CompSci 725Handout 7: Oral Presentations,

Projects and Term Reports

Version 1.121 July 2009

Clark Thomborson

University of Auckland

• 15% seminar, based on one of the required readings:– You must prepare a slideshow, appropriate for a 6-minute oral

presentation, focussing your classmates’ attention on an important issue that is raised by your article, and showing your critical and appreciative understanding. (7%)

– You must present a draft of your slideshow to the instructor, one week before your scheduled presentation date. The instructor will give you some ideas on how to improve your presentation. (1%)

– You must present your slideshow in 4.5 to 7.5 minutes. (2%)– There should be at least one thought-provoking question in your

slideshow. (2%)– You must participate in the question-and-answer session run by

the instructor after your presentation. (3%)April 19, 2023 2

Assessment (copied from Handout 5)

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Your Oral Presentation• You should prepare about six slides for a six-minute

seminar. The organisation is up to you, but I suggest the following order:1. A title slide, with full bibliographic information

(required!) on the article you are presenting;

2. A one-sentence summary of the article;

3. One critical comment and one appreciative comment, indicating why you think your fellow students should read this article and what important results (or mistakes) they should watch out for;

4. An explanation (2 or 3 slides) of one of your comments;

5. A question to stimulate discussion.

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Critical and Appreciative Comments• Your appreciative comment should indicate WHAT you think

is good and WHY you think it is good.– An article may offer an explanation, taxonomy, experimental

measurement, security analysis, technological design, or proof of correctness. This is a “what”. Be careful to focus on a single contribution from the article.

– Imagine a computer security professional asking you the following question: “why should I try to understand the contribution you have identified?”

– Do not try to explain the contribution in detail. This information will not answer the “why” question. The professional really must read the article to understand “what” its author is saying (unless the contribution is trivial).

• Your critical comment might alert your classmates to– an error in an equation, an important part of an experimental setup

that isn’t disclosed, or a limitation on the scope of applicability of the claimed results.

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How to Recognize a Good Question• Your question should challenge your fellow students to

compare/contrast/combine the comments in your oral presentation, with – the articles (if any) that have been presented previously in this class,

and– general knowledge of computer science.

• Your question should be answerable by anyone who– has a broad undergraduate education in computer science, and– is able to reflect critically and appreciatively on all assigned readings,

all oral presentations, and all prior discussions in COMPSCI 725 lecture periods.

• Your question should stimulate creativity and analysis, not just memory.

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Creating your Oral Presentation1. Write some critical & appreciative comments after reading your article very

carefully.

2. Construct a first draft of your presentation: use PowerPoint or your favourite presentation builder (but not MS Word!).

3. Rehearse your draft presentation by yourself, and then rehearse with a friend.

4. Revise your draft presentation after each rehearsal. Add a question if you haven’t done so already.

5. Deliver your draft presentation at a tutorial, at least one week prior to your scheduled presentation date at COMPSCI 725 lectures. (Carry your presentation file to the tutorial room on a pendrive or CD.)

6. Prepare a final version of your presentation slides, after hearing comments from the lecturer and other student(s) at tutorial.

7. Carry your final-version presentation slides to the COMPSCI 725 lecture on a pendrive or CD, on the day scheduled for your presentation. Your presentation file will be mounted on the class website.

8. You’ll probably spend 10 hours preparing a good 6-minute presentation!

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Your Lecturer’s Expectations

• Presenters should show appreciative and critical understanding of their article, through– the contents of their slides

– their oral comments when presenting their slides, and

– their handling of the discussion.

• Non-presenters should have read the article before the presentation begins.

• All students should have a working knowledge of what was presented & discussed in class. (This will be tested in your final examination.)

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Assessment of Term Papers(reproduced from Handout 5)

• 25% term paper– You must demonstrate your critical and

appreciative understanding of at least three professional publications relevant to software security, with full and accurate bibliographic references.

– Approximately 10 pages.– Technical words must be spelled and used

correctly.– No plagiarism!

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Requirements for Term Papers• Your report should consist of approximately nine to thirteen pages of 12-point

type with generous margins and 1.5 line spacing.• If you use someone else’s words, you must put these in quotation marks and

add a reference to your source.– If you plagiarise more than a few sentences, you will receive a failing grade on your report.– If you plagiarise very extensively, I will report this to the HoD for possible disciplinary

action.

• Your term paper must show your critical & appreciative understanding of at least three professional publications.– At least one of these works must be a required reading for this course.– At least one of these works must *not* be a required reading.– You must also cite and (at least briefly) discuss any other required class

reading that is related to the topic of your paper.• Try to match the style of one of the articles you read in this class.• Technical words must be spelled and used correctly.• You should use a spell-checker and a grammar checker (e.g. MS Word),

however we will not mark you down for grammatical mistakes and spelling errors on non-technical words (if your meaning is clear).

• Reports are due at 4pm on the last day of lectures.

• When reading your article for your oral report, you should start thinking about how to use it as a basis for a term paper.– Compare/contrast your article’s technology (or analysis or research finding)

to some other published work.– Discover another article, describing an extension or application of your first

article’s technology.– Identify a point of confusion or difficulty in your article and explain this

point “better than the author did” (with appropriate references).

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Getting Started onYour Term Paper

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Assignments #1 and #2(0 marks)

1. If, by 3pm Friday 21 August 2009• you send email to cthombor@cs.auckland.ac.nz containing a one-sentence

description of your term paper or project,then I will give you some feedback (by email) within 14 days.

2. If, by 3pm Friday 18 September 2009, you send me email with– the title of your term paper or project,– your name,– (for term papers only) a one-paragraph synopsis, and a list of references,– (for project reports only) a goal statement, a one-paragraph discussion of

your design methodology, and a list of any resources you require that you haven’t already obtained;

then I will give you some feedback (by email) within 14 days.• Term papers from prior years are available at

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/compsci725s2c/assignments/.