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