Transcript Lessons Learned - Carleton College

Managing Undergraduate
Research – Lessons Learned
Dave Musicant
Carleton College
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Who Am I?
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Assoc Prof at Carleton College
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Teaching:
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Liberal arts: 1900 students
~15 CS majors/year
AI, DB, DM, PL, CS 1 & 2
My research:
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Machine learning and data mining
Have advised 26 students, 12 projects
Currently: Enchilada
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Environmental Chemistry Through Intelligent
Atmospheric Data Analysis
Heavy debt to SIGCSE 2001
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Managing Undergraduate CS Research
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James W. McGuffee, St. Edward’s University
Herbert L. Dershem, Hope College
Linda Lankewicz, The University of the South
Gary Lewandowski, Xavier University
Dian Lopez, University of Minnesota - Morris
Oberta A. Slotterbeck, Hiram College
My criteria for selecting students
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Individual
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Group
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Smart
Quick learners
Self-motivators
Balanced levels among them
Can work well with me and others
Why groups?
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Support
My time
Community
Finding the right projects
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They know...
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They don’t know...
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how to program, a bit
some basic algorithms
nuances of my field
enough math
good software design
my tools
Programming projects work best...
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but can’t publish just programming
The pace is going to be SLOW
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Snail factors
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Other demands
Procrastination
Learning it all for first time
What helps?
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Signup for a year
Meet often
Email task lists
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Bug tracking software
Partners
Reward per hour ($)
Watch their egos
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Research can go wrong
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Positive reinforcement important
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Often
Students’ original ideas
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Students blame themselves
... or just don’t get rewards of success
Allow to pursue?
Evaluation
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No grades
Discussion good