REU Site: Research on Perspective Analytics for AI - enabled Operations Engineering
Project Schedule
Prior to the arrival of the selected student participants at MU, they will be mailed a pre-arrival package that includes: (i) agenda of the summer program, (ii) profile of all faculty mentors along with their research interests, and (iii) summary of the projects along with related sample publications of the mentors. This will enable students to familiarize themselves with the team and potential research projects in advance. Table 1 shows the overview of weekly student activities in terms of student research components and outlines the related activities for the faculty mentors, as well as the REU Site management.
Week 1 – Mentors and Student Orientation through Setting of Code of Conduct: The program will begin with a mandatory orientation session in which students and faculty mentors will introduce themselves, followed by sessions in which the PI will set forth the code of conduct for mentors and students that details the set of norms to ensure professionalism and productive interactions. A code of conduct handbook will be provided for future reference. In this week, students will complete other training such as the NSF Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) and Institutional Review Board (IRB) to help students’ access to protected datasets, e.g., Health Facts® data (de-identified research database). Also, students will be strongly encouraged to join a private LinkedIn group that will be created for the participants of this REU program. Mentor training will also be organized. For weeks 2 – 5, the faculty and/or the graduate student mentor will give weekly lectures on the necessary background required to conduct the research.
Weeks 2 and 3 – Topical Lectures: Students will widen their knowledge of the research topic by reading scholarly materials (such as journal and conference papers, textbooks, and lecture videos). Students will also attend talks on “Why and How to do Research” and how to review papers and give professional presentations on science and engineering topics. In order to expose students to professional report writing, the template provided by the Information Processing & Management journal of Elsevier will be given as a reference to them.
Weeks 4 and 5 – Data Preprocessing and Introduction to Prescriptive Analytics Approaches: Students will be taught best practices for cleaning and preprocessing the input data, along with visualization techniques to summarize data and obtain insights to develop/validate prescriptive analytics solutions. Moreover, students will also visit public schools in Columbia, MO, and talk about their research projects in order to motivate K-12 students to enroll in the STEM field.
Week 6 – Midterm Report and Presentation: In addition to the midterm presentation, student participants will be asked to prepare a midterm report (in the template given to them in Week 3) that include their progress made since the beginning of the summer program. Based on the feedback obtained from the other student teams during the presentation session, the research approach will be modified, if required. Additionally, the MU evaluator will conduct a qualitative program evaluation to obtain student feedback and will summarize any corrections to be made mid-way in the program activities or project management.
Weeks 7 and 8 – Solution Approach Development and Discussion about Career Opportunities: Students will be involved in completing the research solution development. Faculty mentors will also talk to the participants about their future career opportunities. They will expose students to graduate studies, opportunities involved in the STEM field and their careers after graduate school. Moreover, graduate student mentors will also share their experience in their graduate school with the student participants.
Week 9 – Obtaining Results and Conducting Analysis: Students will record and analyze the results obtained for the different settings and continue writing the paper.
Week 10 – Research Presentation and Paper Completion: In the last week of the program, students will complete their project and write the final report in the template discussed in Week 3. The students will be making the final presentation among their peers, as well as other faculty members at MU. A closing ceremony will be conducted in which student research accomplishments will be recognized. A renowned faculty member, such as the Dean of the College of Engineering, will be the guest of honor. The students will also make a poster presentation to the other undergraduate students at the MU Summer Research Forum and obtain their feedback. In addition, students will complete any data management tasks in order to transition the project outcomes towards future projects or publications using tools such as e.g., GitHub, OneDrive. Lastly, the students will complete the summative program evaluation administered by the CERP.
