Maths & CS

There are two different Maths & CS units:

20 credit Year 3 COMS30044 Individual Short Project
40 credit Year 4 COMSM0142 Individual Project with Presentation

COMS30044: Individual Short Project

Because your unit is 20 credits, as opposed to 40 for everyone else, you are only expected to complete half the amount of work. When you talk to your supevisor or your second marker, make sure you tell them this! We will remind them as well, but it will make everyone’s lives easier if there’s no uncertainty.

Apart from that, everything is the same - it’s the same marking scheme, and you can choose from the same projects list - you’ll just be completing less work. There are examples of 20 credit projects in the Class Materials folders in 3 folders divided by grades the students achieved - look for the ones with names starting with COMS30044. You can also look at the 40 credit projects to get inspiration, but bear in mind you are not expected to do this much work!

COMSM0142: Individual Project with Presentation

Because the number of students who take this unit is small, there are not many examples of these projects in the Class Materials folders. However, the COMSM0052 projects are the Computer Science MEng students, and are equivalent amounts of work.

Taking your project across TB4

Because of the different Maths unit options, some M&CS students will take your projects across Teaching Block 4 (across the full year - TB1+TB2=TB4). If you want to do this, you will need to:

email Mike and Sarah so we are aware.
Make sure potential supervisors are aware you are talking the project as TB4, so you will need to start your supervision in TB1.
Get your project agreed with a supervisor in the first few weeks, so you can start work before Week 6 Reading Week.
Make a strong project plan including working in TB1 (for example, if you are not taking any TB1 CS coursework units, you should plan to do significant work on your project in Weeks 9-11).
If you are taking COMSM0142, you still need to attend the Presentation classes in TB2 and take that part of the assessment in Week 19.

What is the presentation?

90% of your unit mark will be from your dissertation, with 10% coming from the presentation aspect.

The presentation will be a 15-minute talk (with slides) given to a panel of markers and the other COMSM0142 students, with questions afterwards. These questions will not be deep and technical (as you might encounter in a viva), and you shouldn’t need to spend any additional time preparing for them.

You should aim your talk at the level of new year 3 students who are familiar with the mandatory material from years 1 and 2. You should not assume detailed knowledge of any material introduced in year 3. Your goal is to communicate:

What you’re doing for your project and how it’s going.
Why you care about it, and why your audience should care as well.
At least one idea from the technical side of your project that a new year 3 student may be unfamiliar with.

You do not need your talk to be an accurate overview of the final results of your project. Your presentation mark will be independent of the results you end up achieving. Here we’re only concerned with your ability to present to an audience on both technical and non-technical material, and your project is just a convenient topic to use for that.

Workshops

There will be two workshops in TB2 to help with preparing your presentation and giving time to practice this with your peers. These will cover information as to what an academic style presentation is, tips for presenting, and offer feedback time on how to improve as a presenter.

Presentation

You will present on the 27th February to a small marking panel with the marking panel asking a few questions after your talk concludes. The mark scheme will be shown beforehand in the workshops in TB2.

If you have a study support plan or are otherwise uncomfortable with the idea of presenting your work, please let Raphael know and alternate arrangements/adjustments can be made.