Video Presentation

This is an archived version of this module from Spring 2022.
Click here for the current iteration.

The first continuous-assessment task is be a video presentation. For that, you will select a research article and present it in a short video (10-15min).

Stage 0: Forming groups

Deadline: 2022-02-17

You will work in groups of 3-4 students. I created a sign-up sheet on Canvas; please coordinate first to form a group, then sign up for the same group on Canvas. You might want to use the #general chat room on Campuswire to find people with similar interests.

Please use the existing groups “Video group X” in Canvas; do not create new groups as these student-formed groups cannot be used for marking assignments on Canvas.

I will randomly assign any remaining active people to groups after Feb 17. To count as active, you have to fill out the “Confirm Engagement” assignment on Canvas.

Stage 1: Selecting an article

Deadline 2022-02-28

As a team, you will have to select an article that you are presenting from Communications of the ACM, specifically either a contributed article, review, practice, or research highlight article. These are are well written and intended for a broad audience. If you click on the link, scroll down to the corresponding sections; you can also jump back to issues of previous months.

My guidelines for allowable articles are:

• It must be recent (ideally last 2 years)
• It must have a substantial “technical” component, i.e., present and describe new research.

It is expressly not required that the article deals with topics related to COMP526.

Please use the “Article for video presentation” Canvas assignment to submit your suggestion for an article. A link to the article (or a doi) is enough; you don’t have to attach PDFs. The Canvas assignment is configured as a group submission, so it suffices for one group member to submit the group’s article.

You must submit your article first and get my OK before making your video.
A video on an article without prior submission will not be accepted for marking.

Stage 2: Preparing the video

Deadline 2022-03-18

Once you have my approval for your article, you can start preparing the video presentation. I don’t want to limit your creativity in how exactly you want to go about this, but here are some guidelines.

• The final video should be 10-15min in length.
• It must convey the main ideas from the article, in particular, this includes
  • putting the results in context (what is the problem addressed, what was there before, why should we care?),
  • describing the main innovation(s),
  • sketching to some degree the details on how this is achieved.
• The final video must be uploaded to suitable video platform. YouTube is an obvious choice, but you can choose other accessible platforms if you wish.
• Your target audience is the class of COMP526, i.e., students with a background in general computer science; not experts in the subfield, but basic concepts of CS need not be explained.

In order to best present your article, it might be necessary to read a bit into other articles that are referenced in your main article.

Submission

Please submit your video link on Canvas. The submission is a group exercise, so only one member of each group has to submit on behalf of the entire group; please organize this within your group.

The submission must include

• the link to the video,
• a proper citation of the article covered,
• names of all group members and the group number, and
• what part each student played in preparing the presentation. All group members must have an active part in the assignment.

Marking Scheme

My criteria for evaluating the videos are as follows:

• Quality of the presentation (50%)
  well designed slides/graphics/animations, good sound/speaking quality
• Content (50%)
  appropriate depth / level of detail
• as an overall adjustment: difficulty of the selected article for the presentation