Graduate Student “Current Topics” Assignment

Graduate students will have an additional assigment to complete with their teammate: a paper reviewing a current topic related to databases.

Select a current research topic related to databases (relational, NOSQL, graph databases, etc. ). The topic could be related to their performance, novel applications, encryption, usuability, or something else entirely. You will need to have at least three published papers closely related to the topic. The papers should be published during the last five years (otherwise, it wouldn’t be a “current research topic”).

After the instructor approves your topic and the papers, you should begin.

In particular, your paper should demonstrate your understanding and analysis of the research topic by discussing :

  • the research topic and its potential importance (theory, commercial application, embedded systems, etc.),
  • what prior work in that area had been done,
  • why these three (or more) papers are of interest,
  • what did each paper contribute,
  • how have these papers changed the topic overall,
  • what others areas have been, or will be, affected by the progress on this topic,
  • what do you see as follow-on work.

Essentially, you are to choose a current research topic, find papers related/contributing to progress in the area, evaluate the contributions of those papers to the topic, and speculate on what work might loigically follow.

You should include a bibliography of all referenced works at the end of the paper.

The paper should only be as long as it needs to be to cover the topic. Please produce a single-spaced .pdf with 1-inch margins using a 12pt fontsize.

One last hint: the instructor is a stickler1 for complete references.

1 a stickler is a person who insists on something unyieldingly; a perfectionist.