CIS-332 -<li>Project


CIS332-001,  (Fall 1996)
PRINCIPLES OF OPERATING SYSTEMS

Professor: Franz J. Kurfess

Home page:http://www.cis.njit.edu/franz   E-mail:franz@cis.njit.edu

Project CIS 332

One of your assignments for the course is a project, contributing 20% to your overall grade. For your project, you can choose between three options:

construction of a World Wide Web page
an implementation in Java
a research paper

These three options are described in more detail below. There is actually a forth option, community service. Those of you interested in that option should contact Ann Wilson from the Office of Community and Public Service; please follow the deadlines and format for the research paper.

You have to submit the project in two stages: first a short outline or draft version in which you describe the structure of your paper / program / Web page(s), and then the final version, which is the full paper, complete program, or complete set of Web pages.

The deadlines are

Monday, October 7, 1996 for the outline
Monday, November 18, 1996 for the final version

Research Paper:

For this research paper, you have to demonstrate the ability to read an article from a professional research journal (like IEEE Computer or Communications of the ACM), describe its main ideas in your own words, and use the knowledge you acquired in class. The task is to read the paper "The Anti-Mac Interface" by Don Gentner and Jacob Nielsen, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 39, No. 8, August 1996 pages 70-82, and write a research paper on the issues relevant to the topics discussed in class, especially the relation between the user interface and the operating system of a computer. A copy of the article can be found in the library (CIS 332 / Kurfess).

Your paper should be 7-10 pages long in a font no larger than 12 points; however, it is not the number of pages that makes a good paper but the contents. My evaluation will be based on the following criteria; the number indicates the points you can get (20 in total):

coverage of relevant topics (10)
presentation and readability (3)
originality (3)
bibliography (4)

Some hints:

Try to describe things in your own words. Parts of your paper which are practically identical to your source will not count for coverage and originality, and you risk a bad grade for copying.
Have discussions with your fellow students about the paper. You will have to write your own paper, however.
Use a spellchecker or ask somebody to go over your paper to eliminate the worst mistakes. Whereas grammar and spelling are not taken into account for your grade, it might leave a bad impression or make your paper difficult to understand if there are many mistakes.
Try to find additional sources of information, e.g the textbook or other journal articles. Don't forget to list them in the bibliography section!

Here is an example for the structure of such a paper:

Title Page
	(Author, Title, Affiliation)
Introduction
	(background, history, problem description, overview of the systems)
Main Part
	relevant issues for operating systems
	relation operating systems - medical device (Therac-25)
Conclusion
	(advantages, problems, future developments)
Bibliography
        (cite all articles and books you have used, including the textbook)

Java Implementation

Your task here is to implement an illustration or demonstration of an Operating Systems algorithm or concept in Java. If you're interested in this task, please toal to me about the selection of your topic. You can also work together with other students on this problem.

World Wide Web Page

In this case, you have to put together material about one particular operating system of your choice (e.g. Unix, VMS, DOS, Windows, MacOS) and arrange it into a collection of WWW pages, reflecting the topics discussed in class, and how "your" operating system tackles these issues. This option can also be solved as a team effort; if you want to work as a group on it, please talk to me first and get my approval.

World Wide Web Hints

Where to find further information, e.g. how to install your own home page on the hertz system (might be a little outdated by now).