Course Assignments

All writing assignments must be individually written. Students may not submit group written or duplicate Status Reports or Final Reports.

If you are working on a group project, it is allowable for each member of your group to write his/her Final Report on some interconnected but different aspect of your group’s project. For example: you might write about the hardware while your partner writes about the software. Both of your reports would still contain all of the appropriate elements: Abstract, Table of Contents, Introduction, Body, Conclusion, etc. You must discuss this division of work with your technical supervisor at the beginning of term and receive approval for it, before you submit any of the assignments.

Students must ensure that paper copies of their assignments are submitted to the ECE 496 marking box on the DUE DATE. Use a size 12 font double space for your text. Remember to include your name and student number, your supervisor’s name, and your project code with each assignment. Due dates for the assignments must be observed. See the Home Page for the deadlines.

Additionally, a copy of your report must be submitted to the project supervisor. Please check with your supervisor for the format (e.g. electronic format is preferred for some supervisors).

Before you begin writing any of your assignments, consider the following guidelines:

ORGANIZING YOUR WORK

The way you organize your work will be governed to a great extent by specific instructions from your project supervisor. You should still keep in mind, however, these 5 points:

1. After discussion with your supervisor, develop a Written Proposal comprised of a written statement of the objectives of your work on the project and a Gantt chart which shows how you propose to divide your work into tasks and schedule each task. You may use part or all of the statements and written material given to you by your supervisor, but you must be sure that you fully understand the tasks ahead of you.

2. When designing the Gantt chart, you should also write a preliminary plan of the major phases of the work and associated deadlines. Depending upon your project, you may need to perform literature research, analysis, evaluation, design, fabrication, measurement, computer simulation, performance evaluation, and documentation. Initially, you may not be able to present all the details of such a plan, but you must make an effort to develop at least a rudimentary schedule.

3. Some supervisors expect you to have meetings with you regularly, others only occasionally. Make sure that you understand the expectations of your supervisor, and make definite arrangements for meetings and for answering questions. Remember that supervisors are very busy. If you want to have their full attention, it is better to make appointments at mutually agreeable times, and be well prepared for the meeting. Before each meeting, send your supervisor a brief report of progress since your last meeting, any difficulties in the project, and a list of questions you would like to cover in the meeting.

4. You should maintain a daily, dated journal of notes, observations, design ideas, circuit diagrams, flowcharts, programming notes, and measurement results throughout the project. Remember that without proper documentation, your work is of little value to others. You may think that you will remember all the details at the end, but you will find that this is seldom possible. Written notes can be the greatest help when trying to track down design faults or other problems. Furthermore, if you keep good notes, the writing of the Progress and Final Reports will be that much easier and relatively straightforward.

The journal may be kept as a continuation of one of your laboratory notebooks and must be available for inspection on the request of your supervisor or the course's Technical Co-ordinator. The quality and clarity of the journal will be taken into account by your technical supervisor when the technical mark is assigned. Your supervisor will determine the best way in which the reporting should be done. In lieu of a hardcopy some sort of electronic reporting of progress may be appropriate.

5. Material from the Status Report may be included verbatim in the Final Report, so you should make the Progress Report as complete as possible in order to benefit from your supervisor's comments.

Marking Criteria for the Technical Grade:

The technical grade is assigned by your supervisor, and includes all aspects of your technical work including meetings, working demonstrations, oral presentations and reports. The marking criteria includes some or all of the following aspects:

• Assessment of the background and motivation for the present work; survey of previous work, understanding of technical issues.
• Contributions to the formulation and refinement of project objectives, approach and work plan.
• Timely and accurate reporting of progress and participation in project meetings.
• Achievement of project goals; application of initiative and ingenuity where required; quality and thoroughness of implementation.
• Presentation and demonstration of project results; organization of final report; contributions to the formulation of final conclusions.

Marking Criteria for the English Grade:

• Organization and integration of content
• Cohesion and clarity of style
• Correctness of grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• Formatting of report
• Accuracy and completeness of citations (if any)

MID-TERM EXAM

The mid-term exam will require you to write an abstract for a technical paper. The paper will be given at the exam time, and will be an IEEE journal paper (of length 4-6 pages). For examples of abstracts, please see journal papers (e.g. library, google scholar, etc).

