Final Project

Project Overview

The final project is an individual study of two online learning papers. The papers will normally address the same problem or research direction; in many cases, one paper will extend, refine, or respond to the other. Each student will be assigned a pair of papers and a presentation date. Assignments and dates will be determined by alphabetical order of last name.

The project has two graded components:

• In-class presentation (40%). Present the assigned papers individually on the scheduled date.
• Final report (30%). Submit an individual report through ICON that explains and compares the assigned papers.

Assigned Papers and Presentation Schedule

The paper assignments and presentation schedule will be posted here after they are finalized.

Guidance on Reading the Papers:

• Begin by identifying the common research question and how it connects to material covered in the course.
• Read the two papers as a pair. Determine what the second paper changes relative to the first, such as its assumptions, algorithm, proof technique, guarantee, or application.
• You are not expected to master every technical detail. Concentrate on the main messages and study the most important sections carefully; notation-heavy or peripheral sections may be read more selectively.
• For each paper, identify the problem setting, the principal result, the central technical idea, and the significance of the contribution.
• Keep track of questions as you read. If an essential argument remains unclear, bring the question to office hours or discuss it with the instructor.

Guidance on the Presentation

Each student will have 15–20 minutes for an individual in-class presentation covering both assigned papers. The objective is to communicate the essential ideas and the relationship between the papers, rather than reproduce every result.

A useful organization is:

• Introduction (2–3 minutes): motivate the topic, connect it to the course, state the main results at a high level, and explain why the two papers belong together.
• Problem setup (3–4 minutes): define the shared setting and introduce only the notation needed for the rest of the talk.
• Main results and comparison (8–10 minutes): explain the most important algorithms, theorems, or proof ideas from each paper and clarify how the later work differs from or improves upon the earlier work.
• Conclusion (1–2 minutes): summarize the main takeaways, limitations, and remaining questions.

• You may use slides, the whiteboard, or a combination of both.
• Select one or two central ideas from each paper; do not attempt to cover every theorem or proof.
• Use notation sparingly and explain the intuition behind technical statements.
• Anticipate questions from the audience and manage the discussion so that the presentation remains within the allotted time.

Guidance on Writing the Report

The final report must be written individually in LaTeX and submitted through ICON. It should be six to eight pages, excluding references, and should synthesize the two papers rather than present two unrelated summaries.

The report should contain:

• Abstract: a concise summary of the problem, the two papers, and the main comparison.
• Introduction: motivation, connection to the course and broader literature, high-level results, and why the relationship between the papers is important.
• Problem setup: a precise description of the model, assumptions, objectives, and necessary notation.
• Main results: the selected algorithms or theorems from both papers, together with an explanation of what the formal statements mean.
• Technical ideas: the most informative proof arguments, algorithmic insights, or analytical techniques. Long proofs may be distilled into the key steps.
• Comparison: a direct account of how the papers differ in assumptions, methods, guarantees, limitations, or empirical implications.
• Conclusion: the central lessons, unresolved limitations, and possible directions for future work.
• References: complete and properly formatted citations for both assigned papers and any additional sources used.
• Appendix: any supplementary material that supports the main text but is too detailed for the body of the report.

The report should not contain:

• Any content copied verbatim from the papers. All text must be written in your own words.
• A repetition of the whole analysis in the original papers.

These instructions are adapted from Haipeng Luo's CSCI 659 project guidelines (Spring 2026).