[](../../actions/workflows/main.yml)
## Course information
### Meeting times
|Day(s) of Week |Time |Purpose |Location |
|--------------------------|--------------|------------|--------------------------------|
| Friday | 13:30 - 14:20 |Activities |Alden 101 |
#### Course calendar
The Faculty encourage you to adopt the following Google Calendar to keep track of major due dates in the course:
* [CIS Department Senior Project calendar](https://chompe.rs/600-610-schedule)
Add this calendar to your list of Google Calendars, as you may use it for reminders of due dates and to plan your work.
### Your advisors
### Course descriptions and outcomes
#### Course units
The CIS department's `600` courses follow three major "units" common to all students, regardless of major. These are:
* Demo day preparation (project narrative)
* Advising (advanced project research, artifact development)
* Reporting (thesis document writing)
These units guide the tasks (activies and prompts) that we will complete through the semester. Work completed during
each unit will further your progress toward the global assignment due at the end of each unit.
#### Major-specific outcomes
This syllabus governs the following `600`-level courses in the Allegheny College Department of Computer and Information Science. While we meet weekly as one large group, each of us will pursue different course outcomes from our work. See the appropriate course below to review the learning outcomes that this course provides.
- [`CMPSC 600`](#cmpsc-600)
- [`DS 600`](#ds-600)
- [`INFM 600`](#infm-600)
- [`SE 600`](#se-600)
##### `CMPSC 600`
Independent research in computer science culminating in the development of prototype or early draft of a computational artifact. Must be taken on a letter-grade basis. Students are invited to use their own departmentally approved laptop in this course; a limited number of laptops are available for use during class and lab sessions.
###### Learning Outcomes
- Develop a viable and appropriate proposal for an independent and open-source research project.
- Describe a research process, its methods, and outcomes in writing in the form of an incremental research notebook and two chapters of a formal thesis document.
- Present and communicate complex ideas in a variety of media through both informal discussions, peer reviews and formal presentations.
- Produce and document a working prototype of computational artifact.
- Evaluate the produced prototype and reflect on theoretical, practical, ethical and social impact of the proposed artifact.
- Produce an original project that includes integration of theory and practice or software and hardware.
##### `DS 600`
Independent research in data science culminating in the development of a prototype or early draft of a computational artifact. Must be taken on a letter-grade basis. Students are invited to use their own departmentally approved laptop in this course; a limited number of laptops are available for use during class and lab sessions.
###### Learning Outcomes
- Develop a viable and appropriate proposal for an independent and open-source research project.
- Describe a research process, its methods, and outcomes in writing in the form of an incremental research notebook and two chapters of a formal thesis document.
- Present and communicate complex ideas in a variety of media through both informal discussions, peer reviews and formal presentations.
- Produce and document a working prototype of a data-oriented artifact.
- Evaluate the produced prototype and reflect on theoretical, practical, ethical and social impact of the proposed artifact.
- Produce an original project that uses a large, complex data set to create a web dashboard or extend an existing data science framework via analysis.
##### `INFM 600`
Independent research in informatics culminating in the development of a prototype or early draft of a computational artifact. Must be taken on a letter-grade basis. Students are invited to use their own departmentally approved laptop in this course; a limited number of laptops are available for use during class and lab sessions.
###### Learning Outcomes
- Develop a viable and appropriate proposal for an independent and open-source research project.
- Describe a research process, its methods, and outcomes in writing in the form of an incremental research notebook and two chapters of a formal thesis document.
- Present and communicate complex ideas in a variety of media through both informal discussions, peer reviews and formal presentations.
- Produce and document a working prototype of an information-informed artifact.
- Evaluate the produced prototype and reflect on theoretical, practical, ethical and social impact of the proposed artifact.
- Produce an original project that integrates multiple disciplines and provides critical engagement of impact of technology on various communities.
##### `SE 600`
Independent research in software engineering culminating in the development of a prototype or early draft of a computational artifact. Must be taken on a letter-grade basis. Students are invited to use their own departmentally approved laptop in this course; a limited number of laptops are available for use during class and lab sessions.
###### Learning Outcomes
- Develop a viable and appropriate proposal for an independent and open-source research project.
- Describe a research process, its methods, and outcomes in writing in the form of an incremental research notebook and two chapters of a formal thesis document.
- Present and communicate complex ideas in a variety of media through both informal discussions, peer reviews, and formal presentations.
