Final Report & Rubric

Here, you will find the main criteria for assessment of your final report for Distributed Algorithms. As stated in the final project announcement, each group will submit a brief (4–8 page) write-up on the same topic as their final presentation. The purpose of the report is to supplement your presentation and provide more technical detail about your chosen topic. Your write-up should serve as a “reader’s guide” for the primary sources you read for the project. It should provide context and motivation for your primary sources, and describe the technical challenges and innovations addessed by the works.

Content. (3 points)

• Describes a topic relevant to distributed computing or distributed systems (broadly interpreted)
• Describes formal, empirical, or technological challenges in addressing the problem
• Gives a high-level description of how these challenges are addressed in the literature
• Connects the topic to the material encountered in our course and/or the broader discipline of distributed computing

Organization. (3 points)

• Introduction clearly motivates the topic being discussed
• Middle section provides details on the topic (e.g., specific model, algorithm, techniques, etc.), including some formal/technical detail (e.g., model definitions, algorithm descriptions, main theorems)
• Conclusion that includes directions for further learning/study/research and relates topic to a “bigger picture”

Clarity. (3 points)

• Motivation clearly connects to examples encountered in class and/or examples from common experience
• Provides concrete details for an example, model, or algorithm

Technical Detail. (3 Points)

• Provides some formal technical detail about the computational model/algorithm/results together with a conceptual explanation of the technical material
  • it is not expected that you reproduce proofs of results, but you should include some high-level explanation of arguments in the primary text