Domain-Specific Databases

Grading:
Participation    10%
Assignments     15%
Presentations    30%
Project     45%

Participation:
You are strongly encouraged to contribute to the discussion by asking questions, making observations, identifying strengths and weaknesses of the approaches under discussion. Critical discussion and analysis are key prerequisites for good systems research.

Assignments:
Assignments will involve critical evaluation of the papers in the reading list. Critical reading of technical papers is a must skill to have in research. You will complete and submit a paper evaluation form (to ugur@cs.brown.edu) before each class (i.e., by noon of the day of the class) for each paper marked with "*". You are asked to submit only 10 evaluations.

The review form you will use is as follows:

Paper name.
Reviewer name.
Summarize the paper (no more than five sentences).
State the primary contribution of the paper (no more than three sentences).
State the most important strengths of the paper (no more than three; each in a single sentence).
State the most important limitations of the paper (no more than three; each in a single sentence).
Rate the paper (on a scale of five).
5    Breakthrough
4    Significant contribution
3    Modest contribution
2    Weak contribution
1    No contribution
State an important research challenge the paper does not address (no more than three sentences).

Presentations:
Each participant will present once over the course of the semester. Each presentation will cover one main paper (marked with a "*") and a secondary paper. The presentations should strive to compile information from the two papers and present it in a coherent manner. The talk slides will be submitted on the day of the presentation to be posted on the web page. A presentation is expected to be about 50 minutes.

Project:
The project is a semester-long group project. Individual project are also allowed but are discouraged. A project may be design and implementation-oriented, or can be more theoretical in nature. Extensive surveys of specific topic areas are also allowed.