Information on selection, registration and conduct of research projects
Course attendance certification and ECTS credit recognition
All participants will receive a certificate of attendance at the end of the three week
residential part of the course.
Questions regarding the award of ECTS credit for the Talent Course #6 should be
mailed to Professor Francesca Gulminelli, Professor in Physics at the University of
Caen-Basse Normandie. e-mail: gulminelli@lpccaen.in2p3.fr
The information below is also available as a pdf file. This LaTeX template or the
equivalent MSWord template is recommended for the preparation of outline project
proposals. A provisional list of all proposed projects is linked here.
The set of submitted outline project proposals is collected here.
Examples of submitted project reports are linked in the sidebar.
Project work for Talent Course #6
Workload for this course includes time for project preparation, for conduct
of the
research project, and for its reporting. Candidates must give effort to
background
study and an initial literature survey during the three-week residential
component
of the course (nominal workload 30 hours) to research/define their personal
research
project, the methodology to be used and its aims. The process is outlined below.
The output of this preparation activity is a short research plan submitted near
the
end of the residential course. A further 100 hours full-time equivalent effort on the
conduct of the project and reporting is expected, carried out at the candidate's
home institution, following the
formal, residential part of the course.
Preparing and registering a project
* Talk to the course convenors and lecturers about
topics of interest.
* Bear in mind that not all lecturers may be present for
the entire course, so plan
ahead and not in the last days.
* If/when you have an idea for a project then
discuss it and try to identify any particular
difficulties.
* The expected project workload is 100 hours
full-time equivalent (FTE) effort, including
the preparation of the final report, so assess the aims and expectations of the project
activity realistically.
* Do some provisional reading/literature gathering
during the course and try to identify a
small
number of key research papers.
* Draft a half-to-one page project outline (stating its
aims, the methodology to be used,
etc.), plus a small number of key references. MSWord and LaTeX templates can be
obtained at the following links: project templates in
MSWord or
LaTeX
* Finally, agree this project plan with a supervisor by
both signing a copy of the final
project plan.
* Register your project with the course convenors by
means of a copy of the outline proposal
before the end of the course, i.e. on or before Friday 19th July 2013.
* Collaborative project work is possible. The role of
each researcher must be made clear
in the project proposal and agreed with the supervisor before it is registered.
Project report length, format and submission deadline
* The final project report will be in the format
of a short scientific paper. The Physical Review
paper format is a very useful one to consider. For those less familiar with scientific paper
preparation the LaTeX file of a recent paper (using the Physical Review REVTeX macros)
has also been linked here. This may be useful to some as a template. The corresponding
pdf file of this paper is linked here.
* The report should be reasonably concise (and surely less than 10 pages of text if the
Physical Review format, suggested above, is the one used).
* Collaborative work and reports (agreed in advance) must include a statement of the distinct
contributions made by each researcher.
* The project submission deadline is 30th
September 2013.
* Reports should be submitted as a pdf file
to the project supervisor(s) (and mails cc'd to
talent.school@ganil.fr).
* Grading of the projects will be on an a
scale: A, B, C, D, E or failed for Master students and
passed/not passed for PhD student participants.
Many will already be familiar with scientific writing. However we offer the
following general
suggestions for those less practiced
and as a reminder of good practice.
Structure of reports
* Abstract: A short,
self-contained summary of the report and its most important outcomes.
* Introduction: the rational for the
physics study and a brief summary (road-map) of the structure
of the report.
* Theoretical models/methods and technical
details, parameters, etc. and a critical evaluation
of these methods for the problem at hand. Description of the methods used (e.g. quantum
mechanical methods and/or algorithms).
* Results (text and graphics) and
discussion. Include discussion of any tests carried out to
verify/benchmark to results of others or limiting case analytical results.
* Conclusions and perspectives. State
your main findings and interpretations. As far as possible,
present perspectives for future work. Discuss the pros and cons of the methods used and, if
possible, try to identify improvements.
* Appendices: Should be used only if
there any extra or overly technical material that detracts
from the main message(s) of the report.
* Bibliography (see below).
Referencing
* Referencing is vital. Reference
all material (all work of others) that you base your work upon,
whether formal scientific articles/reports, informal exchanges (private communications) or
specialist books or texts.
* In the case of books it is
also usual to state the relevant page numbers where the material is to
be found.
* It is suggested that you
reference in the Physical Review style:see e.g. page 7 at
https://publish.aps.org/files/styleguide-pr.pdf or refer to the styles used in published papers
in the journal.