The final research project will be a semester-long, significant work demonstrating your developed understanding of synthetic data generation in machine learning. An ideal scenario is for your project to become publishable in top-tier machine-learning conferences. You will be given some project ideas if you have difficulty finding one. Most projects require you to write code to test your ideas, derive your algorithms, and evaluate the quality of your synthetic data. If you are lost and do not know what to do for a project, you can do a literature survey on a subtopic, which is generally not recommended.
Successful projects produce true publication-worthy work. I would give high marks to ambitious and exciting projects rather than safe projects that produce an expected but positive result.
I recommend people to work in a group of 2 people strongly preferred. A project team may consist of up to 3 people maximum. However, such a large group needs to do more than double the work of a two-person group. You can also work alone if that's what you prefer.
One of three different kinds of projects can be undertaken:
Programming a new or expanding the capabilities of an existing method/algorithm.
Developing a novel application using an existing algorithm and making modifications suitable for the particular application.
Making a fundamentally new generative modelling algorithm or methodological development.
Do not wait until the middle of the term to start your project. As every good work requires, you need to pour many hours and thoughts into the project to be complete and successful.
4-page (excluding references) proposal in NeurIPS 2021 conference format
6-page (excluding references) publication-quality paper (same format)
Two presentations: project proposal and final project presentations (each ~20-minute)
Proposal due : 11:59pm on October 13 (Email to the instructor, with title "Project Proposal by Your Name")
The proposal will be graded and count as 15% of the final project grade. The proposal should take the form of a research abstract, i.e. it should include a title, authors, abstract, introduction, background/related work, suggested methodology, expected conclusions, and references. Note that the only significant missing pieces should be the methods and results. It should be extremely clear what the problem being addressed is. “Stand-in” figures that show what the expected results will look like are required.
All sections will grow in the final project report, but those listed should appear in the project proposal in reasonably complete form. Of particular interest are a description of the problem to be solved, a literature search, and expected conclusions to be drawn from a successful project.
Project proposals that do not outline a project with sufficiently high complexity will be given zero credit and groups that author such proposals will be required to resubmit project proposals on a weekly basis thereafter until the proposal reaches a sufficient level of complexity to warrant a passing grade. Resubmissions will receive strictly lower grades than proposals that pass the first time.
Slides for the presentations due: 24-hr before your final and project proposal presentation (Email to the instructor, with title "Final Presentation (or Project Proposal Presentation) by Your Name")
Each presentation will be graded and will count as 15% of the final project grade. Each group will present their results via a presentation in front of the whole class. The duration of each presentation will depend on the total number of groups formed, but almost certainly will not exceed 20 minutes.
The presentation should introduce the problem, highlight the methods used, and cover analysis results. Each group will be subject to 5-10 minutes of questioning from the instructor and potentially the other students in the class about all aspects of their project. Having backup slides (slides prepared, but not used in the presentation) for questions about methodology detail will be expected of all groups.
Final papers due: 11:59pm on Dec 6 (Email to the instructor, with title "Final Paper by Your Name")
A project report must be delivered to the instructor’s email by the time mentioned above. Failure to submit the report by then will result in a grade of "0" for the final project.