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Class Presentation -

 
Presentation Procedure
You should select a presentation topic of your choice. There are some requirements and restrictions.

A presentation should be approximately 25 minutes without interrupting questions. (There may be unexpected clarification-type questions.) You should manange your time well during your talk. You will get penalty if your talk is too short or too long. There will be 5 minutes for questions and answers after your talk.

 
Suggested Presentation Topics
The following is a list of suggested topics to give students broad exposure on operating systems and networking technology. More emphasis is given to practical aspects of system design, implementation and operation than cutting-edge research issues. The topics are grouped in the following areas:
  • UNIX/Linux
    • Linux boot process
    • Linux file system layout
    • Linux TCP/IP stack
    • Kernel modules and device drivers
    • Cross-platform development for embedded systems
    • Embedded Linux: kernel and filesystem

  • Internet
    • IP address topics (classes, subnets, NAT, DHCP, etc.)
    • Interior routing protocols (RIP, OSPF, etc.)
    • Border gateway protocol (BGP)
    • BGP route oscillation
    • TCP flow behavior
    • Domain name system (DNS)
    • Network debugging and management (SNMP)
    • Network time protocol (NTP)

  • Security
    • Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
    • IP traceback
    • OS fingerprinting
    • Firewalls
    • Intrusion Detection

  • Wireless Networks
    • Overview of wireless LAN - IEEE 802.11 -- by Instructor
    • IEEE 802.11 security
    • IEEE 802.11 mesh networks
    • Bluetooth
    • IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee
    • Ad hoc routing protocols

  • Sensor Networks
    • Overview of wireless sensor networks -- by Instructor
    • Operating systems for sensor networks
    • Sensor network programming
    • MAC protocols for sensor networks
    • Routing in sensor networks

Requirements:
  • Your presentation must be based on at least one technical paper published in refereed journals, conferences, workshops, and symposiums. (Tech-reports, whitepapers, Internet articles, and books are not acceptable.) When you submit your presentation topic, you must specify (by giving full citation information) on which paper you will base your presentation.
  • Please note that some journal publications are basically newsletters and they are lightly reviewed. For example, Computer Communications Review is the newsletter of SIGCOMM, Performance Evaluation Review is the newsletter of SIGMETRICS, and SIGMOD Record is the newsletter of SIGMOD. They are usually not as highly regarded as papers published in a well-established conference, workshop, or symposium.
  • The above requirement is a good starting point. If you don't adhere to the requirement above, you simply run the risk of losing some points. If you find a topic that does not satisfy the above requirement but are able to present it with depth, clarify, and interest, you would not lose points. You will not automatically lose points just because you do not satisfy the above requirement.
  • In general, it's not a good idea to pick a paper that describes a system architecture or how to add a new feature to an existing system. The reason is that a paper like these often gives a laundry list of features and design choices without giving detailed explanation of why these are the best choices for the system in question. It is must better to pick a paper that tries to present a way to improve a particular aspect of a system because papers like this tends to be more focused, examined alternatives, and presents evidance why their approach is better.

Restrictions:
  • Please do not present something that was presented as course material in another class (such as CS 551, CS 555, CS 694a/b, etc.) If you did a paper in another class, but you did not give a talk about it, then this restriction does not apply.

  • Please do not base your presentation on something that was published long time ago. Your main reference should be published within the past 10 years.

  • In general, please do not present a very high level system description paper and give a laundry list of system features or buzzwords (unless you can make it very, very interesting). You need to present something with some technical depth (e.g., describe algorithms/protocols and present evaluations/studies of the algorithms/protocols).

  • In general, please do not present a very low level system description paper and give a laundry list of system details (unless you can make it very, very interesting). You need to present something interesting.
 
Slides
You should prepare your presentation slides and send them to me via email at least two days before your presentation. I will go over your slides, and may suggest some changes. You should send me your final version before your talk. If you don't send me your slides for comments before your talk, you don't directly lose points. However, you will be at the risk of missing important points in your presentation, which will result in a lower score.

Please make sure you include your main references by giving full citations information in your slides.

 
Presentation Skills
Here are some tips for preparing your slides and giving your talk:
  • Cover all important concepts and ideas and ignore unimportant details. This is the key to keep your talk within 30 minutes.
  • If present multiple papers, try to present them in a systematic way by adding your own comments and summay that connect different papers together.
  • Use examples effectively to clarify ideas that are not straightforward.
  • Each slide should have a point. Details are used to support the point rather than burying it.
  • Do not steal slides posted to the Web by others! You may use some materials (e.g. pictures), but you should acknowledge the source in your slides (e.g. in a footnote).
  • Put page numbers on slides, so that people can easily refer to them.
  • You should have about 25 slides.
  • Do not speak too fast even if you can cover more contents. Your audience need a little time to think and follow your talk.
  • You should rehearse your talk beforehand.
Here is a list of other advice on the presentations:
 
Topic Selection
[BC: Section added 1/30/2008]
You should send your presentation topic selection to the instructor via a text e-mail to the instructor by . In your e-mail, you should list the following:
  • tentative title of your talk
  • brief topic description (a few sentenses; should not be more than 2 paragraphs)
  • which published paper you will base your presentation on (with full citation information). (If you decide to risk it and not use a published paper to base your presentation on, please state it in your e-mail.)
Please note that you get no points for submitting the presentation topic selection email, but you will get a 10% deduction if you do not submit the email by the presentation topic selection deadline.
 
Grading
I will grade your presentation according to the following points:
[BC: Updated 2/25/2008]
  • Technical content - overage of important concepts, depth (40%)
  • Presentation - familiarity and fluency (30%)
  • Ability to present in easy-to-understand and interesting ways (30%)
  • Miscellaneous (possible deduction)
    • Time management: the maximum time for a talk is 30 minutes (if you go past 30 minutes, you will be asked to stop abruptly), so you should time your talk between 20 and 30 minutes
    • Interaction with audience, including listening to questions and giving relavent answers

[BC: Paragraph added 2/25/2008]
We will assign letter grades to various parts of your project. The conversion from a letter grade to a numeric score (for the project) is done according to the following table:

Grade Points
A   50
A-  44
B+  36
B   30
B-  24
C+  16
C   10
C-   4
F    0
 
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