Privacy Seminar: Student paper

Requirements

The student paper has to be written in English. The topic of the paper is the same as the topic of the presentation you gave. A list of possible topics is available here.

You write the paper with the same team of students that you did the presentation with.

The goal of the paper is different from the goal of the lecture. Apart from explaining the topic in general and with technical details (like for the lecture), the topic should be approached more critically. In the paper you should voice your own opinion on the topic, and substantiate that opinion with arguments found in the literature. Is the approach really that good? Is it practical? What improvements could be made? What do other researchers think?

Paper length (excluding references and appendices) depends on the group size.

• 3 people: 12 pages
• 4 people: 14 pages
• 5 people: 16 pages
• 6 people: 18 pages

Use A4 paper with reasonable margins and a 10 or 11 point font for the body text. Use a scientific paper template: no separate title page, no table of contents.

In the paper you should

• analyse a particular practical case (what are the privacy issues (from a legal and societal perspective) and how are they dealt with),
• give a precise and concise description of the core problem,
• investigate which privacy enhancing technologies (PET) can potentially be applied to increase privacy and solve this problem,
• describe how these PETs have been or should be applied in this particular case to the best effect, and
• (informally) prove or argue that the solution you propose actually solves the problem, and
• write down your own perspective and opinion on how effective these PETs are in this case.

Make sure that you describe the technical solution in sufficient enough detail and precision. The paper should be based academic literature on the topic. Some initial references are provided for each of the topics, but you are expected to do your own literature study and to find additional relevant references. The paper could also be based on input obtained during the presentation of the research in class.

Please use your own words when writing the paper. Clearly cite sources. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Also note that verbosity is not a measure of quality.

Paper skeleton

You must prepare a skeleton of the student paper. This must be submitted to the teachers to check whether the paper is going into the right direction. The skeleton should therefore contain an outline of the full paper. It should contain all envisioned chapters and sections, each with a few lines describing what it will contain. Also include all references you aim to cite.

Planning

To prepare a paper, first look for any relevant literature on the topic of your choice, and read those papers. Find at least one paper that cites the paper you choose, and discuss how this paper views the paper of your choice. Then prepare a skeleton for your final paper: write down all section and subsection titles, adding brief lines describing the content of those. This guarantees a logical structure for your paper. By this time you should know what you want to say in your paper, and where you want to say it.

See the following indicative time line to plan writing your paper.

wk 1	wk 2	wk 3	wk 4	wk 5	wk 6	wk 7
Study literature		Write skeleton	feedback on skeleton	Write final paper

The seminar schedule and the deadlines for submitting the skeleton and the final version of the student papers can be found on the main page.

Please submit electronically, by email, to me. Accepted formats: pdf only.

The skeleton will be discussed in class two week after the deadline.

Grading

The content of the paper is scored according to the following criteria:

(Technical) quality

Whether the paper shows an understanding of the (technical) issues involved. Correctness of all (technical) statements and claims.

Analysis

Whether a proper argumentation is given, and whether all main aspects of the topic are addressed, with proper regard of what are the main points and what are only secondary points. (This covers the criteria argumentation, depth and intelligibility, and comprehensiveness used for scoring the presentation.)

Quality of references

Whether you found and cite all relevant literature. Originality (finding relevant references yourself) is appreciated.

Own opinion

Whether the paper clearly expresses and argues your own opinion on the subject matter.

The form of the paper is scored according to the following criteria:

Style

Clarity of writing, objectiveness, linguistic quality (in terms of spelling and grammar).

Structure

Logical structure of the paper, helping the reader understand what he is about to read, giving the paper a natural flow.

Attractiveness

Formatting of the paper, including precise formatting of the bibliography.

On each of the criteria you can score -, 0, or +. If you score 0 (satisfactory) on all criteria, this corresponds to a 6 as the final grade. (Observe how this is subtly different from how the presentation is scored.)