ITEC810 Final Project Report

This page outlines the requirements for your final project report, which is the final written assignment in the unit. Your final report is due by 3pm on Friday 13th November.

1 Submission Requirements

No later than 12 noon on Friday 13th November, you should submit your final project report via the class Moodle website. The expected length of your report depends on which of the ITEC project units you are taking, and on whether you are doing an analysis or a development project: see the table further below.

This document should report in detail on (a) your initial problem specification; (b) relevant related work and background sources; (c) the approach you took to solving the problem; and (d) the outcomes of your work. The report should be provided as a PDF document.

Note that you should also provide at the same time, via the Moodle class website, your presentation for the end of semester workshop: see here for details of what is required here.

2 The Aims of this Assignment

This assignment has the following aims.

1. It allows you to demonstrate your ability to write an extended report of a significant piece of project work.

2. It provides an archivable presentation of all the details of your project for those who might want to take your work further or build upon it some way.

3. It provides you with a document that you can provide to others to demonstrate what you are capable of.

3 Document Format and Structure

Make sure your submission meets the following requirements.

1. Use no smaller than 11pt for body text in your report. Use single ling spacing. Ensure that your top, bottom, left and right margins are no greater than 2.5cm.

2. The length of your report depends on which unit you are enrolled in, and on whether you are doing an analysis or a development project. The table below suggests typical lengths for each situation, but note that these should be treated as indicative only: Your report needs to be long enough to describe in detail the work that you have done, but not so long that it discourages someone from reading it.

   Unit	Analysis Projects	Development Projects
   ITEC808	30-40 pages	20-25 pages
   ITEC809	30-40 pages	20-25 pages
   ITEC810	30-40 pages	20-25 pages
   ITEC811	50-60 pages	30-40 pages

   The shorter report length requirement for development projects is a consequence of the requirement for these projects also to deliver a working piece of software, which is to be demonstrated to the supervisor's satisfaction at the conclusion of the project.

3. The document should have a separate title page, and begin with an abstract or summary of 150-200 words in length that is able to stand alone as a concise and comprehensive description of your project's objectives, approach and outcomes.

4. The body of the document should consist of a series of numbered sections and subsections; the exact nature and content of these will depend on the specifics of your project, as will the proportion of the available space accorded to each. Typically you would have an introductory section that outlines the problem you are aiming to solve, and provides a roadmap of the remainder of the document; this would then be followed by a background section that describes related work; then a number of sections which describe the work you have carried out, followed by a conclusions section which summarises what has been achieved, and what future work might be pursued. Most reports will have five or six sections in total.

5. Finally, you should have a consistently formatted reference list or bibliography that contains full details of all materials cited in your paper. Ensure that you follow appropriate conventions here; see the instructions on Formatting Reference Lists.

Please ensure that your final report is submitted with a filename that has the following format:

• ‹FamilyName_Givenname›_FinalReport.pdf

• Dale_Robert_FinalReport.pdf

4 Assessment

Your final report is worth 40 marks. These marks represent not only the written content of your report, but also the project work that underlies it.

Note that, for analysis projects, the report should be more than a literature review, and should provide some real analytical content.

For development projects, a working demonstration of the constructed software will be a component of the marking. Please take note of the following requirements:

• A listing of your code should be provided as an appendix to your final report. If there is some reason why this is not feasible or practicable, you should discuss this with the unit convenor no later than one week before the final report is due.

• You should arrange a time to demonstrate the software you have developed to your supervisor, so that he or she can take account of this when marking your work. This demonstration should preferably happen during the last week of semester, or in extreme cases during the week following the last week in semester, when the reports are being marked.

It is not necessary to demonstrate your software during your final presentation, although you may do so if you wish. Note that your supervisor will include an assessment of your software under the assessment attribute of 'Quality of Work Carried Out' in the rubric below, but your second marker will not be able to take your software into account, and so will be relying on the description in your final report to convey the quality of your work.

The final report will be assessed by your supervisor according to the following rubric:

Assessment Attribute	Levels of Attainment
	Unsatisfactory	Functional	Proficient	Advanced
Comprehensiveness of Abstract	Incomplete, in that it does not provide a brief statement of all three of the problem, approach and outcomes; or, all three are expressed, but the descripiton is muddled and generally unclear.	Conveys the problem, the approach, and outcomes, but a little less clearly than might be expected, or at an inappropriate level of detail.	Stands as a surrogate for the full report: a clear summary of the problem, approach and outcomes; but may require some rewording to make it accessible to a non-specialist.	An excellent summary of the work carried out, clearly stating the problem, the approach taken, and the outcomes, in a manner that is accessible to a technical but non-specialist audience.
Clarity of Problem Statement	The introduction to the report does not clearly state the problem the project set out to solve.	The introduction does state the problem to be solved, but it takes a little effort to disentangle.	The introduction states the problem clearly, and its significance is clear.	The introduction provides an exceptionally clear and well-motivated problem statement, presented in a way that makes the reader eager to learn about the details of how the problem was solved.
Review of Related Work	Patchy or badly-organised review of related work; unclear exactly why the work cited is relevant to the problem addressed.	The material covered seems comprehensive and relevant, and some attempt has been made at clustering the materials reviewed in a thematic manner.	Thematic organisation of the review, demonstrating a considered extraction of key ideas from sources and how they impact on the problem at hand.	Thoughtful analysis of the material that goes beyond the themes identified explicitly by the sources, concisely drawing out the key points to set the stage for the work that follows; leaves no doubt about what's been done already and what hasn't.
Description of Work Carried Out	Hard to work out what was done; the description of the work carried out seems disorganised or incomplete.	The report indicates what work was carried out in reasonable detail.	The report indicates clearly indicates the work that was carried out at a level of detail that allows replication of the results, avoiding vague and imprecise abstractions.	The report clearly describes the work carried out, at an appropriate level of detail for a report of this length, and delivers a sense of maturity in the way in which the work was carried out.
Quality of Work Carried Out	A weak or incomplete effort; significant doubt that the work reported represents 100-120 person-hours of effort (200-240 for ITEC811).	A competent piece of work, perhaps with some loose ends and gaps.	A quality piece of completed work that demonstrates ability on the part of the student.	A very high quality piece of work that would have a very good chance of being accepted for presentation at a professional conference in the field.
Clarity of Outcomes	Unclear what was achieved in the project.	The report indicates the outcomes of the work, if a little unclearly.	The report clearly indicates the outcomes of the work carried out.	The report clearly describes the outcomes of the work, indicates how these relate to the originally stated outcomes, and realistically appraises the scope for future work.
Overall Quality of Writing	Very poor; problems with coherent presentation of ideas.	Understandable, but with some problems in grammar, style and spelling.	Grammar and style of an acceptable standard; could be safely given to an external party with only minor editing.	High quality prose; well written; could comfortably be made available via a corporate website.
Appropriate Use of Referencing Conventions	The information in the bibliography is incomplete, or there is a lack of consistency in formatting.	The information in the bibliography is formatted consistently, but with a few missing details.	All references are complete and consistently formatted.	---

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Last Modified: 4th November 2009