(2)   RESEARCH REPORT OPTION: The Research Report requires a one-page (max) description of the intended topic and category (as described below) which should be submitted in the Fall term. Once the report topic is approved by the COGS499 instructor, the student can begin working on the COGS499 report. The final result should be about 40-50 pages long (double spaced). COGS499 instructors and advisors will be available to help clarify the format and requirements. The final mark will be assigned by the COGS499 instructor, and will be

1. Project proposal 5%

2. Class discussions 15% (Read papers and discuss summary)

3. Report abstract 5%

4. Report skeleton 5%

5. Final project presentation 20% (slides or poster 10% and presentation 10%), and

6. Written Report 50% (based on depth of study and quality of report, approx. 40 including references).

Project Options

 (1)   THESIS: Includes a written report, a software/model, and a poster presentation.

(2)   RESEARCH REPORT: The Research Report requires a one-page (max) description of the intended topic and category (as described below) which should be submitted in the Fall term. Once the report topic is approved by the COGS499 instructor, the student can begin working on the COGS499 report. The final result should be about 40-50 pages long (double spaced). COGS499 instructors and advisors will be available to help clarify the format and requirements. The final mark will be assigned by the COGS499 instructor.

Depending on the scope of the research topic, the report can be one of the three different types as described below.

• Breadth Paper – A breath paper covers a broad area such as Cognitive Science methods in Education, Neural Network models for behaviour prediction, or Cognitive Models in Music Appreciation. It should provide a categorization and taxonomy of all the major approaches to research within the area. The paper should include a table to compare and contrast the various research approaches, type of applications an approach is suitable for, and its strengths and weaknesses. The discussions should explain and evaluate the various approaches giving some details of prominent examples or applications. The papers should conclude with a list of open problems in the area, expected results if applicable, and future research directions. At the end of the project, a student should have a critical overview of the research area and should be able to choose a specific approach for a given problem.

• Depth Paper – A depth paper focuses on a more narrow area of research such as Cognitive Science methods in web-based Education or Neural Network models for behaviour prediction for a specific disease case. Thus it should address a more specific approach or problem topic, and explore variations of the approach in much more detail at the implementation level to discover specific open problems. A critical comparison of the different approaches to the research problem must be included in the report at the level of implementation methods and evaluation of results in both table format and discussions. The paper should conclude with the prominent open questions in the area, and argue for the use of particular approaches in addressing them. The student will gain expert insight on a specific problem and a critical perspective of the existing approaches applied to that problem area.

• Research Proposal – A research proposal is basically a proposal to implement a possible solution (for example, an extension to an existing approach) to an already identified critical research issue in a narrow problem area. The report should provide an abbreviated version of Depth Paper analysis to argue about the importance of the specific research problem (but quickly focus on a single issue, and along with it, a single method of approaching it) and the chosen approach. Then it should provide a detail discussion of the selected approach, its importance, the motivation behind the proposed research, and research hypothesis to address the problem (all the steps that would be necessary to implement the solution). The report should conclude with an explanation of the expected results and their impacts, and a list of criteria and strategy to evaluate the results. The Research Proposal format is similar to requirements that exist in graduate studies and will give the student valuable insights for graduate research.

Project Proposal

See Moodle website for details about format of the proposal, the deadlines and the format of the agreement form to be signed by the student and the supervisor.

Proposals must be submitted by Fall and approved by the proposed supervisor and COGS 499 coordinator (me). The work will begin in Winter. In Fall term within the specified deadlines students must

1. Select a project from the advertised projects OR select a topic for research report option,

2. Find a supervisor and then discuss with the supervisor about the work. If you are proposing a research topic, get approval about the validity of the topic of research report.

3. Get an agreement signed to work on the project in Winter under the supervision of the proposed supervisor. Agreement should be signed by the student and the proposed supervisor and submitted to the COGS 499 coordinator.