Web Information Systems (seminar and project)

This graduate seminar complements the Information Architecture and Semantic Web Engineering courses which address scientific database and Web services. The seminar focuses on gaining experience with (i) scientific publishing and (ii) scientific large-scale analytics through hands-on work.

• seminar:
  • scientific publication: the style of scientific publishing and presenting will be discussed. To this end, each student at semester start picks one of the following paper styles: experimental; benchmark; theoretical (some new theory/proof); literature survey; best-practice report; industrial; demonstration. The student will make a presentation in class teaching classmates how to do such a paper.
  • Two scientific service papers will be compared and assessed in an in-class presentation. A list of papers has been selected; students will choose a topic and then two papers.
  
  
• project: The application domain relates to research of my group on large-scale multi-dimensional geo raster services, in particular: service standardization, architectures, and optimization. Hence, topics offered will deal with, e.g., 2-D satellite maps, 3-D geophysical data, or 4-D climate model data. Students are expected to bring along strong skills in Java and/or C++ programming. Knowing how to handle XML is an asset. Ultimate goal of the project work is (i) adding to our open-source code base and (ii) publishing results.

The total work amount expected is 15h per week (i.e., about 2 working days). Students will give weekly progress reports in class, which is also a good opportunity to discuss and maybe resolve issues arising. Generally, as the services will commonly use the same technology platform, it is a good idea to share experience. Sharing of code is not considered cheating, but encouraged, provided proper reference is given. Submitting a scientific publication before the end of the semester will be actively supported by the instructor, and will contribute to the overall grade.

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Slides (PDF)

[ Introduction ]
[ Presentation techniques ]

Organisation

• see the seminar introduction for expected results, grading, and other organisational issues.
• topics will be distributed following a first come / first serve policy.

Meetings

Before coming to an individual meeting please ensure:

• You have pen and paper with you to take notes;
• You have attempted or completed the assignment handed to you at a previous meeting;
• If you cannot attend a meeting, please let me know a few days before by mail;
• Please ensure that you come to the meeting with well thought out questions;
• Please ensure that you are clear about the objectives set out until the next meeting, and are aware of a possible route to those objectives;
• If you have had difficulty with a particular aspect of the project, please discuss it at the meeting and/or in class;
• Meetings as a rule are planned to last 30 minutes; if you would like more time, I would be happy to arrange another meeting -- provided you can convince me that this is necessary;
• Most importantly, the aim of the meetings is to enable you to do the best project possible -- the meetings are therefore aimed at helping you score as high a mark on your project as you are capable of;
• It is important, therefore, that you keep this objective clear during the meeting, and use it to drive your project.