T-110.5290 Seminar on Network Security (4 cr) P V

Autumn 2006: Security and Privacy in Pervasive Computing

Tutor's tasks

Opinnot > T-110.5290 > 2006 > tutors.html

• Tasks of the tutor
• Tutor's schedule (note also deadlines in the course schedule)
• Topic description instructions
• Grading students
• Grades for the tutor

The main task of the tutor is to guide the writing process of students on topics that interest the tutor (tutors suggest the topics, too). Network Security seminar tries to burden the tutors as less as possible with the administrative tasks, but the tutor needs to participate the grading of students because they know best their own students and their development and learning.

Please read through the material on the course webpage, especially grading instructions (when it gets ready :-)

In addition, previous "paper-writing" seminars have produced many generally useful guidepages for tutoring, grading etc. However, please note that these guides are common and guides given particularly in this seminar are primary (especially in grading).

Tutor's schedule

In addition to the common course schedule, a tutor should note the following deadlines and tasks.

Each tutor should write at least three topic descriptions. Note: the topic should be from the topic area of this year. The topic descriptions will be presented in the first meeting and added to the topic page. Students will suggest on what topic they wish to write, and course staff will distribute the topics to the students.

A topic description should have following parts:

• a clearly stated question or problem (5-10 lines of text). It should suggest a viewpoint to the subject, give an idea where to start from etc.
• what kind of student this topic suites to (what the student should be familiar with beforehand, how difficult the topic is etc.)
• two sources where students can start to look for more information

Please, send your topic descriptions to course assistant using email address (given in the end of the page) as plain text as soon as possible but latest before the first course meeting.

Grading students

Here are general instructions for grading. Tutor's responsibility is to grade the paper because (s)he knows best her/his own students, their development, learning and writing process. Course staff grades the presentation and paper opponing. (see how paper affects to the final grade)

• 1 - Adequate (clearly accepted)
• 2 - Quite good
• 3 - Good
• 4 - Very good
• 5 - Excellent/fantastic

Here are listed 6 aspects that you should consider while deciding the grade: (The purpose of questions is just to give you an idea what each aspect means. You don't have to answer all of them.)

1 Overall impression of the paper:
Does the paper look like a scientific article?
Is the structure of the paper logical?
Does the content corresponds the title and the abstract?
Is the paper otherwise consistent, leading from background and sources to analysis and conclusions?
Is the text student's own (no sudden changes in the quality etc.)?

2 Language:
Is the language appropriate for a scientific paper?
Is the language consistent?
Is the paper easy to read and understand?

3 Revision of the paper:
Has the student really read the text through?
Are there major mistakes in language and grammar?
Are pictures, graphs and equations correct and tidy?
Is section numbering correct?
Is the reference list correct?

4 Usage of references:
Are references relevant, up-to-date and appropriate for the topic and a scientific paper in general (sources such as Google and Wikipedia are not used)?
Are there enough references?
Are essential references missing?
Are references used correctly?
How is the reference list, are the bibliographic data for each item in the list correct?

5 Meeting timelines:
How well the student has followed the course timelines?
Where there any problems in the writing process?

6 Scientific quality:
How well the content of the paper meets the requirements that were defined in the beginning of the course (requirement of the tutor and those agreed together with the tutor and student)?
Does the paper contain any useful information?
Does the work make any scientific contribution?
The scientific contribution is not a requirement (afterall the course is for undergraduated studens) so it should not affect the grade negatively.

Send the grade of the paper by using email to the student and cc course staff (use course email address T-110.5290(at)tml.hut.fi). Grades should be sent 12.12.2006 at the latest.