/299 Project)
The Competency in Written English Requirement

First Semester (Preparing for the Project)

• MSCS students are required to complete a 2-semester thesis (297 + 299, also called "Plan A" in the university catalog) or writing project (297 + 298, also called "Plan B").
• You must decide whether you want to work on a writing project or a thesis. The principal difference is that the writing project will not be filed with the Associate Vice President of Graduate Studies and Research. The Graduate Studies office is very stringent about English language usage and typography of theses.
• You must find an advisor who is willing to work with you. It is a good idea to be flexible and be prepared to work with one of several potential advisors.
• You and your advisor must agree on a topic for your project. Again, it is a good idea to be flexible and find a topic that is of interest to you and your advisor.
• You should start contacting potential advisors by the middle of the semester preceding the start of the project.
• Your project deliverables should show that your project meets one or more of the following criteria:
  • Technical innovation: Are you using new techniques that have not been used in this way in the past?
  • Technical challenge: Are the tools and techniques that you are using so difficult that they require the maturity of a graduate student?
  • Theoretical foundations: Are you providing a theoretical framework for your work, for example by discussing architectural patterns, by analyzing the relationships between your implementation and prior art, or by performing a mathematical analysis?
  • Quantitative analysis: Are you gathering and evaluating quantitative data? Projects must have appropriate depth for graduate work. "Literature review" and "routine implementation" projects will not be approved by the department. Projects that are merely lengthy but shallow are not appropriate. In particular, you need to be able to demonstrate how your project rises above the level of a senior undergraduate project. We consider the following criteria:
    • The results of your project (i.e. the final report and the source code) must be available for public inspection.
    • Proprietary work is not appropriate.
    • Be sure that you understand the plagiarism policy.

The following information is for the first semester of the culminating experience:

CS 297

• Present a proposal (1-2 pages) to your project advisor that includes:
  • a description of your project
  • a proposed schedule for your project work
  • a tentative list of proposed deliverables
  • a list of literature references
• If your advisor approves, you will receive an add code for CS297.
  Remember to file your candidacy form [pdf] [pdf] as soon as you have started with your CS297 class. If you don't file this form by the deadline, you won't be able to progress to CS298. (Spring graduation deadline, Fall graduation deadline)
• It is strongly suggested that you do some implementation work and some writing in the first semester.
• At the end of the first semester, you report your progress to your advisor and your committee members. Your advisor determines how this should be done (a report, a presentation to the committee, etc.)

The Committee

• You and your advisor need to find two additional committee members to form a 3-member project committee.
• The advisor and at least one other committee member must be a permanent member of the CS faculty.
• You must form the committee by the end of the first semester.
• If at any time you need to change the committee, you need to have written approval from the department.
• You need to keep your committee members updated throughout your project. Meet with them at least three times (at the end of the first semester, a month into the second semester, and when you are about to complete your work). Solicit their input early so that you are not surprised by requests for enhancements late in the project or even worse, the defense.
• In the defense, all committee members must agree that your work is complete and correct. Committee members have the right and the obligation to reject substandard projects.

Second Semester

To continue your project, you need to file a 298/299 proposal, have it approved by the department, and get and a CS 298/299 add code.

The CS 298/299 Proposal

The proposal should be 1-2 page and and contain:

• • your name, your advisor's and committee members' names, email addresses, and affiliations (if not 菠菜网lol正规平台 CS regular faculty)
  • a description of your project
  • a summary of your 297 results
  • a proposed schedule for the completion of your project
  • a concrete description of deliverables in your software and report
  • a description of the challenging and/or innovative aspects of your proposal
  • a list of literature references

Students are encouraged to use any one of the following CS 298/299 Proposal Templates.

• • For LaTeX Users CS 298/299 proposal template - http://github.com/sjsu-interconnect/cs298-proposal-template
  • For Word Users: Proposal Format Example [docx] and Proposal Format Instructions and Example [docx]
  • For pdf users: Proposal Format Example [pdf] and Proposal Format Instructions and Example [pdf]
    
    
• If you are retaking CS 298/299 and your proposal has not changed, add a statement: "This is a continuation of the CS 298/299 project that was approved for (insert semester), and there are no changes to the proposal."
• Your proposal must be in proper English. The department may reject plans that contain too many spelling or grammar errors.
• File your proposal within one week after the first day of classes of the semester in which you want to to take 298/299. (You may file it at the end of the preceding semester if you prefer.)
• CS 298 cannot be taken over the summer.
• Submit your request form and your completed CS298/299 proposal along with an approved graduate candidacy form from GAPE (CS 298/299 cannot be taken without the approved candidacy form) to the CS Department office via email. 
  
  
  • We encourage you to use Docusign as Instructors have varying schedules on campus.
    
    
• We also ask that you submit your graduation form [pdf] (via My菠菜网lol正规平台) while you complete your 298/299 application so you don't forget to file it. 
• Upon approval, you will receive a registration code from the department.

