Course Project Description - Course Lab Book

Course Project¶

Welcome to the course project of Introduction to Information Technology, Advanced Topics in Information Technology. Over the term, your group picks one topic from today’s IT landscape, digs into it, builds a small prototype, and closes the journey with a slide deck presented at the seminar.

Introduction¶

Working in a group, you will:

research a selected topic in one of the main areas of IT, such as Artificial Intelligence, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or Computer Networks.
build a prototype that demonstrates your understanding of the chosen topic.
present your findings.

Coding is not mandatory. What matters is that you understand the concepts and technologies behind your topic, and that you present your ideas clearly and effectively.

Required Deliverables¶

Slides¶

Your slides should clearly walk through the main points of the project and let images do the talking. Keep the text lean.

The deck is submitted in two rounds: as a PDF before the seminar, then as the revised .pptx deck after it. See Submission below.

Presentation¶

At the seminar, every group member takes part in a clear, engaging presentation, in either English or Vietnamese. Keep it coherent and impressive, and stay within the time limit of 10 minutes.

Submission¶

The project is submitted in two separate rounds:

Round 1, before the seminar: submit the PDF form of the slides.
Round 2, after the seminar: submit the revised slide deck as a .pptx file.

Each round is a single file, named after your team ID: TeamID.pdf for the first round and TeamID.pptx for the second. Link submissions, such as a shared Google Drive link, are not accepted. And remember: absolutely no modifications are allowed after the deadline.

Assessment¶

The project is assessed on two deliverables, the slide deck and the seminar presentation. The slide deck is graded both on its content, following the criteria of the topic area your group picked, and on its format and overall presentation quality. The seminar presentation is graded separately.

Topics in AI and Computer Science¶

Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science sit at the core of modern Information Technology: their goal is to build systems that learn, reason, and automate complex tasks that traditionally require human intelligence, from processing and understanding text, images, audio, and video. If your group picks one of the suggested topics below from the sotapapers research areas catalog, your work should cover:

What the topic is and what it is for.
Its main ideas, key results and approaches.
Its real-world relevance, applications and examples.

Suggested topics, from the easier and more traditional ones to the more modern and advanced:

Clustering
Recommendation System
Dimensionality Reduction
Frequent Pattern Mining
NP-complete Problems
Explainable AI
Federated Learning
Weakly-supervised learning
Self-supervised learning
Machine Unlearning
Generative AI
Multi-agent Systems
Agentic AI
Collective/Swarm Intelligence
Physical AI
Neuroevolution
Quantum ML
Quantum Computing
P vs NP

Topics in Information Systems¶

An information system knits together people, software, hardware, data, and procedures to collect, process, store, and distribute information for decision making and coordination. It bridges the gap between business needs and technology so that organizations operate efficiently in the digital era. Pick one of the systems below. Your work should cover:

What the system is and what it is used for.
Its key characteristics and architectures.
Real-world examples or case studies.

Suggested topics, each with a starting reference:

Enterprise Resource Planning, known as ERP: SAP, What is ERP?
Customer Relationship Management, known as CRM: Salesforce, What is CRM?
Supercomputing systems: IBM, Supercomputing
Distributed computing systems: Amazon AWS, Distributed Computing
Data warehouses: Google Cloud, What is a Data Warehouse?
E-commerce systems for the B2B, B2C and C2C models: Wikipedia, Types of e-commerce
Logistical systems: Academia.edu, Concepts of Logistics System Design
NoSQL databases: GeeksforGeeks, Introduction to NoSQL
Knowledge management systems: Wikipedia, Knowledge management software
Enterprise internal communication systems: Vocalcom, The evolution of enterprise communications technology

Topics in Software Engineering¶

Software Engineering is about the methods, tools, and principles behind reliable, scalable software, from design and development to testing and maintenance. It combines technical expertise with project management and quality assurance to produce software that meets user and business requirements. If a direction from the list below speaks to your group, your work should cover:

What the research direction is and what it is for.
The main problems it addresses.
Its applications or real-world case examples.

Topics in Cyber and Network¶

Network technologies and security mechanisms are what keep digital communication safe, fast, and reliable. The field keeps evolving with emerging technologies and modern approaches in network design, distributed systems, and digital security. Choose one technology or technique from the group below. Your work should cover:

What it is and what it is for, including its working principles.
Its main applications or use cases.
Real-world examples or implementations.