INST 734
Information Retrieval Systems
Fall 2014
Project Plan (Assignment P4)

Students may elect to join a project team formed by the instructor, or they may elect to complete a project that they design either individually or with one or more other students from the course.

Student-designed projects can be either research-oriented (leading to an academic paper) or operationally oriented (leading to a working system with some novel capability). Students who elect to design their own project should schedule a 30-minute skype or phone call with the instructor that is completed by no later than September 24 (and preferably much earlier) to discuss their ideas. They will then be required to prepare a detailed project timeline with milestones comparable to those specified for team projects and to submit it by the due date for this assignment. An (optional) online chat session is scheduled for 9 PM (Eastern Time) on Thursday September 18 on ELMS to discuss options for student-designed projects and to provide an initial opportunity for discussion between like-minded students about forming project teams.

Instructor-designed projects will include two components: (1) comparative evaluation of several text retrieval systems using the same test collections, and (2) a user study of an existing information retrieval system. Students who elect to be assigned by the instructor to a project team will need to turn in answers to the questionnaire below by the due date of this assignment. Project teams for the instructor-designed project will typically include two or three students. Project team assignments will be posted on ELMS (and by email) by October 1.

If you choose to participate in an instructor-designed project, please answers the following questions:

  1. Is there some existing information retrieval system that you would be particularly interested in adopting as the focus of your user study?
  2. Briefly describe your computer programming background, including and programming languages that you know. This need not be extensive -- even a course in high school is worth mentioning.
  3. What courses have you completed already, and what other courses are you taking this semester?
  4. Any other comments that you wish to have considered.

Submit your project plan or your answers to the questions using ELMS.

Doug Oard
Last modified: Sat Sep 27 14:42:54 2014