This repository contains the starter materials for your thesis in Computer
Science 600 and 610 in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 academic term. The main
directory of this repository contains the Markdown template for a project that
is designed for use with GitHub Classroom. To learn more about the course
in which these assignments were completed, please refer to the README.md file.
The template specifies various settings in the config.yaml file included in the
repository. Change the appropriate values under the Project-specific values
heading. Changing other values outside of that section may cause the project to
fail to build. Modify these values at your own risk.
Author your thesis in the thesis.md document using appropriate Markdown
hierarchy and syntax; GitHub Actions will automatically create a PDF from the
abstract.md and proposal.md files. Consult the README of the proposal
repository to learn how to properly build and release this PDFs.
Including references throughout requires a specific pseudo-Markdown tag, demonstrated
in the following blockquote. (Inspect the thesis.md file to see the format.)
A citation, when included correctly, will appear as it does at the end of this sentence. [@plaat1996research]
To label a figure (i.e. an image), referencing the image using correct Markdown will automatically caption the figure:
To provide a label for a table, write a short caption for the table and prefix the caption
with Table: as in the example below:
Table: A two-row table demonstrating tables
|Row number | Description |
|:----------|:------------|
|1 |Row 1 |
|2 |Row 2 |
Two things specific to this template to also keep in mind:
- It is your responsibility to remove this description section before building the PDF version you plan to defend.
- References will only appear if cited correctly in the text
Documents may include specific LaTeX commands in Markdown. To render these, surround the commands
with markup denoting LaTeX. For example:
Checkmark character: $\checkmark$
Superscript character: $^{\dag}$
If using a special package not included in the template, add the desired LaTeX
package or command/macro to the header-includes property in config.yaml.
Should this package not be included in the environment shipped with this template, you may also need to add the package to the GitHub Actions Workflow.
Direct any questions about issues to your first reader.
This chapter describes your completed senior thesis work, including the overall aims and the background motivating your research. Whenever possible, you should use one or more concrete examples and technical diagrams.
It is often useful and necessary to separate the introduction into multiple sections. Several possible sections are proposed below, you can use these or distribute your introductory text into sections in another way.
The headings below propose one way you might structure this section of the document.
This document requires that you discuss the ethical implications of your work -- no matter how benign you consider the outcome of your project. As several major studies of ethical issues in computer science assert: no project is completely value-neutral.
To assist you in elaborating on these issues, the following areas are topics you might consider addressing. You do not need to address all of them.
- Information Privacy
- Information Accuracy (e.g. can contain reliability)
- Potential Misuse (e.g. computer crime, unintended consequences)
- Second- or Third-Party Risk (e.g. safety)
- Data Collection Issues (e.g. issues inherent in collecting data)
- Algorithmic or Data Bias
- Potential Power Difference / Social Imbalance / Issues in Equity
In addition, reflect on ways that the above harms can be or are mitigated by your work
This chapter includes a broad and detailed review of relevant existing work. The literature review should provide background and context for the thesis work. The subsections may be organized in whatever manner seems best suited to the material-- chronological, or by topic, or according to some other criteria (e.g., primary versus secondary resources).
If ethical issues are central to this work, you should also address historical and contemporary issues or efforts made to address them.
This chapter answers the "how" question - how did you complete your project, including the overall design of your study, details of the algorithms and tools you have used, etc. Use technical diagrams, equations, algorithms, and paragraphs of text to describe the research that you have completed. Be sure to number all figures and tables and to explicitly refer to them in your text.
This should contain:
- lists
- with points
- and more points
- possibly subpoints
For those projects whose implications address social or moral issues (i.e. ethical standards, causes, effects), you will want to use this section to describe how you actively mitigated or considered these issues.
This chapter describes your experimental set up and evaluation. It should also produce and describe the results of your study. The section titles below offer a typical structure used for this chapter.
Especially as it pertains to responisble computing, if conducting experiments or evaluations that involve particular ethical considerations, detail those issues here.
Traditionally, this chapter addresses the areas proposed below as sections, although not necessarily in this order or organized as offered. However, the last section -- "Ethical Implcations" is required for this chapter. See the heading below for more details.
Especially as pertains to the public release or use of your software or methods, what unresolved or special issues remain? What recommendations might you make?
::: {#refs} :::