HDCC 209C - Spring 2017
Class Presentation, Poster, Final Write-up Guidelines


Class presentation slides due by 8pm the Sunday before you present.
Poster PPT due by 8pm on Sunday, May 7th.
Written report due by 3:30pm on Tuesday, May 16th.

Class Presentation

Your class presentation needs to be between 10 and 12 minutes and well rehearsed. There will be a brief Q&A period after each. You need to have a slide deck for your presentation. You may use a short video clip and talk over it to us at times. Live demos during the presentation are permissible, but can be a challenge so if you have a demo portion, practice it well and have a backup plan in slides! Presentations should "wow" the audience and leave them with an understanding of what you did and why. Too much time spent talking about things that went wrong is typically a poor choice of time use in this type of presentation. The written report can discuss such things, but they usually do not serve the goals of a presentation.

Slides should be exported to PPT and sent to me at egolubUMD@gmail.com the evening before your presentation so that I can review them before you present.


Poster

You will each also submit a PowerPoint file that represents a poster showcasing your project. A common poster is likely to have 3-5 good visuals to convey what you've done, and highlight key points via them, as well as large text that is easy to read. The provided template can be changed between the two thick green horizontal lines to suit your project and style, but please leave the rest of the layout as-is for uniformity. These will be printed on 8.5x11 paper to have at your Capstone Fair table since there's not really space for posters for everyone.


Written Report

The final project submission will take many forms based on the variety of projects undertaken. If you have created a website as the main artifact or as part of your project, please give links to that at the start of your report. If there is an app that I need to download or install, please mention that at the start of your report and tell me from where I can obtain it. The report itself will also take many forms. Below I list the types of things all reports need to present, but the emphasis will vary based on your individual project. Much of the information you need is likely in your weekly reports, but it might need to be organized and processed to make a good report.

The report should present information such as:

  • Overview of what you have created and how it aligns with your original final proposal.
  • The process you followed in creating your work and how you learned new things via this process.
  • A list of references to related work (scholarly papers, web sites, etc) with a short comment on how each reference relates to your project's domain or your work.
  • The results of your work, especially if it was primarily a core research project.
  • Things that users learn about by using the outcome of your project.
  • Any benefits to others of your project.
  • The communities that would be interested in your project and why.
  • Reactions and/or feedback from others about your project.
  • Lessons you learned over the course of the semester that you can apply to future projects.

You will turn in your report document as a PDF file via e-mail to me at egolubUMD@gmail.com by the above date. For ease of reading, please have paragraphs single-spaced but have an extra blank line between paragraphs. If you quote or paraphrase any sources, make sure you cite them. You may use any citation style with which you are comfortable, but you must cite sources whether directly used in the report or used as you were working on your project.