Rules for Taking LIS 7909 Directed
Independent Study
Some
rules have been established in order to enforce a higher standard of quality.
First, and foremost, a written
statement of your intended research and term project is required and must be
turned in within three weeks after the semester in which you are
taking LIS 7909 commences. This
statement can be a short (a page or less) statement, and it is not a contract
in that it can be expanded, modified, and changed over time (with your
instructor's permission). This will be
an expanded version of the statement on the form you submitted to the School of
Library and Information Science for permission to take this course. This statement must also include your
email address so your instructor can get in touch with you if need be. You are expected to check your email
regularly to see if any messages have been sent to you.
Second, in terms of quality, there
is the originality of your term project.
This professor is interested in fuzzy sets, in information retrieval
(especially textual, but this professor is willing to consider images and other
media), in genetic algorithms (especially as applied to retrieval), and in
rough sets (especially when fuzzy and as applied to retrieval). This professor is also willing to consider
other related topics such as hypermedia, data mining, and web search
engines. You are expected to
concentrate on such topics if you plan to work under this professor. You will need to do more than just a
standard database project, even if it is distributing to allow users to query a
database on another machine, even if adding a front end (GUI) and/or the
ability to access the database from the World Wide Web (WWW). If you insist on such a term project, you
must select another professor; but this professor can be of some help in
finding such a professor. However, if
you can convince this professor, and it will not be easy to do, that there is
something novel and original about your proposed project (thesis), and this
must be more than just a change of application, perhaps we can discuss and
negotiate the topic of your project.
Incidentally,
there are all sorts of wonderful ideas for projects (theses) running around
that this professor will accept easily.
These include making a database out of some very large text files for
use in information retrieval or modifying some fuzzy clustering algorithms to
work on such files; visualization for retrieval systems; adding intelligence
(e.g., data mining via rough sets) for retrieval based on knowledge of the
users; data encryption or data compression; neural nets for retrieval; natural
language processing for indexing and/or query processing; retrieval applied to
software reuse; web retrieval and applying bibliometric laws to retrieval.
Third, you are required to contact
me at least once every other week during the semester to
tell of your progress to date. You
should also be prepared to discuss any problems that you are experiencing
(especially in terms of your research and term project) and/or any ideas for
expanding or modifying your research and term project.
Fourth, when your research and term
project is completed, you must turn in a written report, which will be
filed with the School of Library and Information Science. In addition, you may need to do a
demonstration of your project. Both the
demonstration, if needed, and the final report are due by the end of classes in
the semester in which you are taking this course.
Fifth, if you are taking this course
twice, for six rather than for three credit hours, you need to do two projects
or the equivalent in terms of work.
Finally,
failure to adhere to all of the rules outlined above, as well as any rules of
the School of Library and Information Science, the Graduate School, and LSU,
can have serious adverse effects upon your final grade in this course.
If you have any questions or
concerns over this matter, please feel free to contact me.
Donald H. Kraft | Professor
Department of Computer
Science | Phone: (225) 578-2253
298 Coates Hall | Fax: (225) 578-1465
Louisiana State
University | Email: kraft@bit.csc.lsu.edu
Baton Rouge, LA
70803-4020 USA | URL:
http://bit.csc.lsu.edu/~kraft