Course pages 2019–20
Advanced Topics in Computer Architecture
Presentations and reports
Each week three students will give presentations on the three main papers for that seminar (one presentation per paper). All other students will write an essay covering all three papers and, optionally, any other relevant work. Each week the lecturer will ask for volunteers to present the following week, subject to all students doing approximately the same number of presentations. Depending on the number of students, on average, a student will present 2-3 papers in the course and will write 5-6 reports. A class list of attendance will be kept. Apologies for absence should be sent to the lecturer prior to the lecture.
Presentations
A presentation will be of 15 mins in length, excluding questions and discussion which will last approximately another 5 mins, and will happen during the classes. Presentations will be assessed for technical content, clarity, engagement, description of the broader context, accurate critique and question answering. Slides for presentation should be prepared and a PDF submitted via Moodle by 12noon on the day of the presentation. Here are some guidelines for the presentation which might be useful to some (from Advanced Topics in Mobile Systems and Mobile Data Machine Learning). Feedback will be given in the form of a letter grade and marks will be awarded at the end of the course in consultation with the examiners. See below for a description of the letter grades.
Essays
Essays should be around 1,500 words (nothing shorter than 1,450 words, nothing longer than 1,650 words) summarising the three main papers for the corresponding seminar. Essays will be assessed for technical content, clarity, accurate critique, linkage of related work and sound proposals for future development. Essays should be prepared as a PDF and submitted via Moodle at 12noon on the day of the seminar.
Marks will be awarded and penalties for late submission applied according to the ACS Assessment Guidelines. The lowest mark out of the 7 assessed exercises will be dropped, and so the remaining 6 will be combined to create the final course mark. Feedback will be given in the form of a letter grade and marks will be awarded at the end of the course in consultation with the examiners. See below for a description of the letter grades.
The University's rules on plagiarism can be read here.
Deadlines
- Assignment 1 due 17th October 2019 at noon
- Assignment 2 due 24th October 2019 at noon
- Assignment 3 due 31st October 2019 at noon
- Assignment 4 due 7th November 2019 at noon
- Assignment 5 due 14th November 2019 at noon
- Assignment 6 due 21st November 2019 at noon
- Assignment 7 due 28th November 2019 at noon
Grading
Letter grades for individual essays and presentations will be given, corresponding to these categories:
- A+ excellent, consistent with final grades in range 85-100
- A very good, consistent with final grades in range 75-85
- B good, consistent with final grades in range 70-80
- C acceptable, consistent with final grades in range 60-70
- D disappointing, consistent with risk that a pass grade will not be achieved
- E unacceptable, consistent with fail