The abstract will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• The summary is technically correct in content
• Appropriate page length: 1-2 pages double-spaced
• Grammatically and idiomatically correct English
• Written in "your own words"

PROJECT PROPOSAL

You do not need to submit a formal project proposal. However, you are strongly encouraged to provide your technical supervisor with a proposal to demonstrate that you fully understand the project expectations. The proposal should describe the objectives and specific tasks of the project. If you are part of a project team, ensure that your project description makes this point clear and that you describe your group's organisation and the specific tasks of all your group members. Include a Gantt chart that shows how you intend to schedule your time to complete the project.

FORMAL STATUS REPORT

Every student must submit an individually written Status Report, even if you are working as a group on your project. Write the Status Report as follows:

Cover Page

Create a cover page which includes the following information:

• The title of your project
• The project's number (if applicable)
• Your full name
• Your student number
• The names of your group members (if applicable)
• The name of your technical supervisor

MEMORANDUM

Pattern your Status Report as a memorandum using the following headings:

To: Ms. J. Pavelich
From: your full name
Date: date
Re: Project Status

In complete sentences and coherent paragraphs, create the following sections. Do not rely excessively on point or list form. Double space your work and use a size 12 font. Ensure your status report is no longer than 4 sheets of paper (including the cover page). This means 3 pages of text. If status report are longer, we will throw out the extra pages -- these will not be graded.

Introduction:

Provide a brief description of your project in which you explain its objectives, the significance of these objectives, and any relevant history of the project. If it is a continuation or extension of a previous project, explain how your current work is a part of it. If it is a group project, identify the other students involved. Conclude this section by describing what you hope to have accomplished and learned by the end of the project.

Note: in the following sections, if you are working in a group, you must describe both your own work and that of the other members in your group.

Work Completed:

• Describe what has been accomplished to date
• Explain any difficulties that have arisen
• Explain how they have been dealt with

Work in Progress:

• Describe what you are currently doing
• Explain any difficulties you are currently facing
• Explain how you are dealing with them

Work Remaining:

• Describe what remains to be done
• Forecast any potential difficulties
• Explain how you will deal with them

Conclusion:

• Evaluate your performance so far
• Describe whether you are confident or concerned about the project as a whole so far and why
• Indicate that the project will be completed on time

FINAL REPORT

Your report should be a thorough, readable and technically sound documentation of the project work you performed. See below for the recommended contents of your report.

In the case where more than one student is working on the same project as part of a team, note that each person must write a separate final report. Your report should be self contained, but can refer to your partner's report. In other words, your report should be readable by itself, with all the sections outlined below. Avoid duplication as much as you reasonably can. Most likely, you have worked on different aspects of the project than your teammates, so concentrate on your part of the project in your report.

Submit one hard copy of your Final Report to the box labelled EECE 496 outside MCLD 112B for English marking. Submit another hard copy directly to your technical supervisor, unless they request an electronic (PDF) version. If you want to review the English marking of your report, please contact the English Coordinator.

The file name should be in the form of: Lastname_Firstname_496FinalReport.pdf (with no spaces). Be sure to put your student number and supervisor's name on the front page of your report.

GUIDELINES for the FINAL REPORT

The report should be understandable to a 4th year engineering student outside of the ECE department. The sections of the report are as follows:

• Front Matter
• Introduction
• Body
• Conclusions
• End Matter

Report Front Matter

• Letter of Transmittal
• Title Page
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Glossary*
• List of Abbreviations*
• List of Symbols*
  * if necessary

Report Introduction:

The Introduction to your report should be written in paragraphs, without subheadings. You should include the following information in the following order:

· STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: often a re-working of your title in which you clearly define the problem you are investigating; i.e., "This project investigates...," or "This report presents an investigation of ....”

· OBJECTIVES: explain the objectives of your work on the project. Define what you are trying to accomplish and the methods you used; i.e., “My objectives during this project are to evaluate…design… fabricate...etc.”

· SIGNIFICANCE: explain why the problem is worth investigating. Has a design been implemented? Has a process been improved? Has some system been analyzed for accuracy?

