CSC 390: Topics in Artificial Intelligence

Homework 5: Paper Presentation

Due: in-class (see schedule on the calendar)

The goal of this assignment is to help you get started on a potential final project topic, by reading a paper that interests you. This assignment is designed to help you practice distilling information and making it understandable to an audience. I will give you feedback on both your understanding of the material and your presentation style. The goal is to prepare and improve for the final presentation.

Step 1: Choose a paper

Choose a paper from one of the journals listed below that you are interested in and relates to unsupervised machine learning. Email me your choice as soon as possible so I can approve it, then I will mark that you have "claimed" this paper on Piazza (this is to avoid duplicate papers).

Step 2: Prepare your presentation

Read your paper and prepare a 10-12 presentation to be given in class. We'll use 15 minutes for each presenter, so this gives a few minutes for questions, either during or after. I would recommend slides, but if you would really like to use the board exclusively, let me know. You can also use the side board for some parts of your explanations. Include the following in your presentation:

  1. Motivation behind the paper, high-level goals

  2. Briefly introduce background information and key terminology

  3. Methods: spend the most time on the methods. For this part, explain one key algorithmic component of the paper in detail ("go deep"). It might make sense to show a small example or go though an algorithm step by step with pictures. The goal is that the rest of the class will be able to understand this part, even if they haven't read the paper in detail. Note that the part you focus on does not have to encompass the paper's entire method section, in fact, it could be a small part of it.

  4. Include 1-2 key results

  5. Conclusions: include the main takeaways from their results. You can also talk about how you intend to build on this paper for your final project, or why you chose this paper in the first place. You could also comment (briefly) on how you found the paper and whether or not you would recommend it to others.

Step 3: Email me your slides

Save your slides as a PDF file (no animations) and email it to me by 9:30am on the day you present (this will allow me to compile one set of slides so we don't have to keep switching to different computers). If you are unable to present on your assigned day, let me know as soon as possible. I will give extra credit for anyone willing to move up if we have last minute changes due to illness, etc.

Step 4: Ask questions

The last part is to participate in the presentations of your classmates. Ask questions if you don't understand something they explain. Ask them how this paper relates to the class material or how they plan to start on their final project. Everyone should ask at least one question during our series of mid-semester presentations. Questions can help the presenter feel more comfortable and calibrate their pace.

Journal List