Tag Archives: thesis

Starting My Thesis

So I’ve been given the go-ahead to start writing my thesis.  I was going to post up some more exciting numbers/findings from my experiment, but that’ll have to wait – the thesis beckons.

I’ve started writing it, and holy smokes, it’s hard.  It’s hard because I have to zoom out from my current perspective, and start right from scratch, explaining where every single decision came from.

And I have to do it in a formal, academic tone – without awesome photos.

Plan of Attack

I think I’m going to go with Alecia on this one, and start with my outline.  That’s what I always did for any of my Drama classes where I had to write a big essay:  start with the outline, and treat it like the skeleton…then slowly put more flesh on the skeleton.  Keep fleshing it out, throw on some skin, some clothes, a lick of varnish, and bam:  it’s all done.

Anyhow, that’s my plan of attack.  So I need an outline.  Let me show you what I have.

Tentative Outline

  1. Intro
    1. Title Page
    2. Abstract
    3. Acknowledgments
    4. Table of Contents
    5. List of Tables (where applicable)
    6. List of Plates (where applicable)
    7. List of Figures
    8. List of Appendices (where applicable)
  2. The Meat
    1. Background
      1. Code Review
          1. What it is, how it is commonly used in industry
          2. Proven to be effective (Jason Cohen study)
          3. Helps to spread learning in a development team
        1. If code review is so good at spreading learning, why isn’t it part of the pedagogy in the undergrad curriculum?
            1. How do we teach it?
            2. The curriculum is already packed – how do we fit it in?
            3. Joorden’s and Pare’s peerScholar approach
          1. The idea:
              1. Have students evaluate one another after assignments, and give them a code review grade based on agreement with the TA grades.
          2. Unanswered questions:
            1. Would students actually benefit from this idea?
            2. What is the relationship between the marks given by TAs, and the marks given by student evaluators?
            3. How would students feel about grading one another?
          3. The experiment
            1. Terminology
              1. Assignment specification
              2. Submission
              3. Subject
              4. Grader
              5. Peer Grader
              6. Marking
              7. Marking Rubric
              8. Peer Average
              9. Agreement
            2. Design
              1. Single-blind, with two groups (control and treatment)
                1. In both groups, subjects would:
                2. fill out brief questionnaire
                3. work on two programming assignments
                4. have a maximum of half an hour to complete each assignment
                5. perform another activity during the time between assignments, dependent on their particular group:
                  1. treatment group would perform some grading
                  2. control group would work on a vocabulary exercise
              2. Subjects in the treatment group would then fill out a post-experiment questionnaire to get their feedback on their marking experience
              3. Counter-balancing?
              4. Graders would mark shuffled submissions
              5. Graders would choose their preferred submission
            3. Instruments
              1. Pre-experiment Questionnaire
              2. Assignment Specifications
                1. Flights and Passengers
                2. Decks and Cards
              3. Assignment Rubrics
              4. Mock-ups
              5. Vocabulary Exercise
              6. Post-experiment Questionnaire
              7. Working Environment
                1. IDE
                2. Count-down widget
                3. Screen capture
            4. Subjects
              1. Undergraduates with 4+ months of Python programming experience
              2. Months as a unit of experience
              3. The two graders
            5. Assignment Sessions
              1. Greeting, informed consent, withdrawal rights
              2. Pre-experiment questionnaire
              3. First Assignment Rules
                1. 30 minutes maximum – finish early, let me know
                2. full access to Internet
                3. work may or may not be seen by other participants in the study
                4. may ask for clarification
              4. First Assignment begins
                1. Timer widget starts
                2. Screen capture begins
                3. Subject left alone
              5. Marking / vocabulary phase
                1. Treatment group
                  1. Would be given 5 submissions (secretly mock-ups), given 5 rubrics, asked to fill out as much as possible
                  2. 30 minute time limit
                2. Control group
                  1. Given links to 5 vocabulary exercises found online
                  2. Asked to complete as much as possible, and to self-report results on a sheet of paper
                  3. 30 minute time limit
              6. Second Assignment Rules
                1. Same as first, but repeated for emphasis
              7. Second Assignment begins
                1. Timer widget starts
                2. Screen capture begins
                3. Subject left alone
              8. Control group subjects released
              9. Treatment group subjects fill out post-experiment questionnaire
            6. Grading
              1. Initial meeting, and then hand-off of submissions / rubrics
              2. Hands-off approach
            7. Choosing Phase
              1. Submissions for each assignment were paired by the subject that wrote them
              2. Mock-ups not included
              3. Graders were asked to choose which one they preferred, and give a rating of the difference
          4. Analysis
            1. Pearson’s Correlation Co-efficient as a measure of agreement
            2. Fisher’s z-score
          5. Results
            1. On grader vs. grader agreement
            2. On grader vs. peer average agreement
            3. On treatment vs. control
              1. Difference in average
              2. Grader preference
            4. On student opinion wrt peer grading
          6. Discussion
          7. Threats to validity
            1. The 30 minute time limit
            2. A rigid rubric
          8. Future work
          9. Conclusion

        That’s the current structure of it.  I’m meeting my supervisor tomorrow and getting feedback, so this might change.  Stay tuned.

