Main project

Important

Due date: 11:59pm on Sunday, 22 December 2024.

Invite link for GitHub Classroom

Use the corresponding invite link in this google doc (accessible with your EPFL account) to accept the project, and either join an existing team or create a new one. Once this is done, go to the course GitHub organization and locate the repo titled main-project-TEAM-NAME to get started.

Submission requirements

Intermediate submission

1. By Sunday November 10, you should have chosen a team and a topic.
2. On Friday November 22 your team will submit a 1-2 page writeup. Your writeup should provide a preliminary introduction to the topic you will study and provide clear motivation for why they are interesting and/or relevant.

Final submission

You are required to hand in a PDF version of your report report.pdf (max 20 pages) and the source code used. You should not show the actual code in the PDF report, unless you want to point out something specific.

Your README.md should contain instructions on reproducing the PDF report from the quarto file. This can be useful if you have issues with the automatic generation of the PDF report right before the deadline. Your README.md should also include a brief description of the contributions of each team member, if you are a team of three students.

Checklist:

1. report.pdf in GitHub repository (e.g., generated from report.qmd or report.tex) (max 20 pages)
2. report.qmd in GitHub repository (source code, should be able to run from top to bottom)
3. README.md with instructions on how to run the code and reproduce the PDF report (please delete everything not related to your project in it)

The goal of this project is quite broad, students are free to come up with their own ideas. While simulation studies are the designated topic, groups that found interesting data during the small project and would like to carry on analyzing it, or groups interested in studying a bit deeper one of the methodological concepts from this course are encouraged to approach the teachers during the exercises and discuss their ideas. Prospective topics for the final project will be gradually revealed during the lectures.

Part of the grade for the final project (10 % of the total grade, i.e., one quarter of the final project) will be awarded for value added (original data analysis, simulation study answering a previously unclear question, etc.). All of the prospective topics that will be introduced during the lecture will have this element, and by half-way through the semester (when the final project will start) it should be clear through the examples what the project should aspire to. We will also discuss this in person at some point, likely on Week 7. The remaining three quarters of the project (i.e., 30 % of the total grade) will be awarded for

• quality of the report (clarity, readability, structure, referencing, etc.)
• graphical considerations (well chosen (as discussed during the course) graphics with captions, referenced from the main text)
• concepts explored beyond the scope of the course (in the soft sense that they were not fully covered during classes)
• overall quality (correctness, demonstration of understanding, etc.)

A project seriously lacking in any of the criteria above will be penalized.