Networking Research Seminar

This research seminar is focused on networking and data communications.  It counts for one course unit (1 cu).

This year's format and scope are a little different from past years, with a focus on not just reading interesting papers on networking and communications, but also on gaining some experience on identifying/writing good papers.  As a result, rather than focusing on papers in the latest conferences and journals, the seminar will target papers that have in some form passed the test of time and demonstrated their value (see below for sources of such papers).  The goal is to build a better understanding for what is behind such papers in terms of both problem selection and how those problems and their solutions are presented.

To stay informed, please join the seminar mailing list.

Administrivia (Fall 2016)

• Time: Mondays at 12pm
• Place: Jolley 309
• Master of Ceremonies (MC): Roch Guerin, Jolley 304, guerin at wustl dot edu.

Participants will present papers from the following sources:

- Jim Kurose, "10 networking papers: recommended reading." ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Vol. 36, No. 1, January 2006.
- Jon Crowcroft, "10 networking papers: recommended reading." ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, April 2006.

or from the lists of
- SIGCOMM "test-of-time" award winners,
- SIGMETRICS test-of-time award winners,
- SIGMOBILE "test-of-time" award winners,
- USENIX "test-of-time" award winners (NSDI papers),

Students should notify the MC of their paper selection ahead of time.

Students may also select a paper from recent research conferences or journals in networking (see some relevant links below). However, those papers will only be approved if the MC or another of the faculty involved in the seminar is familiar with the paper and considers it to be of high enough quality (this is harder to gauge for recent papers than for papers that have been out for a while).

Infocom Site
SIGCOMM Site
ANCS Site
NSDI 2015
ICNP Site
Hot Nets Site
IEEE Comsoc Conferences
ACM/IEEE TON
IEEE JSAC
NEC Citeseer
Olin Library E-journals

All students registered for the seminar are expected to present one or two papers over the course of the semester (the exact number will depend on the number of courses registered for the class). Those who are sitting in are also welcome to make presentations as time allows. To schedule yourself to give a presentation, please use the Schedule link at left and be sure to include a link to an online copy of the paper. Presenters should post a copy of their slides on the presentation page (see link at left). 

All participants are expected to read each paper thoroughly and be prepared to participate in the discussion of the paper. To ensure that this is the case, all students in the class will be expected to submit a one or two paragraphs opinion on the paper identifying what they liked the most or least about the paper and explaining why.  Other inputs about the paper that can be touched upon in the student's input are listed below.  Opinions should be submitted by posting on the "Paper Opinions" page of this wiki.

Other inputs you can include in your opinion of a paper:

1. What problem or issue does the paper address? Why is it important?
   
2. What are the main contributions of the paper?
3. How significant are these contributions, relative to previous work?
4. Are the methods used by the author sound? Do they adequately justify the conclusions reached or claims made.
   
5. Is the paper easy to read and understand? Are there changes the author might have made to make it easier for the reader to appreciate the significance of the work?