- Produce and document a working prototype of an engineered software artifact.
- Evaluate the produced prototype and reflect on theoretical, practical, ethical, and social impact of the produced artifact.
- Produce an original software project that is working, well-tested, and deployed into production use.
### Evaluation
This course uses several methods for evaluation which appraise:
- the product of your work
- the process used to arrive that that product
- the narrative/story you tell about your product and process
The evaluative criteria in this course do not weight these equally, and place emphasis on process and presentation; however,
this does not make the product(s) of your work inconsequential. By nature, a good process necessitates a good product. There
is no substitute for high-quality, iterative effort. In short, the only way to guarantee good outcomes in this course is to
spend time and care on each part of the process.
#### Criteria
This course features two categories of evaluative criteria: `Process` and `Product`.
| Mechanic | Category | Evaluative weight |
|:-----------|:---------|:------------------|
|Research Journal | `Process` | 30% |
|Class activities | `Process` | 25% |
|Computational artifact |`Product`| 15% |
|Demo day presentation | `Product` | 15% |
|Thesis writing | `Product` | 15% |
While this course privileges process, failure to complete any of the items in the `Product` category will result in
a failing grade for the course. Though these deliverables account for only `45%` of your total evaluation, they are
the inevitable outcomes of a high-quality process. Completing `Process` work in this course will all but guarantee
that `Product` work is completed.
##### Research Journal
###### Class activities posts
Your research journal is a public account of your research process. Each week, you will be given a prompt and a related activity
(see [below](#class-activities) for details on activities). For each week of the semester, you must write a post of at least
`250` words which responds to the prompt and includes elements of the related activity.
Students must complete these posts within `1 week`; posts are assigned on Fridays during class sessions and must be completed
by the start of the following Friday's session. They will be used as part of a class check-in activity at the beginning of each
Friday session.
###### Research meeting posts
Students must also add posts to their research journal after all meetings with _any_ readers. These posts should contain a `100`-word
reflection on/summary of research progress and a Markdown list of tasks discussed using Markdown checkboxes to indicate tasks completed.
These posts may feature tasks that recur from week to week until finished or short-duration tasks assigned by readers that can be completed
in a matter of days.
Given that these meetings should occur weekly, readers should expect at least `14` posts for a student's `600` semester and `14` posts
for a `610` work.
##### Class Activities
These activities will produce deliverables with corresponding [`Research Journal`](#research-journal) entries. Activities range
in scope depending on the current course unit and may involve writing, visualizations, or other work product. These activities
are meant to contribute content to on-going global tasks.
##### Computational artifact
All students completing projects under a CIS major are expected to produce a computational artifact. This artifact may include (but
is not limited to):
* source code in a Github version-controlled repository
* documentation of source code, its use, and relevant executable binaries
* theory- or evidence-based writing on a computational subject
* extensive use of collected or extant data sources
* a performance or other public-facing presentation of the work
* a poster or other public display about the project or its impact
The ultimate expression and form of a project constitues a primary concern of conversations with project advisor(s).
In close consultation with reader(s), researchers arrive at the most suitable product for their intended outcome(s).
##### Demo day presentation
Over the course of two course periods, students will give individual "Demo Day" presentations. These presentations are
focused on the _narrative_ of your project: its origin, uses, and overall impact. The purpose of this presentation is
to convey a project's:
* overview
* value
* efficacy
* future direction
The underlying motivation for requiring student presentations is to both provide practice for clearly and concisely describing
a project and for allowing others in department's research community to evalute the overall soundness of a project's plan and
purpose. Often, if a researcher can't clearly articulate what their project _is_ and _does_, it suggests that there's still work
to do in project planning before moving to any building-out phase.
These presentations are limited to `5` minutes and _no_ time for Q & A. Instead, presenters will receive the results of a feedback
survey that audiences will fill out during the presentation.
##### Thesis writing
All researchers must also document their work in the form of a written thesis. While variations on the typical structure and
contents of a thesis can be specific to a certain project, a typical CIS department thesis contains `5` sections:
1. Introduction
2. Related Work
3. Methods
4. Experiments
5. Future Work
During the `600` semester course, students will complete sections `1` and `2` for review by their reader(s). Thesis writing
templates and materials will be distributed later in the semester after Demo Day.
