Course Syllabus

CS/ECE 3991
Computer Engineering Junior Seminar
Fall 2017

Course Description

 This course serves three primary purposes. First, it will familiarize the students with current trends and career opportunities in Computer Engineering through presentations by industry and faculty members. The second aspect of the course is to provide an education and practice on technical writing for engineers. Third, factors that are important in the engineering profession including professionalism, ethics, the impact of engineering in global and societal contexts, lifelong learning, and contemporary issues will be discussed.

Course Schedule

Alternative Lectures

As mentioned below in Logistics, if you miss a lecture in CS/ECE1991, you can make up a max of two of the lectures by attending another lecture in the SoC or ECE department, and writing a one-page summary of the other lecture. Here are some lectures that could count as a make-up lecture. Check with me if you have another lecture you'd like to attend but aren't sure it meets the criteria. 

• School of Computing 
• Lectures in CS 3020: Research Forum, Fridays, 9:10-10:30am, MEB 3147 http://www.eng.utah.edu/~cs3020/ 
• Look on the School of Computing's seminar page: http://www.cs.utah.edu/calendar/ 
• ECE Department
• Look on the ECE Department's seminar page: http://www.ece.utah.edu/seminars 
• SCI Institute
• Look on the SCI Institute's seminar page: http://sci.utah.edu/the-institute/events/list.html 

Logistics

• Grading
  • Attendance: There will be 14 lectures (after the first day's intro). For full credit you must attend 13 out of 14 of those. Also, since it is inconsiderate to the speakers when attendees arrive late or leave early, half of the attendance points will be deducted for those who do so. If you must miss a lecture for some reason, a maximum of two lectures can be made up by attending and reporting on another lecture in the School of Computing or the ECE Department. 
  • Writing: Writing skills will be exercised and evaluated through a written report. The subject of the report will be a Computer Engineering technical topic of your choice; preferably one presented during the seminar. The report will be 4-6 pages long and formatted as an IEEE technical paper with references. You will need to read papers on your chosen subject and write a detailed report on that subject. Your paper can be written as a survey paper or as a detailed technical description of a particular Computer Engineering topic. It will include at least two figures and five references.
    
• Because most of this class involves speakers (both internal to the U and external), grading is based on attendance, and on your written paper. 
• Grades will be 50% attendance and 50% on your final paper

• Academic Misconduct

  • Note that the School of Computing has adopted a tougher stance on academic misconduct you will need to read the policy and print and sign the form. At this point in your program, I assume that everybody already has this form on file with Alec. If you don't, for some reason, you need to turn this form in to Alec Down (the CE academic advisor) by Friday, August 25.

  • For 3991, academic misconduct means representing work that is substantially copied from an outside source as your own. If you've made use of information from other sources (published documents, reference materials, friends, colleagues, web tutorials, manufacturer's examples, etc.) then you must cite that source in your final paper. If you use text which is slightly modified or copy diagrams that you find on the web then the source of this information must be cited. Best practice for textual work is to cite information obtained elsewhere and provide the full reference in a bibliography. For copied diagrams used in either your final report the best practice is to cite the source in the caption or as text associated with the diagram. This is not an optional practice.
    

• Special Needs
  • The University of Utah seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services, and activities for people with disabilities. If you will need accommodations in the class, reasonable prior notice needs to be given to the Center for Disability Services, http://disability.utah.edu/, 581-5020 (V/TDD). CDS will work with you and the instructor to make arrangements for accommodations. All written information in this course can be made available in alternative format with prior notification to the Center for Disability Services. 
    
    
• Add / Drop

  • Follow the College guidelines. They're very strict so make sure you get the facts.
    
    

Writing Resources

Writing skills requires practice. However, there are methods to accelerate this process. One of the best resources is the book The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Please read the 1918 edition linked above, and even better purchase the 3rd Edition. Another great reference is A. Hofmann's Scientific Writing and Communication.

LaTeX is a professional typesetting language. It is a markup language (as is HTML) that embeds typesetting and formatting information with the text. It is the preferred document creation language for engineers. If you intend to continue to a research based degree (such as an Thesis based Master's Degree or Ph.D.) or intend to perform research in industry, then it is strongly advised that you use LaTeX. In any case, you'll use it in this class at least... 

LaTeX links (These just scratch the surface)

• The actual LaTeX home page - Lots of info and links! 
• Web based projects don't require install and allow multiple people to share and edit the document
  • overleaf.com 
  • sharelatex.com
  • writelatex.com
• Mac-based LaTeX interface and IDE
• TeXShop
• To help you get started, you can use this simple example latex source with its bibliography and IEEE Conference class files.
• LaTeX Manual
• Math Symbols Cheatsheet
• LaTeX Tutorial from Cornell
• The pgf manual for creating stunning graphics.
• GUI Interface for latex. (Note: I have not used this but others have found it very helpful.)

Additional resources on technical writing:

Technical Document Formatting

• IEEE formatting instructions for your document

Online Resources

• The helpful Grammar Girl website.
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab.

Presentations and documents regarding writing and document preparation from previous Junior seminars

• 2013
  • How to Search the US Patent Database for references.
• 2012
  • Technical Writing Basics
  • IEEE Style Overview
• 2010
  • Guide to Technical Writing
• 2009
  • Concise Writing presentation.
  • IEEE Paper Guidelines presentation.
• 2008
  • Grammar and Style Brief presentation.
  • Writing Equations in Word (not a recommended exercise ;-)
  • Grammar document (note problems of formatting in word...)
  • Paper Headings document (note problems of formatting in word...)
  • Paper Structure (inverted pyramid).
  • References document.