SEMINAR (15/30; 2.

0)
Lecturer: Dr. Ongalo Pheobe E-mail: fedhap@yahoo.com

EGERTON UNIVERSIT
P.O. BOX 536-20115,
EGERTON Y
COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
Course Aim /Objective The course aims at introducing students to technical paper writing.
Seminar paper requires a student to write a technical paper
presentation at the end of the semester.
Course Description This course introduces basic research concepts on topical issue in
computer science. Students will present a written report of a seminar
paper on the selected topic at the end of the semester. Topics to be
covered: include Computer applications in various non-computer
fields e.g. Bioinformatics, Medicine, forensics, education,
engineering etc.

Learning Outcomes  The Seminar paper is expected to be a state of the art

written paper.
 It must be related to Computer Science
 Selection of the problem will be done by the student in
consultation with the lecturer.
 The topic should be such that the student can gain
knowledge from it.
 The student is advised to refer to three guiding papers. This
is to be shown to the course lecturer and approved.
 The student will be expected to deliver a short lecture/
seminar on the topic at the end of the semester.
 The presentation will be in front of two internal examiners.
 The seminar report and its presentation will be based on
material collected and analyzed from the latest papers in
technical journals.
 The paper must be submitted in a spiral paper bound at the
end of the semester. Copy prepared with computer typing.
 The report should have a minimum of 5 pages and
maximum 6 pages including figures, tables and references.
 Seminar topics will not be repeated in the department and
the registration of the same will be on First Come First
Served basis.

Pre-requisites: COMP 391 Research Methods in Computer Science. In addition it

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Lecturer: Dr. Ongalo Pheobe E-mail: fedhap@yahoo.com
General Description of
Teaching/Learning
Methods and Modes of
Assessment
Teaching
facilities/Instructional
materials/Equipment
needed:
Course Outline
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Egerton University is ISO 9001:2008 Certified
SEMINAR (15/30; 2.0)
is expected that students have some knowledge of elementary
statistics, data mining, data structures and algorithms.
 The best way to learn the subject matter of this course is to read
journal papers. To encourage this, there will be consultation
marks awarded by the lecturer progressively based on the work
done by the student in the course of the semester.
 Mark distribution will be equally divided between the
presentation and the report. According to the Institute’s
regulations, 70% of a student’s grade corresponds to the result
of his/her final examination. The remaining 30% is the
student’s coursework grade, which will be calculated based on
the following:
Consultations done with the lecturer 30
Final Seminar Presentation 70
- All add up to 100%.
- Computer laboratory with computers
- Computer Software
- Projector/ Smartboard (for easy simulation)
Proposed Seminar Format:
 Introduce your problem: General motivation, goal of the
paper.
 Related Work: Give an introduction and background
information on your topic. i.e. An overview about works
related to the presented problem; to be discovered by
the writer in a literature study.
- What relevant research has been done previously.
 State the problem(s) that remain unanswered.
(New/Presented Work). Detailed presentation of the
assigned problem.
 Clearly state your objectives and give the specific
hypotheses you wish to test.
 Describe the methodology (algorithm) you will use to
test your hypotheses. Be sure you fully understand your
chosen method(s). Give reasons why you chose these
method(s) over other approaches.
 Present any data/ experiments if any you have collected
and used.
 Describe what remains to be done, and what you expect
to find.
 Evaluation Results: An evaluation of the usefulness of
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 SEMINAR (15/30; 2.0)
Lecturer: Dr. Ongalo Pheobe E-mail: fedhap@yahoo.com

the presented problem. Explain the significance of your

findings (or potential future findings).

 Conclusions: A Short conclusion on the presented work

as well as open questions

NOTES.
A title, writer’s name, and university details must be centered in
the middle of the title page.

Body text
 Times New Roman, 12 pt
 Line spacing 1.5
 Set the text in full justification
 Indentation in the first line of a new paragraph. However, no
indentation after titles, figures, tables, lists or in the first line
of a new page. No empty lines between the paragraphs.

Figures, tables and appendices

 Consecutively numbered.
 Tables’ text should have a font of 11 pt.
 Set legends below the figures, captions above the tables
and appendices.
 Legends and captions will be in boldface, in font size 11
pt and in line spacing 1.0.
 Citations and references: Within the text, references will
be made by giving in the parentheses the last name of
the author, the year of publication, colon and the page or
pages referred to. If the reference is to the whole work,
page numbers are left out. An example: (Campbell 2002:
46-48).
 List of references must be in alphabetical order.
References are separated by a hanging intention. Search
elements (a title of the journal or book, a web address,
etc.) must be in italicized.

Main reference:: 1. Latest Journal papers (most encouraged).

2. Conference papers
3. Internet Websites
4. Print materials
5. Class notes,
DOs
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Egerton University is ISO 9001:2008 Certified
 SEMINAR (15/30; 2.0)
Lecturer: Dr. Ongalo Pheobe E-mail: fedhap@yahoo.com

 Plan a schedule for working on the problem at the beginning. This plan should consider a
literature survey, designing a document template, reading literature, writing single chapters,
discussion with the supervisor.
 Read the basic material and understand it usually by consulting more literature in a
literature study.
 Have a look to other publications in addition to the comments from the class lecturer to
absolutely understand things like conventions about literature, citing, …
 Be in constant touch with the class lecturer. If you come a few days to the dateline, you
may not have enough time to make changes. You will also miss out on continuous
assessment marks.
 Also hand in parts of the paper in between to enable the supervisor to give feedback early
and to avoid cases where you are writing something completely different.
 Write about the topic in own word using the initial material as well as papers found in the
literature survey.
 Have a look to the web pages on hints of how to write seminar papers.

DON’Ts
 Do not expect that it is possible to do the seminar work in a few days.
 Do not run to the lecturer for each small problem (e.g. spelling mistakes, …)
 Do not vanish into space for month and comeback only a few days before the deadline. As
mentioned above, you will miss out on CAT marks.
 Do not copy text from foreign sources. It is forbidden to use work from other sources
without reference or small adjustments in hope that it’s not plagiarism.
 Do not use an incomplete literature list and also do not use sources like Wikipedia often.
 Do not write the paper in an unclear way this gives the feeling that you have not
understood the contents.
 Do not ignore suggestions for improvement and advices given by the lecturer!

Policies

 Attendance: It is strongly recommended that students attend all course lectures when
scheduled. Also, university regulations mandate that students may not miss more than 10%
of classes without valid excuses. In all cases, they may not miss more than 20% of classes.
Should they do, they will not be allowed to take course exams.
 Students are expected to submit their seminar paper and the PPT(s) a week to exams time.
 Exam will be scheduled a week before other exams.
 Plagiarism: You should not copy other people's work and claim it is yours. Detected
plagiarism will be dealt with as per university regulations.

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“Transforming Lives through Quality Education”
Egerton University is ISO 9001:2008 Certified