### Class sessions
The Faculty organize course sessions to achieve `3` main goals:
* check-in on project stage progress
* further development of `1` specific aspect of the current project stage
* broader weekly goal-setting for individual [course units](#course-units)
Course time will be divided between activities intended to cover these three areas. While activities may be started during
class time, be aware that students will likely need to finish them outside of class. In addition, project reader(s) may
discuss and develop these activities with you during weekly meetings (as outlined in the [project contract](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).
As such, readers may expect this work to have achieved at least a rough draft stage by scheduled meeting times.
## Additional policies
### Use of AI
CIS department faculty recognize that use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as Github Copilot, GPT, and Claude
has emerged as a professional skill set in the knowledge and practices our coursework covers. Department faculty maintain
a permissive attitude toward these tools by recognizing that you can and will use them. We do so considering the following position:
> As a skill, using and correctly applying the results derived from AI tools is both context-based and discretion-worthy:
> these tools do not always provide correct or workable answers. Industry veterans and expert users run into many situations
> in which the responses these algorithms provide are plainly incorrect or unfit. In the context of department coursework,
> accepting an AI-generated answer wholesale or as a small part of an assignment may lead to less-than-satisfactory results
> in the context of both learning and deliverable quality.
> As a learner, your time at Allegheny is meant to impart the knowledge that enables you to judge the fitness of a given approach,
> regardless of its origin. In the same way that CIS students employ compilers, integrated development environments, and refactoring tools,
> the use of an AI tool is not a substitute for developing the fundamental skills that develop this awareness. Importantly, research
> demonstrates that relying on generated responses reduces a learners ability to durably learn these lessons and skills, suggesting
> that you should cautiously embrace the use of AI when you complete CIS coursework
.
Be prepared to support their use in ways including but not limited to:
* citing instances where code has been generated and clearly defining the tools that generated them
* providing descriptive commentary (including prompts) around generated code either in in-line comments or assignment documentation
* considering improvements to the generated code, documenting specifics about your modifications and reasoning behind them
* revising the generated code or documentation so as to ensure that it is more suitable for the purposes of your assignment
Faculty do not intend these requirements as a gotcha; we assume the best of your effort. These guidelines follow industry
best practices and prepare you for integrating current and future generations of these AI technologies into your set of computational
skills.
Binglin Chen, Colleen M. Lewis, Matthew West, and Craig Zilles. 2024. Plagiarism in the Age of Generative AI:
Cheating Method Change and Learning Loss in an Intro to CS Course. In _Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale (L@S '24)_.
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 7585. https://doi.org/10.1145/3657604.36620
### Classroom ethics
The discipline of computer science, like many others, encourages its members to act according to discipline-specific ethics. The Faculty encourage you
to take time to review the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) [Code of Ethics](https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/about/acm-code-of-ethics-booklet.pdf).
### Seeking assistance
#### Assistance with course concepts
Students who struggle to understand knowledge and skills defined in this course are encouraged to seek assistance from their reader(s) or other faculty. To meet
with us, consult the given faculty memeber's [available office hours](https://cis.allegheny.edu) and make an appointment.
Historically, students who are successful in this course hold to their weekly meeting schedules and seek out assistance from their
second reader or other faculty member. We are here as a learning community; take advantage of the resources that this offers.
#### Assistance outside of the course
If you find yourself in difficult circumstances which affect your ability to participate in or complete course work, let the Faculty know immediately. Full stop.
Do not wait until the end of the semester.
*It is part of our job* to make sure that students receive the assistance they need. Do not hesitate to let us know if there is anything I can do
with respect to your ability to handle your work. This is especially true of our current circumstances. Again, let us remind you -- __**it is part of our job**__
to help you access Allegheny College resources that will enable your safety and success.
In many situations, the following list of resources may help:
* [The Maytum Learning Commons](https://sites.allegheny.edu/learningcommons/)
* [Allegheny College Counseling Center](https://sites.allegheny.edu/learningcommons/)
* [The Winslow Health Center](https://sites.allegheny.edu/healthcenter/)
* [Student Life](https://sites.allegheny.edu/studentlife/)
### Special needs and disability
Students with disabilities who need accommodations in this course are encouraged to contact Disability Services at `+1 814-334-2898`.
Disability Services is part of the Learning Commons, located in Pelletier Library. Should you need accommodations, contact this office as
soon as possible to ensure that approved accommodations are communicated and implemented as quickly as possible. This serves everyone by
providing the best environment for learning and support.