· SUMMARY: summarize the project as a whole, including any work which preceded your involvement, and explain your contribution to it. If you are working in a group, also include how your contribution relates to the work done by your group members.

· SCOPE: explain the parameters of your project. What constraints did you face? What factors did you consider? What information do you include and NOT include in the Final Report?

· OUTLINE OF REPORT: this is ALWAYS the concluding sentence or section of your Introduction because it serves as a “road map” for the reader of what is to come; ie: “This report divides into the following primary sections....” (list them).

Report Body:

While the projects differ, the following information is usually required. Be sure to use lots of graphs to illustrate the main concepts, designs and results. Check with your supervisor for specific reporting requirements.

Equipment and Methodology:

· What you used
· Why you used it
· Possible approaches
· System description
· Design concepts

Designs and Experiments:

· What you did
· How you did it
· Logic design details
· Circuit details and diagrams
· Computer pseudo-code, flowcharts, and short code segments
· Fabrication details

Note: some of the above may be more suitable in an Appendix. Large code segments, in particular, are usually placed in an Appendix.

Results:

· What you found out
· Evaluation of the performance of the project
· Statement of objectives achieved
· Statement of objectives not achieved
· Discussion of difficulties and problems
· Suggestions for future development

Report Conclusions:

The Conclusions should summarize the information presented in the report. It MUST NOT contain new information that you have not previously discussed. Limit the Conclusions to a few short paragraphs. You can use point form to summarize the most important conclusions. Plan the Conclusions as follows:

· Statement of objectives: You can use the same flow of ideas that you used in your Introduction, but now in the past tense, e.g., “This report investigated.... “

· The main conclusions: Summarize the main material you presented in your report. Emphasize your designs, innovations, results and suggestions you made for future work.

Report End Matter:

• Your references are listed after the conclusions in order of their appearance in the text, under a heading "REFERENCES" or "List of Citations". For the reference list, use the standard IEEE format. For examples, see any IEEE Transactions or Journal.

• Each reference in your report is assigned a number upon first citation; this number is re-used for any subsequent citation of the same reference. Place your citations numbers in-line in the text; enclose the number in square brackets; i.e., [1]. Your citations are thus numbered sequentially throughout your report; your List of Citations follows this sequence but omits any repetition due to "subsequent use". For example, your report's in-text citations could run 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 1, 4, 5, while the List of Citations would simply contain these five references beginning with number 1.

• Be careful in using web sites as references, as their material and addresses change quite often. Use only established sites, and check them before you hand your report in.

• Your report can contain appendices, made up of technical material, tables, figures, etc., that are too detailed to place in the main body of the report. Using appendices can improve the continuity of the body of the report by omitting material that is not needed for immediate understanding.

Report Formatting:

Both copies of your report must be properly bound or securely contained in a duotang folder and conform to the following:

• Print on one side of the page only
• Use a 12-point font
• Do not indent paragraphs; 1.5 or double space between lines; triple space between paragraphs
• Place page numbers at the bottom center of the page
• Paginate consecutively, using roman numerals for the front matter and arabic numerals for the main text, e.g.:

  Letter of Transmittal: no number
  Title Page: counts as Page i, but don't type this on the page
  Abstract: ii
  Table of Contents: iii
  List of Illustrations: iv (unless TOC is more than one page)
  Glossary: v
  List of Abbreviations: vi
  Introduction: 1

• Begin each primary section on a new page
• Begin each primary heading 4 cm (1.5 inch) from the top of the page
• Headings:

  Primary: all capitals, centered
  Secondary: main words only capitalized; at left margin, underlined
  Tertiary: main words only capitalized; at the left margin
  Use bolding at your discretion, but avoid visual clutter
  Triple space between all headings and the text they introduce
  Number all your headings

• Leave a 2.5 cm (1 inch) margin at the right of the page and at the bottom. Leave a 4 cm (1.5 inch) margin at the left of the page to accommodate the cover.

PLAGIARISM:

The act of copying other people's written items without proper referencing is considered to be plagiarism. If such an act is noticed by the supervisors, it may result in disciplinary action such as: significantly reducing both the technical and English marks for the report, having to rewrite the report, or failing the course.

The supervisors may request an oral presentation to test your understanding of the information concerned before assigning marks.