Project FAQs
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What is the MSIN/MSISTM/MSIT-IS Project?
The MSIN/MSISTM/MSIT-IS Project represents a capstone research experience that is the culmination of your experiences as an INI student. It should be an original contribution in an interesting and relevant area of information networking or information security interpreted in the broad sense.
Please read the following guidelines carefully and completely as they will provide answers to all your questions regarding format and submission of your project proposal and the procedures for initiating, preparing and completing your project.
Information on the proper preparation of the final technical report are in the Project and Technical Report Guidelines. Keep this document available and refer to it first before seeking additional help.
What is the standard research timetable?
You should decide who your advisor and reader will be by the end of March in your first year. For MSIN and MSISTM students, project proposals are due in April on the last day of spring semester classes, or the second semester for MSIT-IS students enrolled in spring or summer. Students wishing to extend this deadline must submit a petition clearly stating the reasons an extension is needed and providing an alternative deadline within two-months of the original deadline. Students using their summer internship as a basis for their research must submit a proposal prior to or within one month of the start of the internship.
Internships in which proprietary information cannot be disclosed or published do not qualify as a research project due to the publication requirements stipulated in the project guidelines.
The project presentation and final technical report must be completed by the end of the second fall semester (or third semester for MSIT-IS students). Students must petition for any extension of their graduation deadline. The expectation is that all INI students will do the bulk of their research between May and August, leaving the second fall semester to complete any remaining course and project requirements.
How do I choose a topic for research?
As noted above, the project should be in an area of research that is interesting and relevant to information networking or information security - depending on your program of study. It should also be an area where there is work that remains to be done; there should be some clearly-defined new knowledge remaining to be created or some new techniques to be developed.
There also should be some way of quantitatively measuring how successful your work is. Therefore, you should choose a topic that is significant but not impossible! You also need to choose a topic that is interesting to both you and your advisor. Finally, and most importantly, you should choose a topic that you will have fun working on.
How do I find an advisor?
You will be exposed to the work of a number of CMU faculty members in the context of the INI seminar series during the fall and spring semesters. But don't limit your search for potential advisors to those who speak at the seminars. Many faculty members who may be unable to speak at the seminars have served in the past as project advisors.
A good place to get ideas about potential advisors is from the Web sites of the ECE and CS departments, Tepper, and the Heinz School. Advisors from the EPP department, the SEI, Robotics Institute, and many other corners of the university also have served as advisors over the years. Also, with the curriculum changes, students may use internship supervisors as external advisors. Students doing internship-based projects must also have an internal CMU advisor to submit their final grades.
You will need one primary advisor and one additional person to serve as a reader for your project. The eligibility requirements of people to serve as advisors are loosely drawn to allow students flexibility in their choice. CMU faculty, including research faculty, from any department may serve as advisors. On-campus pre-doctoral students generally are not permitted to serve as either advisors or readers. The INI Director has the final say on advisor eligibility in borderline cases (such as staff members with doctorates).
Keep in mind when choosing an advisor and reader that both are required to be present at your final presentation and must be available to sign off on your technical report. This is a requirement without exception. Certification of your degree can be delayed by the absence of your advisor or reader.
How do I start a relationship with my advisor?
You should look on your first contacts with a potential advisor as a mutual courtship. You can be of great help to a potential advisor by doing good work on projects that are of interest to him or her. However, your advisor will also need to spend some time and effort in training you and bringing you up to speed on his or her research topics and operating environment. Just as you are evaluating potential advisors, they will be evaluating you. Prepare yourself for your initial meeting by learning a bit about the research of a potential advisor by looking over the information on his or her Web site.
You should also try to learn something about your advisor from other students who have worked with them. Your advisor and reader should help monitor and guide your research progress, so an advisor or reader who is hard to reach can delay completion of your project and affect your graduation. It is your job to educate your advisor and reader on the INI timeline you must meet in order to graduate on time.
You and your advisor/reader should stay within the timeline created in your proposal as closely as possible. Ultimately, you are responsible for the timely completion of your project. If you are experiencing difficulties communicating with your advisor(s) or reader, you should inform the Graduate Program Coordinator as soon as you become aware that there is a potential problem.
Once you and an advisor agree to work together, make sure that you and he or she have a clear idea (and the same idea!) of what you will be doing, what the scope of the project is, how you will evaluate the success of the work that was done, and what your “deliverables” are. You should also have shared expectations on what the timetable for completion is likely to be. Nevertheless, you should expect that some of the specifics of what goes on will have to be worked out as time progresses.
