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Note: This course is no longer running.
It has been replaced by the MInf Project (Part 1) course.

This page describes the Phase 1 of the MInf project (MPP1). This is a course that is typically taken in Spring of Year 4 by students in the MInf degree. In this course, you should be actively working on your project. You will be assessed on the basis of a progress report.

Some general information is given below, for more exact details see the DRPS page for the course.

Course Resources

• MInf Calendar. Due dates.
• MInf Phase 1 Marking Guidelines

Course Structure

There are three components to this course:

1. Project group meetings. There will be one of these over the semester. These will work exactly the same as in MPP.
2. Individual meetings with your supervisor. Most of the guidance in this course will come from your project supervisor, and you should meet with them regularly (e.g., once every week or two) throughout the term.
3. The Phase 1 report.

Assessment

This course is assessed entirely on the basis of your phase 1 report, which will be read and assigned a numerical mark by two independent readers. The mark will be awarded on the basis of the MInf Project Phase 1 Marking Guidelines.

Deadlines

The Phase 1 Report will be due on Wednesday of Week 11. See the MInf Calendar for the exact date.

Guidelines for Writing a Phase 1 Report

The goal of your report is to describe the project and its goals, explain the work you have done so far, describe your approach for the rest of the project. and present a plan for the rest of the project. You should aim to write your report such that you can re-use the text in your final MInf thesis.

The exact layout of the report will depend upon your project, and you should talk to your supervisor for specific advice. In general, most reports will talk about the following areas:

Project and Goals: In the project proposal, you gave an overview of your project goals, but you should be able to be more specific now that you have worked on it for a semester. It is common for the scope of the project to shift or change, because the more that you work on your project, the more that you learn about the area. This section of the report often takes about 4-5 pages.

Your Approach: What are you going to do? How do you intend to meet the goals of your project?

Workplan: Describe how much of your approach your have implemented so far, and what steps you will take next. Please list a set of next actions and a timeline for your fifth year. Usually this takes about 1-2 pages. In doing the timeline, remember you should plan to be finished system building by week 4 of semester 2 at the latest, to give time for writing up.

It is usually not necessary to have a lot of discussion about related work at this stage, except to the extent that it is necessary to describe the goals of your project.

Submission of the Phase 1 Report

Submit two paper copies of your report to the ITO by 4.00pm, ensuring the front page has the title, the fact that it is the MInf4 Project Phase 1 Report, your name and Matric number.