Reading and Reviewing Assigned Papers (5% of grade)
Students are required to read and comment on the required readings each week, starting with the readings for week 2. Based on the readings, each student should prepare at least two questions about the required readings. These could be questions about aspects of the research that were interesting or unclear to you, or comments you have on the methodology or results in the work, or implications of the work, or how it might be applied to other work. Also, students should reply to at least one of the questions asked by other students. This could include answers to the questions, or opinions, or related discussion.
Students should post their questions on the course Piazza site in the topic for that week's readings 1 hour prior to that week's lecture, and come prepared to discuss their questions in class.
Class Participation (5% of grade)
Students should participate in class, asking questions when something is not clear, or asking about alternative methods or implications of the work described, or discussing other ideas include relevant to their own research or other readings. If there is no time during class itself, please use the Piazza site to continue the discussion outside of classtime.Homework Assignments (35% of grade)
3-4 assignments will be posted and submitted on Brightspace.
Leading one Discussion Topic related to Assigned Readings (10% of grade)
Students will team up to lead discussion of one special topic (from the given list, or by approval of instructor), including a class presentation of 2+ papers on that topic. Discussion topic choice due week five.Act as Rapporteur for one Discussion (5% of grade)
Students will carefully read the materials for the topic in advance, and prepare a short comment related to the presentation, as well as commence the discussion, with questions for the presenter. Each student should sign up for one presentation given by another student, starting in week 6.Main Project (40% of grade)
Students will complete a major project in an area related to the course themes. The project could be building a new dialogue system, or analysis of dialogue data, or building a component that could be used by a system, or an experiment to evaluate a system. Students may (and are encouraged to) form teams of 2-4 people to collaborate on a project - however it must be made clear what parts of the project each student is primarily responsible for.The project will have four deliverables.
- First, in week 7, students should submit a 1-2 page "whitepaper" (10% of project grade), describing the area of the project and main intended contribution and approach to evaluate. The instructor will meet individually with each student or group to give feedback about the whitepaper.
- By week 11, students will submit a 4-8 page project proposal (20% of project grade), defining the final goals of the project, work already completed and what the students beleive to be realistic goals for the conclusion of the project. It is expected that the project definition may evolve between the initial whitepaper and proposal.
- In the final week of the class (or the final exam slot), students will make a short public presentation (20% of project grade) to the class of the goals and contributions of the project.
- Finally, no later than the final exam date, students will submit a final project report (25% of project grade) of no more than 8 pages (not including references), plus possibly supplementary material, such as figures, data, code, demos or videos.
- The remianing 25% of the project grade will be based on an overall assessment of the students' ability to incorporate course material and perform innovative research.