There
are no formal prerequisites, but it will help to have some background in the
OS, distributed systems, or database systems.
The
course will have the following three parts:
I'll
spend one meeting covering background before starting a topic.
(2)
Student presentations
Each
student will present one or two papers from the list. For each presentation, two students (other than the
presenter) are responsible for giving feedback as to how to improve the
presentation.
Students
will form groups to undertake a project that explores a new research idea in
the related areas. Detailed project information can be found here.
The
activities of the class include the following four parts:
(1)
Paper critiques (15%): There are two presentations scheduled for each class.
Students are required to carefully read a number of papers on the same topic
before the class and write critiques for the two papers that will be presented.
I need your critiques the noon before the class. For example, for the
Monday class, your critiques are due 12pm on Monday.
(2)
Paper presentation (30%): Two papers presented in each
class cover similar topics, so we will have an opportunity to read and compare
a range of papers solving similar problems. The presenter is also the
discussion leader, who is expected to prepare for a set of interesting
questions that can provoke further thoughts and discussions. Although the
number of papers each student needs to present will be determined by the number
of students in the class, I expect each student to present at least two papers
in the quarter.
(3)
In-class discussion (15%): We will have in-depth
discussions not only on the papers presented, but also on related papers and
creative ideas that may open up opportunities for future work.
(4)
Projects (40%): Research projects are conducted on a per-group-basis. Each
group has two students who work together to develop a novel research idea. I
will set up several meetings with each group to have in-depth discussions on
the proposed project. Each group will report their projects twice in the class:
a kickoff presentation to propose the project (typically in the third and/or
fourth week) and a progress presentation at the end of the quarter. Each group
is required to turn in a project writeup (like a
research paper) that describes the idea, the implementation, and the
experimental results. I hope some of the high-quality project reports can be
turned into top-conference submissions.
Paper
Reading/Reviewing Tips
Notes on
Constructive and Positive Reviewing
How to write a
review for a system paper