[Irtalk] Honours projects at UCT Computer Science for 2016

[Hussein Suleman]

Dear Colleagues and Students

It is that time of the year again where we specify Honours projects for 
Computer Science students ... and I write to see if anyone wants to 
collaborate this year.

If you have a suitably-sized research problem related to information 
retrieval, ICT for development (especially educational technology) or 
digital libraries (or some other area that I am interested in) that 
might benefit from 2-4 students (typically very competent programmers) 
working on it for 3-4 months, please contact me by email within the next 
few days (i.e., by Monday 22 Feb) to talk about it.

Basically, we do all the work - all you specify is the problem and
possibly steer the students if necessary. Right now all we need is a 
short (1-2 paragraph?) description of the project. The students then 
select their projects off a very long list and, if a particular project 
gets selected, we start work in earnest (otherwise we try again next 
year or some such thing).

As with all student projects, the goal is a good prototype.  These 
rarely become production systems without substantial additional work or 
professional development, but they serve to test ideas and prove 
feasibility in a fairly rigorous manner.  Our students often start work 
immediately after they are done, so this year I want to work out a 
transition plan for successful projects before we start.

Many projects from previous years have been published, often 
internationally, for example:
* 2014 isiZulu Search Engine - IR for a marginalized language @ICADL2015
* 2011 low-bandwidth video conferencing @SAICSIT2012
* 2011 Bonolo (generic file-based DL) @ICADL2012
* 2010 Copying Archives (evaluation of LOCKSS openness, project 
suggested by SUN) @TPDL2011
* 2009 Bushman Online Dictionary (visual dictionary, project for UCT 
Fine Arts) @ICADL2010
* 2009 CALJAX (AJAX-based repository) @SAICSIT2010
* 2008 Wordbank (Web-based language preservation) @ZAWWW2009

As always, I prefer to work with external collaborators. I can also 
steer a conversation with other members of our staff if there is a more 
appropriate supervisor e.g., in areas related to graphics, AI,
databases, etc. and this has worked successfully many times in the past.

For some ideas on the breadth and depth of our past projects, visit the
Honours Project Archive linked off http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/

If you have any questions, feel free to shout.

Regards,
----hussein

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hussein suleman ~ hussein at cs.uct.ac.za ~ http://www.husseinsspace.com
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