Telecommunications Software and Multimedia Laboratory
TML / Studies / T-110.551

 

Seminar on Internetworking

Carrying out the seminar

The Seminar of Internetworking consists of three parts. Most of the time will be spend writing a research paper. In a two day intensive seminar, most (~16) participants will present their papers in a 20 to 30 minute long presentation in Sjökulla. The rest of the participants will present their works as posters. All participants shall also be an opponent of a couple of other students' paper.

Postgraduate students can also participate in the seminar as tutors. If you are a postgraduate student and would like to tutor this seminar, contact iwork@tml.hut.fi

Full details of the course will be given in the first meeting.

Recent changes to the page

The specific dates and deadlines for the below are in the course schedule.

  1. Signing up
  2. The Meetings
  3. Scientific writing in English
  4. The Publication
  5. The Paper
  6. The Conference
  7. Grades

 

1. Signing up

Students sign up by sending an application by e-mail to the course staff at iwork@tml.hut.fi. More information on how to write your application is found here.

2. Meetings

There are two meetings, before the conference in Sjökulla, for all participants.Additionally, the student has at least two personal meetings with his tutor to get feedback on his paper.

2.1. Meetings with all participants

The first meeting is held in the beginning of the semester. During that meeting the course arrangements are explained and students choose their topics.

The second meeting is held in the end of the semester just before the two day stay at Sjökulla. During that meeting details about opponing a paper and the stay at Sjökulla are discussed. 

2.2. Personal meetings with the tutor

The student and the tutor should meet three times.

During the first days after the student has been accepted to the course, he should meet with his tutor to agree on a topic that the studen will write about.At this meeting, they should also set the dates for the feedback meetings. If the student and tutor do not meet, they must see to that they through some other means can agree on a topic and set the dates for the feedback meetings.

After each of the two submissions before the camera ready paper, (that is, after the submission of the Annotated Table of Contents and after the Full Paper) the student meets with his tutor to get feedback on the paper. The feedback meeting should be held about one week after the submission.

3. Scientific Writing in English

There will be a short course on writing and presenting scientific papers in English in the beginning of the course (check the schedule). Note that the course is mandatory.

4. The Publication

All papers, that exceed the publication threshold, will be published in the TM laboratories C-series in a booklet that also will be used as proceedings in the conference. The publication threshold basically means that the paper is well researched and written and that it is interesting. These papers will also be presented with full presentations in the conference.

The course staff will decide based on the Full Paper which papers will be published.

Not getting one's paper accepted for publication should not discourage you. For most students, is might be the first time the student writes a seminar paper. Some students might this time had time table problems or other problems with writing the paper. This course is good training and next time (e.g. in a conference) it will certainly go better. So don't be discouraged, but prepare a good, interesting poster presentation for the conference.

5. The Seminar Paper

5.1. Choosing the research area (done when registering)

Each participant chooses a research area that is related to the focus of the seminar. The research areas are presented here. When signing up, the student must have chosen a research area that he describes in his application.

5.2. Choosing the topic

Once you have registered and been accepted for the course, you will be informed who your tutor is. You should meet with your tutor to narrow down a topic that you research and write about. At that meeting, you should also set the dates for your feedback meetings. Note, that although you can (and should) give your own suggestions for your topic, your topic MUST be approved by your tutor before you can start working on it.

5.3. Co-operation with the tutor

The tutor's role is to help the student narrow a specific topic and to guide him in the writing process, that is. However, it is the STUDENT that researches and writes the paper.

The student can contact his tutor at any time during the research and writing process to discuss problems he runs into. Additionally, the tutor and the student shall meet in person about one week after each submission (see the section on meetings with the tutor).

5.4. Researching the paper

Each participant studies his selected topic in detail. The study should not be solely based on references given by the organizers, the participants are expected to search references on their own.

5.5.Writing the paper

Each participant shall write a research paper in English, containing maximum 5 and absolutely not more than 6 pages, on a chosen topic. The paper will be written in LaTeX and submitted to the tutors as a PDF and to the course personnel as PDF and LaTeX.

You may also make an abstract of your paper in HTML, for the publication on the web. Providing the abstract in HTML is common practice when publishing articles electronically, and it makes it easier for people interested in your topic to get an overview of the paper without opening the PDF file.

There will be a short course on writing and presenting scientific papers in English in the beginning of the course (check the schedule). Note that the course is mandatory.

In order to maintain a consistent layout, a LaTeX template is provided. More information about the template and the layout can be found here.

5.6.Submissions

During the course, the student makes 3 submissions:

  1. An Annotated Table of Contents, containing:
    2. Send it to:

    Here are some guidelines on what an Annotated Table of Contents is.

  2. The Full Paper

    3. Based on this paper, the tutors will decide whether you should present your paper with a full presentation at the seminar, or if you should keep a poster presentation. To get your paper into the seminar publication, this version should be good enough to qualify for a full presentation.

