ITX8040

Cyber Defence Seminar (autumn 2015)

Location: ICT-315

Time: Tuesdays 1600-1730

Instructors:

• Olaf Maennel, PhD
• Rain Ottis, PhD

Schedule

01.09 Introduction

Introducing the course, instructors and students.

08.09 Thesis lecture

This lecture explains what a thesis is (in TUT), as well as the recommended process of writing and defending it. Slides: (pdf)

15.09 Literature review lecture

What is a literature review and how to conduct it.

Meedia:Lit1_orglitrev.pdf

22.09 & 29.09.

NO SEMINAR. Prepare your literature review for your thesis.

06.10

• Allyson

13.10

• Siim
• Martin
• Allan (no show!)

20.10

• Sho
• Nahum

27.10

• Kivimägi
• Urmo
• Zhuge

03.11

• Terezia
• Andres S
• Andres E
• Didier

10.11

• Oleksendra
• Michal
• Shota

17.11

• Rando
• Taavi S
• Iryna
• Mohit

24.11

• Jagnar
• Kaspar
• Aare
• Jaan

01.12

• Santiago
• Florian
• Eve
• Awais

08.12

• Alex
• Alejandro
• Jvan
• Camilo
• Andres
• Gvantsa

15.12

• Christian
• Vsevolod
• Carlos
• Raimo
• Andrea
• Luis

12.01

• Kaspar

19.01

• Danish
• Karl
• Wael

• Tõnu
• Akashkumar
• Rashadul
• Mikk
• Avtandil
• Taavi T.
• Vijay
• Jaanus

Guidelines on Presentations

The purpose of the seminar is two-fold: (a) share ideas about recent research in the field of cyber security; and (b) provide help with progress on the MSc thesis. Conducting an academic literature review is an essential part of writing a MSc thesis and typically also influences the thoughts on what to write in the thesis. For this reason the literature review should be done early on. And while reviewing academic literature (probably) never stops until the final version of the thesis is submitted, the majority of the papers will/should probably be read in the beginning of the process. The work on the thesis then goes a step further and everyone will bring their unique research contribution to the table (written-up in the form of the MSc thesis).

Of course, it is an option for this seminar to present your own research work (for example, practice the MSc defence). However, generally this is not the expected level. It is more expected that the presenter reviews and presents one (or two) selected paper(s). The presentation should give an overview of what research question/problem the authors of that paper tried to solve, it should present a bit of context (e.g., why is that research question interesting and relevant) and the presentation should at least go a bit deeper at one aspect discussed in the paper (e.g., highlight the methodological approach used by the authors / how the problem was solved). The student should be able to present the paper, as if it would be his/her own paper, which means a good understanding of the problem space in which context the paper was written. Therefore, it is not sufficient to just read one or two papers and superficially present the work of the authors. It should be appreciated that to fully understand the work the authors (of the selected paper) have done, several other related work papers need to be read. Those other papers don't have to be presented in detail, but they should influence the presentation in a way that the student is confident in their understanding of the area of research. A slide should be included in the presentation that lists the most relevant papers read in preparation for the talk.

Overall, the presentation should be very brief: ~ 12 minutes for the presentation of the selected paper. This must include the research hypothesis of the presented paper, methodology, results and validation (what did the authors do to believe their results are accurate, has there been other work that questions those findings, etc.). Note that the student presenting does not necessarily have to have the same opinion as the authors of the selected paper. Going beyond the paper is very good, as long as the view-point of the authors and methodology/some results can still be communicated. If the presenter has already his/her own research hypothesis (which is expected for semester 3 students, but not required for 1st-year students), the student is welcome to include that in the presentation as well and illustrate how the given paper presented has influenced the thesis process/how the paper relates to the thesis overall.

After the presentation is over, there should be a bit of time for discussion about the paper. Also the student presenting is expected to be able to answer content related questions of the paper. Roughly this part should be around 8 minutes.

This is supposed to be a friendly environment, in which we all can improve our presentation skills and understanding of the research process. It is therefore a goal to highlight at the end positive presentation skills, and give constructive criticism on how to improve to presentation. Obviously, the presenter is not responsible for the academic quality of paper (unless it's his/her own paper which is being presented). However, the presenter is responsible for the paper selection, and making sure the paper's problem area is well understood.

Grade assignment

In order to pass, a student must give at least one solid presentation based on a paper selected from the literature review for their MSc thesis. Exceptions to the topic will be decided by the instructor.