All students in this course will be required to complete a class project throughout the semester. Students can work in groups of one to three students (more maybe allowed after discussing with the instructor). The scope of the project will scale with the size of the group.

Schedule

The various project assignments are designed to make sure you make proper progress on your class projects. These assignments will enable you to obtain early feedback on your ongoing work. All project-related assignments will be graded within one week if they are submitted on time. No late assignments will be accepted, except for legitimate reasons. Students may also submit these assignments early for early feedback.

Deliverables

Project Selection

You are expected to either submit your own project idea (i.e., a small paragraph describing the problem you want to work on) or select from existing project ideas in which case please select two to three topics. You can propose to work in groups of one to three students.

Project Proposal

Please submit a description of the project you intend to complete. Please use the following format as title: "project title STUDENT1 STUDENT2" where STUDENT1 and STUDENT2 etc. are the names of the students proposing this project. If you want early feedback or help deciding between a few projects, please discuss with the instructor. Only one submission per group is required. The proposal should be no more than three pages.

The project proposal should include:

• Title
• Names and email addresses of all team members
• Project description (what you will work on -- should be about 1 to 3 paragraphs)
• Background and motivation (why this is an interesting and important problem -- should be about 1 to 3 paragraph)
• Literature review or related work section. This section should highlight the state-of-the-art situation regarding the problem you are tackling. This will also better highlight the contribution(s) of the proposed project
• Milestones. Explain in a few sentences what steps you will take to complete your project and the time frame in which you expect to work on each step; for a team project also indicate who will do what.

In preparing the proposal you should conduct a literature review so that you are aware of what other work has already been done in this area and how your work further contributes to the area. The project proposal is intended to help you better organize your thoughts about how to best proceed with the semester project and communicate them to your instructor. You will receive feedback on your proposal that may result in some changes to your project plans.

Writing quality (grammar, spelling, clarity, etc.) will be taken into account in your grade.

Please submit your project proposal in PDF format. Only one submission per group is required.

Presentation Format

You will get 20-25 minutes to present your ongoing project work. Project presentation is an opportunity for you (and your team) to get early feedback on your ongoing work. You will get feedback from not only the instructor, but also fellow classmates. To ensure you make the best use of this opportunity, please outline your presentation to include the following items (this is a rough outline, so feel free to modify as you see fit):

• Motivation for the project
• Brief background (everyone in the class may not know the topic)
• Problem statement
• Proposed approach
• Study/Experiment design
• Evaluation and findings
• Summary of findings
• Discussion (open the floor for discussion)
• Limitations and future work

Final Report

Your project report should document all the work you have done on your project. It should include a detailed literature review and motivation for your project. If you have developed software or created something as part of the project, please provide screen shots, a link to a demo, and source code for review as well. The report should include descriptions of what obstacles you encountered, how you carried out data collection and evaluation, etc., as appropriate. Please consult with the instructor about what should be included in your report if you have any doubts.

Here are some things we will be looking for in most papers:

• Well-structured paper with appropriate sections. A typical research paper has the following sections: introduction, background and motivation, related work, experimental design (includes data collection methodology, experimental setup, systems design), evaluation and results, conclusion and discussion (including limitations and future work).
• For projects that involve surveys or experiments or large-scale data collection, provide details of the experimental designs and proper rationale behind such designs.
• Clearly state the analytic techniques (statistical, theoretical, machine learning etc.) and metrics you used to evaluate your findings.
• Clearly convey takeaways from experimental results and conclusions that are well supported by the rest of your paper. Reading your paper we should have a clear idea of how your work contributes to the field of privacy.
• Properly formatted bibliography with an appropriate number of references (most projects should have at least 10 references; references can include news sources and conference or journal sources).
• Paper that has been spell checked and proof read. If English is not your native language, please request a friend to help you proof-read your final paper before you submit it. Also, take advantage of word processors with spell checkers and grammar checkers. There are also writing centers on campus with tutors who can assist you.
• Well formatted paper (adequate margins and spacing, proper font size, clear figures with appropriate captions, etc.).
• For group project a separate section highlighting who did what portion.

Please submit your final paper in PDF format. Only one submission per group is required.

Project ideas

The following link contains a list of suggested projects (you must use your NC State gmail account to access the link). Students may select one of these projects or develop their own project idea in consultation with the instructor.