CS 298/299

Once you have enrolled in CS 298/299, you should:

• Complete your experimental or implementation work early enough to give you ample time to finish your written report.
• Give your committee members at least a month before your defense date to read and comment on your written report.
• Your report should be about 40 single-spaced pages. That said, you can choose to write the report in either single or double-space.
• Follow the Graduate Studies formatting instructions. Additionally, you are free to use the LaTeX template maintained by Prof. Thomas Austin.
• Your report must be in proper English. It is your job - and not that of your advisor or committee members - to proofread your report and fix any spelling and grammar errors before you give it to your committee to read. Your advisor and committee members are responsible for reviewing the technical contents of your report, not your spelling and grammar.
• Your committee - or in the case of a thesis, the Graduate School - has the right to reject your report if it is not written in proper English.
• You must submit the draft report at least two weeks before the scheduled defense. In order to upload the report: you must be added as a student in the "CS 298/299 Report" Canvas course. If you are not added there yet, please send an email request to <info-compsci@022aode.com> . Please use the following subject header: CS298/299 Canvas Add Request [Name, Student ID]. Please do not include any additional documents or information in this email. Once added, go to Assignments and upload your report to the CS 298/299 Report assignment. At the same time fill out the Oral Defense Room Request Form [pdf] and email it to <jutomue.quenavah@022aode.com> 
• Contact the office to request a room assignment. You will receive it after the plagiarism check has passed. The office will post an official announcement of your defense.
• The defense date must be before the last day of the semester. It is strongly suggested to schedule the defense before the first day of finals.
• If you schedule your defense during finals, it may happen that no room is available. It is acceptable for you to reserve a room in Clark Hall or the library. These rooms are only available for checkout by students, so you must do this. The office cannot do it for you. You must then notify the office so that they can post an official announcement with the correct time and location.
• Any rescheduling of the defense requires at least one week's notice.
• If you do not follow this procedure (that is, if you simply find your own room and hold the "defense" there without plagiarism check and an official announcement), you will not be allowed to graduate.

Preparing for the CS 298/299 Defense

• Any changes on the defense exam (date/location/committee member) need to be approved by the department. The CS 298 Advisor must send an email to both the Department Chair and the Program Coordinator and cc the Dept staff (Chan or Jutomue). The advisor must obtain permission from either the Department Chair or the Program Coordinator for any change to be allowed.
• All committee members must join the defense in-person. If a committee member is unable to join in-person due to unavoidable circumstances, the CS 298 Advisor must send an email to both the Department Chair and the Program Coordinator and cc the Department staff (Chan or Jutomue). The CS 298 Advisor must also set up the Zoom meeting for the committee member to join virtually.
• Both of the above changes must be notified to the Chair and the Program Coordinator one week before the scheduled defense.
• The defense must have been officially announced by the department in order to be valid.
• You must provide your final report at least one month before the defense to all your committee members.

The CS 298/299 Defense

• The defense must have been officially announced by the department in order to be valid.
• Any changes on the defense exam (date/location/committee member) need to be approved by the Department. The CS 298 advisor should send an email to both the Dept Chair and the Program Coordinator and cc the Dept staff (Chan or Jutomue), and obtain permission from either the Dept Chair or the Program Coordinator for any change to be allowed.
• The defense is open to the public.
• You need to procure any necessary projection equipment.
• In the defense, you will give a presentation of your project and answer questions from the committee and the audience. You should bring a printed copy of your written report to the defense and make it available to the audience.
• The committee may request modifications to your work.
• You need to get your advisor's and your committee members' signature which the department office should have prepared for your advisor.
• Turn in that form to the department office.
• Defense must be completed before/on the last day of final exams.

Your Final Report

• Produce a PDF file with name lastname_firstname.pdf where firstname, lastname are your first and last name in lowercase. For example, John Q. Nguyen would send a file nguyen_john.pdf, that is, the six lowercase letters n g u y e n followed by an underscore (U+005F), the four lowercase letters j o h n, a period (U+002E), and the three lowercase letters p d f. Do not zip the file.
• The cover page of your report should contain your name and the title of your project in Title Case (not all uppercase) and the publication year.  You must supply an abstract (a single paragraph, < 1000 characters). Your abstract must be legible on its own. Do not include page references, section references, or literature references. Your abstract must consist of UTF-8 characters that can be copied out of Adobe Acrobat. If you use TeX, you must figure out how not to have ligatures appear as invalid characters.
• Once you made any final changes to your report, ask your advisor to send it to the appropriate program coordinator: MSCS <navrati.saxena@022aode.com> or MSDS <teng.moh@022aode.com> or MSBI <wendy.lee@022aode.com>
• The report will be posted on http://scholarworks.022aode.com/computer_sci_grad/ (by default) or, for the first year on a protected web site (by your or your advisor's written request, to allow for publication)
• Once you have seen your report published, you can go to the office and ask them to send a "Culminating Experience Memo" to Graduate Studies. That will trigger your graduation.

The Competency in Written English Requirement

• You must satisfy the Competency in Written English requirement. For most students this means taking CS 200W. This is a co-requisite for CS 297 and a prerequisite for CS298/299.
• The University requires that all graduate students complete the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR) as a condition for advancement to candidacy.
• The Computer Science Department policy is that students should complete the GWAR requirement (usually by taking CS200W) in their first year in the MS program and must complete it two semesters before graduation.
• You must have satisfied the Competency in Written English, or you must be enrolled in an approved technical writing course in order to enroll in CS 297. You must have satisfied the Competency in Written English requirement to enroll in CS298/299. No exceptions!