As you know, one of the major goals of this class is to understand how networking research is done. To this end, the term project is a major component of 6.829, since that's where you draw upon your knowledge and experience from the course readings and elsewhere to actually do research. This document is intended to ease the process of figuring out what to work on and writing a short proposal explaining what you want to work on. A separate document handed out in class describes some project suggestions we came up with.

Please feel free to come up with your own ideas, or modify our suggestions in any way you want. Our suggestions are simply that; and they're usually incomplete. They are not specifications of projects.

Not everyone is expected to do one of these research projects. In fact, we expect around 10-12 groups to participate in the 6.829 competition, which involves a design and implementation project that's more focused. It requires a great deal of creativity and there are many ways to attack the problem posed in the competition, but the difference is that you don't need to do any research to determine what you want to work on. To learn about the competition, click here.

If you're a PhD student or an MEng student doing research in network systems, you're encouraged (but not forced) to pick a research project. If you're an undergraduate or an MEng student not in systems, you may learn a lot more by participating in the competition. The competition will be in teams of three; the research projects generally in teams of two.

The following instructions apply to those of you doing research projects.

1. Teams: As far as possible, you should work in teams of two if you're doing a "research" project. That's a lot more fun, is often a lot more productive, and the resulting work a lot sounder than if you were working in isolation. The nature of the networking field is one that fosters collaboration and often makes it essential for high impact work, and you should develop the ability to collaborate on projects. Unless there is a very good and compelling reason for you to work alone, we won't agree to it!  For large enough projects, we might allow teams of three, provided the proposal makes it clear what the approximate task assignment is. Feel free to use the class mailing list (6.829-students@mit.edu) to solicit project partners.

For the competition project, you should work in teams of three.

2. Schedule: One- to two-page proposals (details below) are due Monday 10/1/01 in class. Print out two hard copies and bring them to class. We will read the proposals carefully over the following few days and get back to you by email. In some cases, we may want to meet with teams to understand better exactly what you're doing, perhaps because it isn't focused enough or because you're trying to accomplish too much. You have about two months to carry out the project, which is ample if your proposal is focused, but not otherwise.

Project presentations have been scheduled for December 6th and 7th. Your paper is also due at that time.

It is important that you read important background material before turning in the proposal!

3. Proposal: A crisp one-page write-up that should contain the following items. Two hard copies per group.

Project title (a detailed title is better than a vague one; you can always change it later if you don't like it!) and names of investigators with email addresses.

A clear statement of the research problem: a one-sentence summary followed by a one-paragraph explanation (the paragraph shouldn't be more than 10-12 lines long). This should identify clearly the research question you're addressing (for example, implementing a TCP/IP networking stack, while a lot of work, isn't research, unless of course you're doing it differently from today's approaches).

A clear statement of your research methodology. I.e., how are you going to solve the problems you've raised and motivated in the previous paragraph?

A statement of plan and schedule, to convince us (and yourself!) that you can complete this by the end of the term (exact due dates are here).

A list of resources you need to accomplish your work, with special emphasis on important pieces you don't yet have access to. Be as clear as you can in your requirements and we will work towards getting what you need as quickly as possible. If your request can't be accomodated for any reason, we will try to get back to you about it as soon as we find out.

Any other questions you have or clarifications you need from us.