CS 152 Spring 2006
Research Project – Making Use of Information Literacy, PowerPoint, Word, FrontPage
Purpose: To practice applying information literacy to a task. You will search for, evaluate, and use information from various sources to create something new – in this case a paper, PowerPoint Presentation and a WWW site.
Assigned: 02/20/2006
Due: 4/24/2006 at the start of class. (This is largely an outside-of-class effort)
Preliminary Hand In: On 03/22, hand in what you have then for initial review. This might include some of the following: sources and explanations; outline; introduction; partial text, partial ppt …, www site plan
Course Significance:
20% of course grade.
Assignment:
Write a 4-6 page paper on one of the topics listed below. Or choose another topic concerning computer’s impact on science/medicine or science’s impact on computing or computers’ impact on Mathematics or Mathematics impact on computing. Use at least 5 sources, at least 1 of which must be available via “traditional” media (journals, books) and at least one of which must be an on-line source. Append after the paper a short explanation of why each source you used was appropriate for your research, include a copy/print of the first page of each source.
Your paper should be coherently written. While I am primarily interested in the ideas, and the sources, the presentation of the ideas should not distract from reading. Sentences that do not follow from one another, major grammatical errors, spelling mistakes etc could distract from the ideas being presented.
Format should be fairly normal – font 10-12 pt, margins 1.0-1.25 inches, double space, …, bibliography at end, …
We will be using turnitin.com to fight plagiarism. You may not duplicate even a sentence from other sources. Quotes from sources should be in quotations and referenced. Paraphrases of material from sources should be limited in length and be referenced. All sources should be referenced. Claiming another's work as your own is cheating. Your paper/PowerPoint/www site should exhibit significant independent synthesis and/or extension of source material. Don’t choose a topic that is over your head such that you cannot contribute beyond pasting quotes together. Plagiarism, be it from a book, a web site or a fellow student, will be considered cheating.
Develop a PowerPoint Presentation as a secondary presentation of your research. PowerPoints should be done in a style such they help listeners follow along with what they are hearing, not distract them from listening. Hence, full sentences are rare – limited to situations in which exact wording is crucial (such as precise definitions). In general, slides should be in bullet form, and have appropriate visual aids when possible. Visual effects are most effective if not overdone to the point of distraction, and are consistent except in cases where the differences help make distinctions in the content.
Develop a WWW site as an alternative presentation of your research. The site should be uploaded to La Salle’s area for student WWW pages; you should also turn in a disk containing your files for use in case of trouble accessing your on-line site. The www site should include at least your major points and supporting arguments. Include links to all of your on-line sources and any other links that you feel would be useful to the reader, and a bibliography of non-on-line sources. Include the date of creation. Also, include basic identifying info/ credentials for yourself so that anybody who finds your page while doing research can evaluate your pages (but not so much information that somebody could stalk you)
Your WWW site should include the official La Salle personal Web page disclaimer. Remember, you are posting to an international network, and the things you put up are publicly accessible worldwide. Don’t put up anything that reflects badly on yourself or La Salle, or anything that violates La Salle’s WWW policy. The La Salle policy, including disclaimer can be found at:
http://www.lasalle.edu/webcontact/policy.htm
We will discuss publishing WWW pages at La Salle, but as backup, see:
http://www.lasalle.edu/admin/personal/pages.htm
Ensure that I know the exact address (URL) of your main page and leave the WWW site up at least until I grade it.
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Topics (Some of these may require narrowing):
§ Forensic Science is heavily chemistry and biology, however computers can play a role. What impact do computers have on forensics?
§ Computers have increased the productivity of workers in many job categories. Have they increased the productivity of scientists? Have they created jobs for scientists or eliminated them?
§ Computers have gotten more and more powerful, able to do more and more tasks. Are there some decisions a computer should never make?
§ There is substantial temptation to use medical records for reasons other than treatment. For example, employers may prefer to hire employees that are low medical risks in order to cut insurance and absenteeism costs. At least one law has been passed to protect the privacy of medical records. Is it enough?
§ There have been advances in “biometric” technology – the identification of people via unique biological features – such as retina scans, finger print scans, etc. Should there be limits on the use of biological identification?
§ Distance learning via computer has been highly touted as more flexible form of education for working adults. How does it compare to regular classroom education? Does it work for science education?
§ Could greater use of computers lead to better medical care?
§ It has been argued recently that one of the reasons for spiraling health care costs is the lack of use of modern “IT” (information technology) techniques by the medical industry. Does this claim hold up? Would greater use of computerization lead to lower costs?
§ The use of computing to solve protein folding problems.
§ The use of computing in developing new drugs (medicines).
§ The use of computers in epidemiology.
§ Use of computing in Protein Crystallography.
§ Use of computing in Homology of protein/DNA sequences.
§ Use of computing in molecular modeling.
§ Use of computing for patient education and support.
§ Use of computation and visualization techniques for modeling human organs.
§ The impact of computing on medical imaging technology.
§ Use of computing in estimating tumor sizes.
§ The effect of being able to store images such as X-Rays, CT Scans, etc on computer storage.
§ Brain/ Computer interfaces for paralyzed patients (OR ear OR eye problems)
§ The use of computerized data collection, how it transforms experiments.
§ The impact of computers on science education.
§ Science’s impact on computing – why are computers continually getting smaller, faster, and relatively less expensive.
§ What impact might nanotechnology have on computing?
§ Scientific metaphor in computing – what are “genetic algorithms?”, why do they work? and what are they good for?
§ OR Another topic related to computers and science, approved by the instructor. For instance, a topic involving the impact of computers on your major / career path.