Wiki Term Paper

This term paper is done individually. You will be creating a wiki (on agora) where you will analyze the technical innovations that went into the starting phases of a successful company that is related to distributed systems. Think, for instant, Facebook or Google. Companies that you cannot select for this term paper include Facebook, Google, Amazon, IBM.

Steps to follow:

  1. Pick a list of at least 3 prospective companies.
  2. When you come in for your initial survey/project discussion meeting (sometime in mid-February), reveal your companies to Indy. Your highest priority selection that is not yet taken will be assigned to you.
  3. Do an exhaustive search for all openly available materials (websites, papers, blogs, forums, books, on the Internet or off it) that give you information about technical innovations that went into the initial few years of the company. Focus on technical aspects, distributed systems aspects. You are free to contact folks who were involved in the company when it was a startup, or even do an interview with them (which would suffice for a term paper itself!). Be creative, be bold, and be adventurous.
  4. Submit an initial draft of your wiki by the Survey Report deadline (have it ready on the agora wiki).
  5. Submit an second draft of your wiki by the Midterm Report deadline (have it ready on the agora wiki).
  6. Submit a final draft of your wiki by the Final Report deadline (have it ready on teh agora wiki).
  7. Remember - you are writing the wiki for EVERYONE to read, not just yourself. So make your wiki as readable as possible, fill it with references that allow people to look deeper into areas that you did not cover, and make it as exciting to read as you can!

Phase I. Survey Report Outline: At most 3 pages, 12 point font (submissions violating these will be penalized!)

Recommended structure for Survey Report is is

  1. Title+abstract.
  2. Related Work (bulk of survey report). Need to have >= 15 references. About 2 pages.
  3. Motivation+Concrete Problem Statement (need not be formal, only concrete).
  4. Approach(es) planned to solving problems - initial thoughts will suffice.
  5. Timeline/Expected Milestones for achieving your goals.

Survey Submission Instructions: The Survey Report Deadline is February 27, 2011, 11.59 PM. At most 3 + 1 pages, 12 point font - the extra page is only to be used for the business plan (submissions violating these will be penalized!). To submit, do BOTH of the following by 11.59 PM on February 28, 2010: (1) email your survey report as an email attachment (doc, pdf, or ps only) with Subject line "525 Survey" to indy at illinois dot edu; AND (2) print out a hardcopy (single-sided) and submit it by slipping it under Indy's office door (3112 SC).

            What is a Business Plan? Sabeer Bhatia, inventor of hotmail.com, best answers it this way: "

"A business  plan is nothing more than your own communication to a person not sitting in  front of you-an imaginary person who will read it. Try to answer every possible  question that that person could raise. That's the description of a business plan,  really. I didn't take any formal lessons. I just sat down and I wrote about the problem   we were trying to solve, and in two paragraphs I described the World Wide  Web and how it had grown and what its future potential could be. I said, this is  the problem today that we are trying to address, this is how we hope to address  it, with this idea. This is how we hope to monetize it and this is what page  impressions are able to fetch you in the print world. If you translate it into the online world, this is how it will happen. And that's it, that was the core of our  business plan."

           

Phase II. Midterm Report: We will be using double-blind reviewing for the midterm report. This means that (1) when you submit your midterm report, you should not include your name(s) anywhere in the midterm report, nor reference any of your prior work (if you need to cite this work, you can mark the reference as xxx); (2) your midterm will be peer-reviewed by 3 other anonymous students in the class, whose identities you will not know. (1) is necessary to preserve fairness of reviews and prevent reviewer bias, while (2) is needed to preserve anonymity of reviewers. Indy and the TA will be the only ones to know which report was submitted by which group, and the who reviewers were. See further instructions for writing blind submissions [here]

Please note that if your midterm report is not anonymous, it will be returned without being graded. Similarly, if your midterm review (instructions later) is not anonymous, you will not get credit for it.

Your midterm report needs to have (1) some algorithms, (2) some initial implementation, and (3) most importantly, some initial experimental data (mandatory!). While writing the midterm report, you may want to think about, and address the following questions head-on about your work:

Midterm Report Submission Instructions: The Midterm Report Deadline is April 3, 2011 (Sunday), 11.59 PM. At most 8 + 1 pages, 12 point font - the extra page is only to be used for the business plan (submissions violating these will be penalized!). To submit, do BOTH of the following by 11.59 PM on Sunday March 28: (1) email your survey report as an email attachment (doc, pdf, or ps only) with Subject line "525 Midterm" to indy at illinois dot edu; AND (2) print out a hardcopy (single-sided) and submit it by slipping it under Indy's office door (3112 SC).

(Not needed for Spring 2011 semester) Midterm Review Form: [TXT]

(Not needed for Spring 2011 semester) Midterm Review Submission Instructions: The Midterm Review Deadline is April 4, 2010 (Sunday), 11.59 PM. To submit your reviews, email your reviews as email attachment (txt file only) with Subject line "525 Midterm Reviews" to indy at illinois dot edu. No hardcopy is needed.

 

Phase III. Final Report: A conference-quality paper. Focus on Questions 0 through 6 above for the midterm report, as well a pay attention to:

Final Report Submission Instructions: At most 12 +1 pages, 12 point font -  the extra page is only to be used for the business plan (submissions violating these will be penalized!). To submit, do BOTH of the following by 11.59 PM on May 7, 2010 (Friday): (1) email your survey report as an email attachment (doc, pdf, or ps only) with Subject line "525 Final" to indy at illinois dot edu; AND (2) print out a hardcopy (single-sided) and submit it by slipping it under Indy's office door (3112 SC).