        Hello Graduate School

        Well, it’s official.  Today, I handed in my acceptance form for Graduate Studies here at the University of Toronto in the Computer Science Department!

        Now I just need to keep my cGPA above 3.2…

        Assuming that I get my B.Sc. without incident (because who knows, maybe the University will fight me for it…citing missing courses, insufficient credits, etc.  I’ve checked all of this with New College and the Drama/CS departments, but I’ve been here too long not to be ready for bureaucratic tom-foolery…), I think I’ve got an interesting year or so ahead of me.

        This summer is already looking quite busy, but here’s what I’m looking forward to next year:

        Interesting Courses

        I’ve been leafing through the Graduate course calendar, looking for courses that sound good and fulfill my breadth requirement.  Here are the courses I’ve underlined as “interesting”.  Note that I haven’t checked the timetable at all to see if these conflict with one another.  They just sound interesting:

        • 2125H – Software Development Tools and Practices:
          This course is an introduction to software consulting practices. Students will be paired with clients whose problems require advanced knowledge of computer science to solve, and will then work under the direction of the course instructor to develop and deliver useful results. Topics will include requirements elicitation, scope negotiations, deployment concerns, and disaster recovery.
        • 2412H – Computer Algebra
          Algebraic theory that underlies symbolic and algebraic manipulation by computer. Chinese Remainder and interpolation theory, fast algorithms for computations with integers, polynomials and power series. Newton and Hensel iteration, polynomial and integer gcd algorithms, factorization of polynomials, the fast Fourier transform, solving systems of polynomial equations, Gröbner bases. The Maple computer algebra system.
        • 2426H – Fundamentals of Cryptography
          Rigorous definitions of security for pseudo-random generators, digital signature schemes, secure hash families, and public-key encryption.. Methods (including number-theoretic conjectures) for constructing these secure cryptographic primitives. Methods for using secure primitives to achieve secure session-key exchange and secure sessions.
        • 2511H – Natural Language Computing
          Introduction to techniques involving natural language and speech in applications such as information retrieval, extraction, and filtering; intelligent Web searching; spelling and grammar checking; speech recognition and synthesis; and multi-lingual systems including machine translation. N-grams, POS-tagging, semantic distance metrics, indexing, on-line lexicons and thesauri, markup languages, collections of on-line documents, corpus analysis. Python software.
        • 2529H – Computer Animation
          The primary focus of this course is on kinematic and dynamic techniques for character animation. Topics include physical modeling and simulation, motion planning, control and learning algorithms, locomotion, motion trajectory optimization, scripting languages, motion capture, and motion editing. Students will implement algorithms and interactive animation tools and then use these to produce motion for animations.
        • KMDI1001 – Fundamental Concepts in Knowledge Media Design
          Knowledge media are systems incorporating computer and communications technology that enhance human thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and learning. Examples include the Web, email, instant messaging, knowledge management systems, digital libraries, collaborative virtual environments, video conferencing environments, and webcasting systems.
          This course reviews the emerging field of knowledge media design, and the use of digital media for communications, collaboration, and learning.

        I’m also looking into the possibility of hopping (back) over to the Computer Engineering Department to see if I can take ECE568H1 – Computer Security.  My general dislike for engineering courses notwithstanding, this still sounds like an interesting possibility.

        (Note to self:  the word “notwithstanding” just felt right to put there, but is that correct usage?  I have no idea…)

        Thesis

        Well, it’s no surprise – a Master’s student is expected to produce a paper in order to graduate.  I have absolutely no idea what I’ll be doing my thesis on, but the number of possibilities is exciting.

        It’d be nice to somehow merge Drama and Computer Science into a thesis – and I think it’d be an appropriate finale for my career here at UofT.  It’s something to mull over while I have time, anyhow.

        Launching OLM

        OLM is going up in the fall.  Whether or not I work on it this summer, as a TA, I’ll probably be using the software to mark and return student code.  “Eating one’s own dog-food” might be appropriate here – though I prefer, “eating the sandwich I just helped to make”.

        Drama

        A lot of my friends from the Drama department are either graduating in June, or staying on for one more year.  A bunch who are graduating are staying in the city, and the prospect of doing some work with them outside of school is exciting.

        We’re all very spoiled here at the UCDP – modest budget, multiple rehearsal spaces, etc… working on our own stuff outside of school might be a very humbling experience.  Humbling as in, rehearsing in alley ways or rooftops, and using an audience holding flashlights instead of our own lighting grid.  Cool.

        Operation: Party Mansion

        This one is still in the works.  Some buddies of mine from highschool (who are also my roommates) are looking to buy some property in, or around downtown Toronto.

        This may sound ambitious, foolhardy, and naive, but we’re serious, and a lot of legwork has already been done in order to get this moving.

        Ideal scenario?  Next year, I’ll be living in a big house with my highschool buddies.  And isn’t that living the dream?

        Anyhow, as I was saying, my Grad school papers are in, so my brain is going to put that on the backburner for a while.  Now I have to focus on my CSC301 midterm for this Wednesday, and an evidentiary analysis on CIA/JFK Assassination links for INI304.