What should the project proposal contain?
You should think of the project proposal as being a contract between you, your advisor and reader, and the INI Graduate Programs Office.
The project proposal should be in the following form:
1. Introduction and background
This section sets the stage for motivating the work you will do. You outline what has already been done in the field of interest, and in particular, you describe what are the limitations or shortcomings of the current state of the art that your work will address or improve.
2. What you will do
You will state here as specifically as you can what you will do for your project work and how it differs from what has already been done before by the rest of the world.
3. Evaluation of your work
Address two important issues here: (1) how you will know when your work is completed, and (2) how you will evaluate how well you have done. While you may work on a wide variety of topics, no proposal or project will be accepted by us unless it includes a viable form of evaluation.
4. Deliverables
State here what artifacts you will leave behind you. Minimally, this will form the basis of the MSIN/MSISTM/MSIT-IS technical report which ultimately could contain code, a hardware prototype, a working demonstration system, etc. In the proposal, however, these "artifacts" will merely be mentioned.
5. Expected timetable
Include here the major milestones in the project and the expected completion date. The project proposal does not need to be very long - three (3) to six (6) pages is typical.
Submit a hard copy of the project proposal to the INI Graduate Programs Office signed and dated with original signatures by you, your project team members (if any), and your advisor and reader. The proposal should be completed by the end of the spring semester. The document should be handed in by the last day of regular classes in your second semester (for MSIN and MSISTM students this will be the spring semester). Faxed copies will not be accepted. The proposal must be submitted to receive the two (2) units for the Spring Seminar. If the student submits neither a proposal or an approved deadline extension petition, an "R" (failing) grade will be recorded for the Spring Seminar.
What do I need to do for my project presentation?
You must give an oral defense of your project research findings/results in a public presentation once all project work is complete. Your advisor(s) and reader must attend and an announcement must be published to the university community. Use the Project Presentation Request Form to notify the INI Graduate Program Coordinator of your intention to present your project work. Follow the procedures indicated on the form. Lead-time for requesting a presentation date is 2 weeks. If a 2-week notice is not given, your requested presentation date & location cannot be guaranteed.
The oral presentation must be at least 45 minutes long and summarize your work and its major contributions. Following your talk, you will answer questions by your advisor, reader, and the rest of the audience that is present.
What should the final technical report contain?
Once your project research is completed and you have made a public presentation of your work, you must submit you final report.
The submission will include one (1) hardcopy of your final project document along with two (2) signature pages signed and dated by your advisor(s) and reader. You must also provide two (2) softcopies of the report, one in MSWord, the other in PDF. Make sure to review and spell-check your report copies for errors, typos, etc. Please note that Visio images generally do not convert to PDF without losing image quality; therefore, you should use images in a different format.
Note that the technical report description that follows is general and is not meant as an official guide to preparing your report. You must follow the requirements written in the INI Project and Technical Report Guidelines, which is the official document to guide development and formatting of your technical report. Any report that does not meet those guidelines will not be accepted.
The project technical report is a summation of your research and conclusions based on that work. The report is submitted after the project presentation so as to incorporate any issues, questions, or additional work that may be suggested during your public defense.
Introduction and background
As before, this section outlines what has already been done in the field of interest, as well as the limitations or shortcomings of the current state of the art that your work addresses or improves on.
Description of your novel contribution
Here you will describe what you did to resolve the problem or shortcoming in your field as you encountered it.
Performance of your contribution
Here you will describe how you measured how well your contribution worked, as well as the results of the measurements.
Further discussion and analysis
Here you will add your opinions about why things worked or did not work. You can also comment on how your work relates to other similar solutions or on anything else that you and your advising team consider relevant.
Suggestions for future work
If you were to continue, what would you do next? What should anyone else do in the field to extend your contribution?
Summary and conclusions
Here is your chance to state succinctly what you have found (and how you wish to be remembered).
Between the title page and the body of the project there should be an abstract of about 200-400 words that provides a succinct summary of your work, including its major conclusions. Libraries and indexing services may use the abstract to give prospective readers a sense of whether they will be interested in the contents of your project.
Once your technical report has been approved by your advisor(s) and reader, your advisor must submit your final grade to the INI Graduate Program Office by e-mail. The body of the e-mail message must contain the advisor’s name.
Once these steps are completed, you will be eligible for certification of your degree.
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