Seminar "Advanced Multimedia Systems" (2007/08, term 3)Link to the official course website provided by the university's online system. |
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SCHEDULE |
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CONTENT AND GENERAL INFO |
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The topic of this seminar is advanced multimedia systems and applications. Multimedia means, we are dealing with systems that process different kinds of media, such as audio, video, text, and images. The term systems illustrates, that we will rather take the user's and system designer's view than the engineer's and programmer's perspective, i.e. the presentations and discussions will be motivated by potential applications and systems rather than, for example, low level signal processing issues. (Note that this doesn't mean that we won't look at the algorithms and basics which are involved, but only that the motivation of all we are doing or talking about will be user and system centered.) Finally, the keyword advanced reflects, that we want to look at current research and trends in the area of multimedia systems and applications. This period, the main focus will be on mobile multimedia (esp. mobile video, graphics, and gaming), video browsing, and personal media capture. All of these areas are closely related to research that is currently done in our group. Hence, this seminar is also a good opportunity to get some background information in case you are interested in a related experimentation or thesis project.
Note: This seminar replaces the advanced computer graphics seminar which was originally announced for this period. In case you are really desperate to do a graphics seminar, talk to the instructor if it is possible to arrange a more "graphics-related" multimedia topic for you. |
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GOALS AND PROCEDURE |
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Besides learning the content, the purpose of a seminar is also to gain and demonstrate skills such as how to look into, read, and understand scientific literature and how to present, evaluate, and discuss scientific work. Consequently, you will have to read several papers and present two of them in the meetings. Final grades will be based mainly on the presentations but other issues will influence them as well.
After a general introduction from the instructor, individual topics and links to related literature will be given out in one of the first meetings. After that, the participants have a few weeks time to prepare their presentations using selected papers and articles. They have to write a short review for each of the two papers and a summary about one of the topics presented by a colleague. Presence is mandatory and it is expected that you participate in the discussions after the presentations. PresentationsPresentations are based on (at least) two papers from the selected topic. Used articles are proposed by the participants themselves and specified after consultation with the instructor. Everyone gives one presentation. Each presentation is about 45-60 minutes long (keep the time limit!) and followed by a discussion in which the audience can ask questions and the papers are discussed.Grading is mainly based on the content of the presentation. However, presentation style, presentation material, etc. influence the final grading as well (weighting content vs. style approximately 3:1). Please note that according to my experience, the choice of papers you will be presenting also indirectly influences your final grading, i.e. they should "fit well to each other". In making your presentation, use a format derived from your understanding of the topic. Do not copy every tenth line of the article, but present for example the statement of the problem, alternative solutions, evaluation of alternatives, elaboration of chosen alternative, results, discussion, pros and cons, etc. The bottom line is that it must be clear that you understand what it is about. Be precise. Do not use phrases like "the method works reasonably well". The following hints might be helpful in preparation. However, I highly recommend not to accept anything without criticism just because "the sources say so". In my opinion, such advise should only be seen as a general guideline. In fact, all of the references given below contain some arguments which I personally disagree with. Nevertheless, it might be useful to have a look at them and other, related ressource.
ReviewsAlthough scientific literature usually undergoes a review process, the quality of papers and articles can vary significantly. In addition, scientific results are usually presented in some sort of context. Therefore, it is always important to have a critical look at the presented work and challenge the presented results (e.g. do the results generalize or depend on a particular context, why didn't the authors mention anything on time complexity of their proposed approach, etc.). In addition, there is almost always room for improvement. Thinking about what could be done to improve a paper (e.g. can the graphics be improved, would the paper benefit from a different structure, etc.) can also help you later when you have to present you own work sometime (e.g. your master thesis).In order to train you ability to evaluate, assess, and judge scientific literature, participants have to write one review for each of the papers they are presenting. The following review form should be used for this: For evaluating the quality of a paper, it might help to have a look at the following reference which give hints on how a "perfect" paper should look like:
SummariesEveryone has to write one summary about a topic which is not presented by yourself (e.g. if you are talking about "media capture" you should write a summary, for example about "video browsing" or "mobile gaming"). You can use the presentation about that article, but don't depend on it exclusively. Try to relate the two articles/chapters that you summarize. Give a clear structure to the summary, it should not be a blob of words. It must be a summary, not just a selection of sentences from the chapter/article. Be to the point, not too verbose. Include the essence, exclude side issues.Each summary should be about 6 to 8 pages long using the ACM format for journal publications. Templates for Word and LaTeX can be found on the webpage. For other word processors just make sure that you roughly meet the guidelines (esp. page and font size). The main purpose of this is to guarantee a similar length for all participants, so changes from the original format are acceptable as long they do not significantly influence the size of your summary. You do not have to include the copyright statement and the keywords from the ACM computing classification system (although you are welcome to do so, if you want to). Please, put your name and student ID as author (not the name of the student who gave the presentation).
Participation in the meetingsAttendance in the meetings is mandatory (acceptions are granted if there is a good reason and prior (!) consultation of the instructor). In order to guarantee audience participation in the discussions after the talks, it is required to ask questions. The quality of the questions will influence the final grading. For this, everyone has to write down at least two questions per talk. These questions are collected at the end and rated. There won't be enough time for everyone to ask a question after every presentation. However, you should not only write down, but also ask questions every now and then.The goal of the questions after the presentations is to clarify open issues and problems, etc., but also to discuss the paper (is the approach valid, how good does it work, is the problem relevant at all, etc.). Normally, the discussion starts with questions about the content and naturally evolves into a more general debate. Hence, the presenter should not only be able to answer questions, but also become more of a moderator as the dicussion evolves. In order to do this, you should prepare some general statements and issues to foster the discussions.
Further issuesEveryone should read the mandatory reading material handed out in the seminar and indicated below. |
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GRADING |
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There will be no exam but grading will depend on the quality of the given presentations (50%), the quality of the written reviews (20%) and the summary (20%), as well as the participation in the meetings (10%). Please note that the weighting given in brackets is only a rough guideline and that we reserve the right to (slightly) modify it in case you handle one part particularly well or bad. In addition, exceptions might apply after consultation with the instructor. The deadlines given above are strict and failing to meet them will result in a decrease of your final grade!
Since there will be no exam, there obviously won't be any 2nd chance exam either, but 2nd chances will be handled individually during the seminar. For example, if a presentation is not good enough in order to pass the course, students might make up for this by giving another one. It is up to the instructor to specify the amount and form of the individual effort required for such a 2nd chance. |
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TOPICS AND LITERATURE |
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Each participant has to chose one topic and (at least) two related articles for the presentation and reviews as well as another topic for the summary. Assignment of the general topics will be done in the meeting on Wednesday, Feb 13. Specification of possible articles, etc. will be done in individual meetings with the instructor on Friday, Feb 15.
Personal Media Capture
Mobile Video Standards and Applications
Mobile Graphics and Mobile Gaming
Video Browsing and Summarization
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Wolfgang Hürst (huerst@cs.uu.nl)