Times of Interest
The Handout
This project is a bit different than the prior three. It asks you to read, think, read some more -- and then write (in English). Presented are a list of papers that I consider to be interesting for various reasons. Many, but certainly not all are considered by many to be landmark papers.Your task is to begin with one of these papers -- and ultimately to write a report. This report should summarize and explain the paper's contribution. But, this it should look at the paper in the context of distributed system research.
- Don't forget to summarize and explain the paper's lasting contributions -- ignore the small stuff without impact.
- When was it written? What were the "hot areas" of research at the time? In other words, what was the broader (beyond the research group) context of the paper?
To answer this question, you might need to look back at some of the journal archives. The ACM's DL is a great place to start, as are the dates in the bibliogrpahy of your texts.
- What were the goals of the researcher's who wrote it? What else had the puplished shortly before it and after it? What was the overarching goal of their lab?
- What was the impact of the paper? What research did it influence? What did it make possible? To answer these questions, you might try searching for the paper's name or author(s) on the Web. There are some specialized search engines for bibliographies and citations. But, in trooth, some of the good, old-fashioned search engines can do quite well, also.
Alternately, if you'd prefer to do research on a specific current topic, that is great, too. But, it involves a bit more work and planning. You'll need to write a brief statement that defines the area that you want to investigate and provide a list of very recent papers that you believe represent the current state of the research (as well as any required for foundations). This should be done, and approved by the instructor, by Friday -- this way there is plenty of time for the actual reading an analysis.