| CODE | ICT3909 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Final Year Project in Artificial Intelligence | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 03 - Years 2, 3, 4 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 30 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Faculty of Information and Communication Technology | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | The final-year project in Artificial Intelligence is the largest single piece of work assigned to students throughout their degree. It is intended both to consolidate the skills gained throughout the Artificial Intelligence degree programme as well as prepare students to undertake and participate in projects upon graduation. Thus, the aims as well as the criteria of assessment of the final-year project are rather wide-ranging. The assessable parts of this study-unit are as follows: - A Review Report, in the form of a 6-page scientific paper, whose aim is to demonstrate the skills of the student in condensing the salient and relevant parts of his/her effort in the form of a review, highlighting the road-map of the scientific method that was adopted in tackling the issues that were exposed through the student’s background research, (including the background research itself), work carried out, results obtained, and conclusions drawn. This can also serve as a summary of the student’s work, as well as to guide the assessment process of the external examiner. - A written dissertation in the form of a report detailing the context, effort, reasoning and conclusions of the student’s academic endeavour. The specific qualities expected in this dissertation are summarized below: - Originality: to conceive of and develop original ideas and designs; - Research methods: to use sound scientific methods of research; - Problem-solving skills: to solve problems in a structured and rational manner; - Achievement: to produce complete and correctly functioning artefacts; - Management; - To work on one’s own initiative, subject to a minimum of one (1) communication per month between student and supervisor; - To keep to deadlines; - To adequately plan project work; - To coordinate with third parties (including artefacts developed by such); - Communications Skills; - To produce adequate user documentation relating to the artefact produced; - To identify and explain the relevant concepts clearly; - To report comprehensively on the work produced. The dissertation’s length should be approximately 35 pages. It must not exceed 40 pages excluding appendices. Students will be given guidelines about formatting, style and citation standards. Poster Presentation & Oral Examination: A poster presentation highlighting the effective and prominent elements of the student’s overall effort. This presentation, should also include a live demo of the developed artefact (if applicable) or a visualization of the obtained results developed as part of the research. In this presentation the student should demonstrate skills at verbally communicating his/her ideas and reasoning, as well as skills in the preparation and use of suitable presentation techniques and material. The dimensions of the poster are specified in the FYP Guidelines, issued by the Department of Artificial Intelligence. The presentation will be followed by an Oral Examination during which the student will be asked questions related to their FYP Project. Students are also required to prepare a 5 minute-long video recording that demonstrates their work. Specifications of the video recording are provided in the FYP Guidelines issued by the Department of Artificial Intelligence. The University of Malta reserves the right to use the poster and video during promotional events, online, and in public areas. Students are obliged to submit both the poster and the video recording of their work to the Department of AI in terms of Regulation 80 of the General Regulations for University Undergraduate Awards, 2004. Students who fail to submit the poster and video recording of their work may not be permitted to graduate. This study-unit also requires the production of a progress report (to be submitted according to established departmental procedures). Students will either select a Final Year Project proposal (in which the problem to be solved will be described at a high level of abstraction) from among those offered by the Department or the student may offer their own proposal. Students will be allocated a supervisor and optionally a co-supervisor according to departmental procedures. Depending on the nature of the research to be undertaken, the co-supervisor may be appointed from another department in the Faculty of ICT, or from another Faculty/Institute/Centre at the University. Ten hours of lectures will be given at the beginning of the first semester to provide guidance for conducting research, report writing, avoiding common pit-falls, and tips for the presentation and oral examination. A further ten hours of seminars will be held covering Ethics in AI and ethical decision making. A further two day seminar on Presentation Skills will be delivered. Students will also be required to attend a two-day Symposium during which they will each present an aspect of their FYP project to practice their presentation skills. Students are required to attend all lectures, seminars, and the Symposium. Study-unit Aims: To develop skills in independent critical thinking, scientific research, investigation and analysis, and scientific report writing and oral communication. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Analyse a problem and identify the AI techniques to solve it; - Describe how the proposed solution is related to relevant literature; - Explain how the AI techniques analysed will solve the problem; - Explain how the solution should be evaluated; - Explain the results obtained following the evaluation; - Describe the process of problem analysis, solution design and implementation, evaluation, and analysis of results in a written report and presentation. These learning outcomes are similar to those for the Group Assigned Practical Task. However, in this study-unit students are expected to demonstrate a high degree of independent work, maturity, and autonomy. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Independently investigate existing approaches to solving the problem described in the FYP proposal; - Critically review relevant literature; - Design and implement a solution using appropriate AI techniques for the problem described in the FYP proposal; - Measure the solution's accuracy using an appropriate evaluation; - Write a scientific project report in an appropriate style; - Organise the work to be carried out by to complete the FYP on time; - Summarize his/her work in a short review report written in the style of a scientific paper; - Demonstrate his/her ability to identify the significant aspects of their work and clearly communicate them orally through a 5 minute poster presentation. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Each FYP proposal will have an initial reading list. |
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| ADDITIONAL NOTES | **September Assessment Session: Students who fail to obtain an overall pass mark will be re-examined in the Dissertation. However, the resit availability for the Presentation and Oral Examination is at the discretion of the Board of Examiners. | ||||||||
| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Dissertation | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Josef Bajada Claudia Borg Vanessa Camilleri Alexiei Dingli Kristian Guillaumier Konstantinos Makantasis Matthew Montebello (Co-ord.) Dylan Seychell |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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