The course requirements are:
If there are N students enrolled in the class, then each student is responsible for about 20/N lectures. Students may work in groups, of size up to two. A group of two students is jointly responsible for about 10/N lectures.
A candidate list of papers is accessible via the menu from this webpage. You are however also welcome to propose other papers and topics.
I'd appreciate people getting back to me as soon as possible with dates on which they can make presentations, and with these dates being as early as possible in our calendar, since we need to fill all the lectures spots. As slots are filled, I will indicate them on the calendar on this webpage. In order to make this more productive for us, I encourage as much participation as possible. Think of the presenter of a paper more as a discussion leader. The rest of us should also read, or at least scan, the paper, prior to its being presented, and participate as much as possible in the presentation.
In the best of cases a project would be the seed of a research paper, but as far as the course goes, original research is not a requirement. The expected product might be what I would call an enlightened survey. This means that you might have some new ways to prove something, some insights to offer, some unifications, simplifications or connections.
Due: Friday, June 6, 2008, by 4PM. You can either hand it to me, or slip it under the door of my office (EBU3B 4244) at any time prior to this due time.
You are welcome to meet with me to discuss the topic, goals, content and scope of the work, and get some feedback.
It is largely up to you to pick your project. I will throw out questions or open problems in class, but will stop short of formulating actual projects.
The quality of writing in the project influences your grade. The project should be understandable and well-written. It should follow a paper-like format.
Students are welcome to audit the class as long as they do presentations and participate in discussions. (I don't think it is fair to listen to others' presentations while not contributing presentations.)
I understand that there is some issue with regard to obtaining course credit if you have already taken 208 the past. This is unfortunate, since the topic of this course changes from year to year, and one should be able to repeat it for credit. A student in this position is welcome to audit the class subject to the above requirements.