1. Student Lecture Task Description

  • Maximum Points: 10

  • Topic Selection Due Date: Friday November 1, 2024 at 11:55pm; submitted via email

  • PR Merge Date: At Least One Day Before the Lecture Date

  • Lecture Date: TBD

1.1. Base Task

Each student may give a 15 – 20 minute lecture on a topic of their choice. All lectures must be created as a webpage using reStructuredText and Sphinx. Lectures will be submitted as pull requests to the course GitHub repository and all lectures must be posted to the course website. The lectures will only be posted once approved by the instructor.

1.2. Potential Lecture Topics

Below is a list of possible topics, but students may pick other topics as long as they are approved by the instructor.

Only one student may do a lecture on a particular topic. Topics will be selected on a first-come first-served basis. All topic choices along with preferred lecture date are to be submitted to the instructor via email.

  • Ant Colony Optimization — TAKEN

  • Artificial Immune Systems — TAKEN

  • Artificial Life — TAKEN

  • Coevolution

  • Cultural Algorithms

  • Differential Evolution

  • Evolutionary Art — TAKEN

  • Evolutionary Programming

  • Evolutionary Strategies

  • Fitness Predictors — TAKEN

  • Grammatical Evolution

  • Learning Classifier Systems

  • Memetic Algorithms

  • Neuroevolution

  • Novelty Search — TAKEN

  • Search Space Analysis

  • Self Organization

1.3. Lecture Dates

It may be the case that it is natural for some topics to come before others, but in general, the date will be selected on a first-come first-served basis. Any students unable to select a date will be assigned one by the instructor.

All topic choices along with preferred lecture date are to be submitted to the instructor via email.

Student Lecture Dates:

  • November 19: CG & KR

  • November 20: AJ & GD

  • November 22: TDC & XH

1.4. Submitting a Pull Request

Each lecture will be submitted via a pull request for the course’s GitHub repository. The pull request must be approved by the instructor before it can be added to the course website and ultimately presented.

Pull requests must be merged at least one day before the date of the lecture. Pull requests will not be merged if they are deemed inadequate.

When a pull request is submitted, the instructor will review the pull request and provide feedback and request chances. It is possible that there will be several series of changes requested that take multiple attempts before being approved and merged. For this reason, submit pull requests early. A total of 0 points may be awarded if the pull request is not merged before the deadline.

Once the pull request is merged, the GitHub repository will automatically create the webpage with Sphinx and update the course website with the new content.

The reStructuredText files that are to be submitted via a pull request are to be added under the “student-lectures” directory within the GitHub repository. Create a sub-directory with an appropriate name for the specific lecture being created. This sub-directory will contain (a) the reStructuredText (.rst) file along with (b) any related resources such as images or data files. Note: Keep the files small as large files may be rejected.

Warning

Although the pull request merge date is required to be at least one day before the presentation date, note that pull requests will not be accepted unless deemed acceptable by the instructor. This means that submitting a pull should be done sufficiently early that any required changes can be adequately addressed before the merging deadline.

1.5. Provided Files

The course content is written in reStructuredText and the website is generated using Sphinx. Given this, the GitHub repository is full of content in reStructuredText that may be used as reference for how to write lectures in this style.

1.6. Format

Other than using reStructuredText, there is no format for how the lecture should be laid out — this is up to each student. Reference the existing course lectures for ideas.

1.7. Marking Details

Points will be awarded based on the lecture quality and clarity. Points are awarded for both the content of the lecture itself along with how the content is delivered.

The key to making a good lecture is to ensure that it is not boring.