Seminar in Distributed Computing (2005/06)

When & Where: Wednesdays, 15:15-17:00 @ ETZ G 91

Professor: Roger Wattenhofer

Coordinator: Regina O'Dell

• Organization
• Schedule of Presentations
• Suggested Papers

The Seminar is now over. We thank everybody for participating. Students wishing to discuss their presentation can contact their mentors.

Organization

As a seminar participant, you are invited to

• present a research paper, and lead the discussion;
• attend all talks of the seminar and actively participate in the discussions.

Presentation

Below we have a series of suggested papers which have been assigned on a first-come-first-serve basis. There are no more time slots available for a presentation in this semester.

Some papers are harder to understand than others. Some papers come in groups, where you need to read and compare all the papers in the group. Tough papers are marked with a star, or even two stars. (Hard papers are sometimes easier to present because not as much detail will be expected in the presentation.)

Your presentation should cover the motivation for the problem as well as some technical parts of the paper in detail. Assume that the other participants know nothing about the subject. You are not supposed to present the whole paper, but just the aspects of the paper that were most intriguing to you. We encourage you to deviate from the logical structure of the paper and strive for the most lucid presentation of the topic. It can also be helpful to go beyond the list of your papers and look at related work.

We further expect the presentation to motivate a lively discussion. Your presentation should not be a mere transfer of knowledge, but inspire an animated debate amongst the seminar participants.

Your slides and talk should be in English. The presentation should last 45 minutes plus about 15 minutes of discussion.

Discussion

We encourage discussion during and after a presentation as a main objective of this seminar. The extent to which your own presentation instigates discussion as well as your own participation in the other presentations will influence your grade in this course.

Evaluation

Following the technical part of the presentation and discussion, we will briefly evaluate the quality of the presentation as a group. Below are the criteria according to which we judge a good presentation. They were inspired by the common questionaire handed out to ETHZ students where they are asked to evaluate their professors.

• Motivated Talk
  The speaker was motivated and kept the audience interested throughout the presentation.
  R1: Der Dozent / die Dozentin bot einen engagierten Unterricht.
• Clearly Explained
  The speaker made the material clear and comprehensible.
  R2: Der Dozent / die Dozentin vermochte den Stoff verständlich und anschaulich zu erklären.
• Knowledge Transfer
  The (awake and participating) audience learned something.
  S2: Der Wissenstransfer fand statt im Zusammenhang mit der Vorlesung.
• Difficulty
  The presentation was (too) difficult, easy, or just right to follow.
  S4: Die Vorlesung war [zu] schwierig/einfach, gerade richtig.
• Prior Knowledge
  The speaker did not assume inappropriate prior knowledge.
  S6: Die Vorlesung baute auf bekannten Vorkenntnissen auf.
• Structure
  The presentation had a clear concept and discernable structure.
  S8: Der Dozent / die Dozentin präsentierte seinen/ihren Unterricht strukturiert (Aufbau, Transparenz, roter Faden).
• Encouraged Participation
  The speaker actively encouraged participation and successfully led the discussion.
  S9: Der Dozent / die Dozentin ermutigte aktive Mitarbeit und ging gut auf Fragen und Bemerkungen ein.
• Media
  The speaker made good use of the available presentation tools such as overhead, whiteboard, etc.
  S10: Der Dozent / die Dozentin setzte die verwendeten Hilfsmittel, wie Wandtafel, Overhead und Demonstrationen, gut und hilfreich ein.

Schedule of Presentations

Suggested Papers