• Before you are considered as working under Dr. Juell, you need to turn in and have accepted a proposal describing the project. This is to include:
  • tentative title
  • your name and if the project is to be a plan B, thesis or dissertation and the current date
  • goals of the project (N.B. This is NOT just to write a program. You are to be solving a problem, or you do not have a paper, thesis or dissertation.
  • why the work will be important
  • tentative description of what will be done. This includes the products to be developed and the tools to be used.
  • time line of what steps will be done. Be sure to address major parts of the project, such as: GUI/web pages, protype, DB, and major steps such as: design, coding, testing, evaluation, and writing. When you talk about evaluation, be sure to tell what you are going to do. For example: have two other people try it, have a class try it and fill out an evaluation form, etc.
  • a start on the references for the project. In general, web pages are nice, but you also need to address the technical background of the problem area. (as least 2 reference are required, better is 10).
• The student should present his/her work in a seminar. Even if they are not enrolled in the seminar that term. This can be presented any time during the project.
• As part of the seminar and as part of the development process that student will produce an extended abstract of the work suitable for publication. The URL for this extended abstract will be included on one of Dr. Juell's pages and may also be indexed by the department web pages. Following are some rules and guidelines for the extended abstract:
• must be approved by Dr. Juell
• is to be edited up to publication standards (you should edit as best possible and then have friends and others help)
• document is to be one to two pages
• document is to describe the project, its importance or contributions
• a section will briefly describe how the claims will be verified
• there will be a bibliography, this will include technical sources, URL's, related work in literature. This does not count as part of  the two page limit. At least 10 references will be required for the final work. You should have 4 to 10 by this time.
• There will be a keyword section with appropriate keywords for the document. These are to based on the current nomenclature in the area. These are also to be coded in the meta tag for the document.
• you should prepare one of these at the start of your work as a proposal
• as you are finishing, you need to prepare a final version of this document to replace the proposal showing what actually happened in the project.
• do not schedule an oral unless you can answer the following questions:
  • What is the problem you are solving (not what does the program do)?
  • Who would want to use your program (or product)?
  • Why would the user be happy with the program and why would the user not be happy with the program?
  • What are the strengths (from the user point of view) to the program? What are the weaknesses?
  • How did you debug the system?
  • If the system is to be used in production, what changes and improvements will probably be needed?

Ph.D. students are expected to do above, but they are required to also produce an additional document, suitable for publication as a proposal.