<< 2009-0 >>
Department of
Computer Science
 

COMS12303: Unit Materials

The lecturers for this unit are:

Simon Hollis
David May

Schedule of Lectures, Discussions and Presentations 2009-10

There will be 17 one-hour lectures, three hours of discussion group activity, and four hours of research presentation in this course. You are also expected to perform a substantial amount of independent research to supplement the material given in lectures.

The timetable now follows. Please note that you will attend all lectures, discussion groups and presentation sessions.

Warning is given that some slot allocations and lecturers may change as term goes on, to best suit the needs of the students attending the course. The venues may also change. Therefore, please check the timetable below regularly to ensure you have the most up-to-date information.

You may also click on the various lecture titles to bring up a copy of their slides from a given lecture (where available).

Lectures Discussion Groups Essay Deadlines Presentations

Week Date Material Date Material Essay
1 Oct 6th Simon Hollis and David May -
Introduction and Pre-history		 Oct 8th Simon Hollis - Research Techniques
2 Oct 13th David May - Early Machines Oct 15th David May - Early Machines
3 Oct 20th David May - Cryptographic Machines Oct 22nd Simon Hollis - Technical Writing
4 Oct 27th Simon Hollis -
Introduction to LaTeX		 Oct 29th David May - History of Programming Languages 1st Nov -
Early Machines
5 Nov 3rd David May - History of Programming Languages Nov 5th Feedback and Discussion of Early Machines Essays
6 Nov 10th Simon Hollis - Communication and The Internet Nov 12th Martyn Thomas - A Historical Perspective on Dependable Software 15th Nov -
Programming Languages
7 Nov 17th Andrew Charlesworth -
Munitions, Wiretaps and MP3s
 Nov 19th Feedback and Discussion of Programming Languages
8 Nov 24th Walterio Mayol-Cuevas - Robotics Nov 26th Mike Fraser - Social Impact of Computing (HCI) 29th Nov -
Social Aspects
9 Dec 1st Simon McIntosh-Smith - High performance computing Dec 3rd Feedback and Discussion of Social Aspects
10 Dec 8th Simon Hollis - Presentation skills,
including the Beamer system		 Dec 10th Dave Cliff -
Learning from the Past to Predict the Future		 13th Dec -
Future Computation
Christmas Vacation
11 Jan 12th Presentation slot 1 Jan 14th Presentation slot 2
12 Jan 19th Presentation slot 3 Jan 21st Presentation slot 4
End of First Semester

Format of the Course

The Origins of Computer Science course is intended to promote a student's ability to confidently and competently perform personal research into topics related to Computer Science. Using delivered lectures as a basis, and discussion groups for guidance, students will be expected to perform self-motivated and independent research into historical topics in the field of Computer Science. This research will involve the use and assimilation of external references, both on paper and on the internet, to produce coherent and intelligent discussion pieces for both delivery to the other students on the course, and for marking purposes. Students are expected to make use of external resources and time outside lectures to promote their understanding and breadth of knowledge around the core topics, as introduced in lectures. Similarly, the discussion groups will serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas, and the construction of reasoned arguments, in preparation for their committal into pieces of assigned coursework.

Deliverables

Coursework

Four pieces of coursework are expected from each student on the course, and will be assessed in real-time. Feedback will be provided, and students may wish to use discussion sessions to elaborate on this. The coursework is intended to show a student's ability to assimilate many viewpoints and facts from a range of viewpoints, to produce a well reasoned summary of a particular topic.

Note: There will not be enough material for an essay in the lectures alone --- you will have do perform some exploration on your own before starting writing!

Further information on the coursework, including the marking scheme is available here.

Please note the following faculty rule regarding late submission of coursework: In line with the University's Code of Practice for the Assessment of Students on Taught Programmes, the Faculty has agreed the following:

Penalties for late submission of coursework:


    * For work submitted up to 24 hours after the agreed submission deadline, a penalty of ten marks out of 100 from the mark the student would have received applies (e.g. coursework that is marked at 70% would then become 60% once the penalty is applied).
    * For work submitted 2-6 days after the agreed submission deadline, a bare pass will be given (50% for Level M units, 40% for all other units) OR the original mark less 10%, whichever is lower.
    * Once seven days has elapsed after the submission deadline, the student will receive a mark of zero, although departments may still require work of a suitable standard to be submitted in order for credit to be awarded.
Faculty handbook

Format of coursework

The coursework is to be a précis of the set topic, being no longer than one side of A4 (excluding references), when in a 12pt font. Essays submitted that extend to longer than a single side of A4 (excluding references) will be marked punitively, so students are well advised to keep their discussions brief and relevant.

Presentation

Toward the end of the course, each student will be expected to produce and deliver a presentation of a chosen topic of interest, researched during the unit. Presentations are to be given in December and January, and will be worth 20% of the unit mark.

Information on the format of presentations and the allocation of students to timeslots is available.

Support

It is important to effectively utilise the various forms of support available for this unit; see the page about communication in the department for a general introduction.

Discussion sessions: It is anticipated that the scheduled discussion sessions in this unit will provide the majority of the support and feedback needed.

Forum: The forum can provide a useful way for you to help each other and to get questions answered by the lecturers or lab supervisors, both of whom will take part in online discussions:

Feel free to post questions and so on; we'll try to answer them as soon as possible. However, before you use the forum you should make sure you have first tried to help yourself by reading lecture slides and course texts for example. Note that forum posts from previous years might be useful for reference:

Office Hours: The lecturers don't have set office hours, but are in their offices most of the time. You are welcome to drop in at any time for problems which can't be solved via the other routes above.

Email: Email is very useful for the lecturers to contact all of you, but it isn't so useful for you to contact the lecturers. They often get completely swamped with emails, so use of the forum is preferred for any questions. Following this policy for all but vital (or personal) problems will hopefully ensure common questions and answers are quickly made available to everyone.

Feedback: Unlike some other units, coursework assignments in this unit are not automatically marked. This means the feedback will be slower, but of a fairly high quality. In particular we aim to provide a model answer as well as individual feedback. If you need additional feedback, please seek this via the routes above.

Links and Resources

Papers to be read before their related lecture slots

Papers for Background and Discussion

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