General Instructions for Term Papers
This page provides instructions that all students (independently of the type of their paper) should follow. For instructions specific to particular types of papers, see links below.
In this course, you should work on term paper individually.
Papers will be evaluated on the quality of the idea originality, the implementation of the idea, and the quality of writing. The main goal of the paper is to report your original work on a problem relevant to cyber security and privacy, but this will be interpreted broadly. You are encouraged to find topics of interest to you; feel free to be creative in selecting a paper topic. You’re welcome to pick a topic that is connected to your research or technical interests.
You’re welcome to come to the instructor’s office hours to discuss possible paper ideas, if you like.
Term Paper Formatting
Attention: All terms papers and proposals should be formatted using IEEE Transactions or ACM Transactions style, single column, with the main body of the paper (from Title to Conclusion section, not including References and appendices) no more than 10 pages. Only the first 10 pages (plus the list of references) will be read for marking. Appendices will not be taken into account for marking papers, and should be used to provide supplementary material.
Writing requirements (on grammar and language) and marking scheme on the quality of writing.
Please keep in mind that required sections of your particular term paper depend on its type (see below).
Types of Papers
Any term paper must be in either one of these categories:
1. Literature Survey Paper reports a study of academic literature on a specific narrow subject and synthesize new knowledge by analyzing the big picture of the whole body of academic research on that particular subject.
2. Empirical Study paper reports a study for which empirical data (either quantitative or qualitative) has been properly collected and analyzed; results are reported and the corresponding conclusions are drawn.
3. Design paper reports an attempt to solve some interesting problem by proposing a design; implementing a prototype; and using the implementation as a basis for evaluating the proposed system architecture. In a good design project, the authors have:
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- addressed a significant problem
- devised an interesting and practical solution
- clearly described what they have and have not implemented
- demonstrated the benefits of their solution
- articulated the advances beyond previous work
- drawn appropriate conclusions
4. Security analysis paper might report, for example, a study of some previously-proposed design, implementation technique, existing system, or a class of systems; evaluate its security properties; find flaws, or strengths, in it; and provide new insight into how to build more secure systems.