Seminar on Internet Technologies (Summer 2014)

Details

Workload/ECTS Credits:	120h, 6 ECTS (New); 4 ECTS (Old); 5 (ITIS)
Module:	M.Inf.122/222: Seminar Telematik I/II -or- B.Inf.204/205: Proseminar I/II, (new Catalog:) M.Inf.1124-or- B.Inf.1207/1208; ITIS Module 3.16: Selected Topics in Internet Technologies
Lecturer:	Prof. Dr. Xiaoming Fu
Teaching assistant:	Lei Jiao
Time:	#Schedule
Place:	IFI Building, Room 3.101
UniVZ	[1]

Please make sure to drop an e-mail to me if you want to join this course; contacting a topic adviser only is not sufficient to make you enrolled.

Course description

The seminar covers selected topics from the current popular technologies and research on computer networks. Each student will present one topic and write a report on it. There are no regular meetings for this seminar.

The purpose of this seminar is to

• Familiarize the students with common and new technologies.
• Enable independent study of a specific topic.
• Train writing and presentation skills.

Passing requirements

• Present the selected topic in the seminar (20 min. presentation + 10 min. Q&A).
  • This accounts for 40% of your grade.
• Prepare a written report on the selected topic (12-15 pages) (Template:[2]).
  • This accounts for 60% of your grade.
• Please see #Schedule and adhere to it.

Topics

Topic	Topic advisor	Initial readings
Virtual Machine Placement in Data Center	Lei Jiao	[3] [4] [5]

Workflow

The workflow of the seminar is as follows.

1. Topic selection

Each student picks a topic to work on. You can pick a topic and start working at any time. Just approach the topic advisor and he will give you initial information and a time frame for the topic. Alternatively you can select a topic at the first session of a semester.

2. Topic advisor

For each topic a supervising tutor is available who is familiar with the topic. He is your contact person for questions and problems regarding the topic. The tutor supports you as much as you want, so don't hesitate to approach him for general advice or with any questions you might have. You must have at least one face-to-face meeting to discuss your outline and initial thoughts. It is recommended that you schedule a first meeting right when you select the topic you want to work on.

3. Approach your topic

• Topic titles are rather abstract.
• You chose the direction of your elaboration.
• For example:
  • Survey style: Basic introduction, overview about the field, general problems, methods, approaches.
  • Specific problem: Selective introduction, detail the problem, introduce solutions or approaches.
• Include your own thoughts: Evaluation section, outlook in the end.
• Remember: We are interested in the aspects related to Internet technologies.

4. Prepare a Presentation

TLDR version:

• Give an overview of your topic to the audience.
• 20 minutes of presentation followed by 10 minutes discussion.
• Slides should be in English.

As a part of the seminar you have to present your topic to an audience of students and other interested people. Your presentation should give the audience a general idea of the topic and highlight interesting issues and problems. Try to explain the motivation behind your topic and the problems that are addressed as well as the solutions and open questions. You have 25 minutes to present your topic followed by 10 minutes of discussion. You must keep within the time limit of 35 minutes. The deadline for the slides you prepare for the presentation is one week before the actual presentation. Please send the slides to your topic advisor as soon possible though, so you have time to include any feedback you got.

You can chose on your own whether you want to prepare the presentation or write the report first. We recommend that you have a rough draft of the presentation as a basis to discuss your approach of the topic with your advisor before writing a lot of text. It is easier to exchange a couple of slides than a couple pages in the report.

Some hints you should keep in mind when preparing the presentation:

• 20 minutes are too short to present a topic fully.
• Limit the introduction of basics (5 min.).
• Focus on the interesting parts of the topic.
• It is alright to focus just on one certain important aspect.
• Make sure to finish in time!

Suggestions for preparing the slides:

• No more than 20 slides.
• Get your audiences to quickly understand the idea of the presentation
• Figures, tables and animations are better than wordy sentences
• Use example to explain complicated algorithms
• Short sentences
• Avoid complicated equations
• Summary of the topic: thinking/justification of the approach(es) in your own words

5. Write the Report

TLDR version:

• Comprehensively cover the topic.
• Content:
  • Present the problem with its background.
  • Detail available approaches, techniques, methodologies to deal with this problem. What are their properties, advantages and drawbacks.
  • Evaluate and assess those approaches.
  • Give a short outlook on potential future developments.
• Between 12 and 15 pages of content (usual thesis layout).
• Written in English according to common guidelines for scientific papers.
• Deadline: End of the semester.

The report is the main part of your work. It must be between 12 and 15 pages of content (not including table of content, bibliography and such) and comprehensively cover your topic.

6. Block meetings

There will be no general meetings for this seminar. The work for will be done by yourself with the assistance of your topic advisor. There will be a limited number of block meetings every semester. In general there will be one block meeting in the beginning of a semester to give an introduction to the course and a couple of dates for the presentations. Please see the schedule for the current semester for the exact dates. While the participation in the presentation meetings is mandatory, you are not required to participate in the organizational meeting. If you miss the general meeting or you want to start your work earlier (for example during the semester break), please contact the teaching assistants (see top of this page) or the topic advisor for your topic.