The final year research symposium gives you a chance to present the results of your research project in a setting similar to a major conference.
National and international conferences provide a platform for researchers, including your lecturers, to report their research findings to other researchers with similar interests, and provide a forum for discussion and debate.
Conferences usually consist of one or more keynote lectures, which all participants attend, followed by plenary sessions in which the participants present their own findings. The plenary sessions are arranged according to the theme of the research. A presentation time of 15 minutes followed by a five-minute question time is typical.
We will not have keynote lectures (you have already attended enough lectures!). However, in all other ways we are attempting to make the symposium reflect a typical research conference Your papers will be published in a set of proceedings.
Requirements
From you we require:
- A four-page paper to be submitted by 4.30 pm on Wednesday 23 September 2009. This paper is to be accompanied by a checklist signed by your supervisor. The paper is to conform with the instructions to authors. (All conferences have such instructions, and many reject papers that do not conform to these instructions.)
- You attend all sessions on both days of the symposium. You have a free choice of three sessions at any one time. Attendance will be recorded, and failure to attend will result in you receiving no marks for your seminar. Your lecturers will also be attending the entire symposium.
- You dress professionally as this is a professional event to which members of industry have been invited, and behave accordingly.
Failure to conform will result in failure for the unit. We would also like you to enter into the spirit of the symposium, which is one of inquiry and debate. Do not just sit and listen, but question, challenge, criticise (constructively) and make suggestions!
