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