Appendix: Field Study in Computing--Term Project
Description
Choose a problem involving computers--an actual, real-world situation
that you have a personal interest in--and work towards solving it.
Imagine yourself as a computer consultant, in such demand that you can choose
your clients and projects from the widest possible spectrum. Once you settle
on a client and a task for this study, you will investigate that area, reporting
your findings and recommending actions to your client. The point of casting
this as a consulting job is to help you focus on a particular problem with
real-world requirements and constraints, as opposed to a merely hypothetical
research exercise.
Examples of the range of possible subjects: For example, you might
be asked how to improve computerized course enrollment (in which case your
client would be the Registrar), or increase computer access for students
on campus (the Chancellor), or automatically score intercollegiate fencing
matches (the fencing team or league). Another possibility is preventing
software piracy (with a software publisher as a client) or hacking (a legislator
or computer center manager). Yet another is how to use computers for video
special effects or music scoring (for a producer).
Purpose and content: This shouldn't be a conventional term paper,
restating information we could find in books. The emphasis of your paper
should be on analyzing the difficulties of the particular situation you
select and investigating practical solutions. It is a chance for you to
address first-hand some of the issues and problems in an area that you care
about, applying computing knowledge and techniques.
Complete, definite, final, usable results are not the most important part
of this project. We often learn as much from our failures as our successes.
What is important is the process of grappling with the problem, trying
to understand it, and describing that process to us. This is why we ask
you to take on a real problem rather than an imaginary one. With a real
problem, you have to fit the solution to reality; with an imaginary one,
you could just change the facts for your convenience.
Organization: Your final project should include the following:
* A description of your problem. (If you follow the consultant-client model
explicitly, you should say who your client is, what is your client's
current situation, what your client needs to know or wants to do, and what
your client's special circumstances or requirements are.)
* Your solution process and whatever results you obtained. (This makes
up the main part of your project.)
* Your sources of information, backing up all the facts and figures you
used. This need not be gathered all together at the end as a formal
bibliography--it is better to mention the name of the source at the point
where you use it in the body of the paper.
Presentation: You should prepare a half-hour presentation of your
project, to be delivered to the class during the last three weeks of the
quarter. Please let us know in advance any special audio/visual equipment
you will need; we can get almost anything if we have enough lead time.
Format: You should prepare the paper using a computer word processor.
It should be around five to seven concisely written pages. That doesn't
sound like a big deal, but your major effort should go into solving the
problem rather than into writing it up. Think of this as 40 or 50 pages
of work, concisely summarized into five to seven pages of writing.
Intersperse whatever appropriate illustrations you can--additional figures
do not count as additional pages. Headings and subheadings are useful,
as is a table of contents or outline at the start of the paper. And please,
please, no padded sentences like, "The subject matter and the nature
of the problem which I will attempt to deal with and for which I have carried
out a solution process as a field study term paper for Honors Collegium
49 this quarter is the question regarding the determination of whether or
not ..." Every word should count!
Grading: We use the following grading criteria, in approximate order
of importance:
* Comprehensiveness and thoroughness -- Consider carefully all the alternatives
available, all the aspects and difficulties of your topic.
* Clarity of writing and presentation -- If we can't understand it,
we can't grade it, and we want it to be very easy to follow.
* Sources of information -- Describe where the information comes from; back
up your facts; don't just make assertions (especially technical ones)
off the cuff.
* Form -- Lousy grammar and page after page of monotonous text not broken
up by illustrations or headings are bad; we appreciate attractively presented
and appropriate diagrams, charts, and drawings.
Hints: The best projects almost always turn out to be the ones
where the author has a strong interest or commitment to the topic. Since
we allow you a great deal of latitude in choosing your topic, there is no
reason you shouldn't pick something you find exciting. Don't fall
into the successful-student trap of choosing a "safe" topic that
you can already see the complete solution to; go for the topic you really
want to tackle, and your grade won't suffer. If you have trouble
selecting a topic, come talk to us.
Try to choose an unconventional topic. We see many projects on how to choose
a microcomputer for some business or personal task; some of these are excellently
done, but if you do something different, you'll stand out from the crowd.
Spend most of your time solving your problem and describing how you did
it. Don't go overboard describing background information (like how
computers work or unnecessarily involved details about your project or client).
Likewise, don't go overboard with flashy illustrations or visuals unless
they really help get your point across.
And finally, just to reiterate, you should choose a real-world topic. The
more real-world details and constraints you have, the more interesting and
useful your solution will be. If your project were purely hypothetical,
your field study becomes a purely academic term paper, which is deadly dull.