  3. A Camera Ready Paper

    4. If this paper exceeds the publishing treshold, it will be published in the handouts for the seminar, which again will be included in the TM laboratory's C-series of articles.

6. The Conference

At the conference, all participants will present their work either by giving a full presentation or by making a poster which they can present in a separate poster session.

Poster sessions are a common practice in scientific conferences. The course staff will decide which papers will be presented with full presentations and which with posters.

Attending the seminar in Sjökulla is mandatory.

On the Seminar on Network Security in the fall of 2001 Pasi Eronen held a presentation on how to present and oppone a paper. The slides can be found here. The presenation contains valuable information on presenting in general, although the exact guidelines (the length of the presentation, the instructions for opponents) are outdated. Also note, that the instructions for keeping poster presentations have changed notably.

6.1. Presentation

The best papers will be presented with full presentations in Sjökulla. The presentations is 20 to 30 minutes in length and is given in English. The student should reserve time for questions at the end of his presentation.

The presentations are divided into session, each containing about 3 presentations. The session is led by the session chair, who introduces the speakers and their topics, sees to that the speakers do not exceed their time limit, and leads the discussion after each presentation. Note, that the given time may not be exceeded; the session chair will interrupt the presenter if his time runs out.

After each presentation, the opponent of that presentation shall ask some questions or make a couple of remarks. To be able to prepare himself, the opponent will receive the paper before the conference. It is the student's responsibility to send the camera ready paper to his opponent.

The presentation tools available are a lap top that can show Powerpoint- and PDF-slides, a projector, an overhead projector, a white board and a flap board.

More detailed instructions on how to give the presentation will be given at a meeting with all participants before the conference.

6.2. Poster Session

At the end of the first day in Sjökulla there will be a poster session. The papers that are presented in the poster session will be those that have not reached the limit of a scientific paper, or have had some other problems.

In the poster session, each poster presenter chooses or is appointed a place in the room where he can put up his poster. Each student should have one poster that he places on the wall and that he uses to support his presentations. The poster can for example be 8 or 9 printed slides of the size A4 that the presenter pastes together.

During the poster session, all participants walk around in the conference room, and get aquainted with the different posters. The presenter's task is to shortly present his work for the persons that happen to stop by. Since there are many posters in the session, the poster presenter should not try to grab the visitors all for himself and keep him at his table for a very long time, but give a short and apt presentation that awakes the listeners interest.

The idea with the poster presentation is to get the bypassers interested in the paper, so that they actually read the paper or come and discuss the topic in the evening.

More detailed instructions on how to make the poster and how to give the poster presentation will be given at a meeting with all participants before the conference.

6.3. Opponing

These instructions were updated 13.11; each student has 2 opponees (not one, as incorrectly stated earlier); new instructions on the format of the evaluation sheet were added, and the evaluation sheet is also regarded in the grading.

The list of receivers of the evaluation sheet updated 30.11.

Each participant will act as an opponent to one oral (that is, full) presentation and one poster presentation in the seminar in Sjökulla.

The opponent will receive the paper he is to oppone before the seminar (see the section on submitting). The list of opponents will be published in time before the submission of the camera ready paper, so that each student knows whom he is to send his camera ready paper to.

At the seminar, the opponent is expected to have one or two questions or comments on the content of the paper. The questions or comments are presented in the discussion following the oral presentation, or as questions to the poster presenter. When opponing an oral presentation, the student should prepare more than two questions, since some of the questions might get answered in the presentation.

Within about one week of the seminar the opponent shall write two evaluation sheets; one for each presentation (see the schedule). The evaluation sheet should include the following:

  1. The questions the opponent asked
  2. How and how well the presenter could answer the question
These comments are sent to

The opponing at the seminar (how well the opponing is prepared and performed) and the evaluation sheet affects the grade.

You should always rememder when you are criticizing someone's work or when your own work is criticized that the critique is about the work you have done that time, not about yourself or your future work. Critics is for learning, not for blaming.

7. Grades

The normal grading (1-5) is used for all the students. The grade is affected by the paper, the presentation, and the opponing. To pass the course, the student must receive a grade of at least 1 in all parts. The student must also perform all mandatory parts of the course, that is participate in the lectures on scientific writing, and participate in the seminar.

Not following the schedule is interpreted as dropping the course, which will result in the grade 0.

The weights of the different parts are:

Part Percentage
The paper60%
Presenting25%
Opponing15%
(10% opponing at the seminar,
5% the evaluation sheets)

The course staff will meet at the end of the conference to decide the grades.

This page is maintained by Internetworking teaching staff, E-mail: iwork@tml.hut.fi.
The page has been last updated on November 30th, 2002
URL: http://www.tml.hut.fi/Studies/T-110.551/2002/carryout.html