Capita Selecta Computing Science

Course goals

The Small Project GMTE is one of the ways in the GMTE master's program to gain experience with the practices in a job after graduation. 

The project  in game or media technology, individual or in a small group, is  intended to acquaint you with literature study, experimentation for a research purpose or development issues.
It is not a fully fledged research project like a thesis project. In contrast to a thesis project, within the small  project the students do not have to formulate their own research question, invent and validate their own solutions.
Rather, an assignment can be given by a stakeholder to design, develop, and test an application or experiment, and report on that. 

Assessment
In each case, the project is concluded with an end presentation and a written report, which typically contains the following sections:

1. Preface. Explain that this report is the result of a GMT Small Project, where you perform the project, in which project, and who your collaborators and supervisors are.
2. Introduction. Describe the context of the project, the motivation, and the general objective.
3. Approach. What was done to achieve the objectives that were defined in the Introduction.
4. Implementation. Provide details about the implemented program, game, experiment, etcetera. Consider providing a class structure with the main organization of the functionality you implemented.
5. Results. Describe the resulting product, game, data collected, etc. Describe how it meets the objectives defined in the Introduction.
6. Reflection. Describe what you have learned from the small project.
7. Concluding remarks. Wrap up the report. Summarize how you objectives are met, or how the research question is answered. What is left to do to even better meet the objectives ?  How can the results be used, extended, or generalized ?

There is no minimum or maximum to the report's number of words or pages. A common length is 10 to 20 pages.

The assessment criteria are:

1. quality of the presentation (10% of the final mark)
2. quality of the report (30%)
3. quality of the results (30%)
4. way of working (30%)

To qualify for a repair of the final result the mark needs to be at least a 4. 

Prerequisites
This course is only available for GMTE students.

Content

The small project is an individual or small group project in game or media technology intended to acquaint you with literature study, experimentation for a research purpose or development issues.
Its size is 15 EC and it is generally taken at the beginning of your second year. It may be taken at another time if that logistically fits your program better, but not earlier than the third period of your first year.

The small project is done during one period full-time, or during two consecutive periods half-time. If the supervisor permits, a project may also be done in the summertime (between teaching periods four and one).
The project can be taken internally or externally with one of our industrial or research partners.
Enrolment in the project is through Osiris Student, in the periods Osiris is available for course enrolment. 

For further details also see https://ics.uu.nl/docs/vakken/mspgmt/.

Course form
The Small Project GMTE typically consists of a preparatory meeting, a mid-term meeting or presentation, and an end presentation. 
During the project, the student is must elaborate on the ojectives set by the stakeholder, the approach to achieve the objectives, an implementation, obtaining results from the implementation, reflect on the project process, and report on all these aspects.

The form of the small project is one of the following:

• HKU Game Small Project, at the University of Arts Utrecht.

The project takes place at HKU (Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht/University of Arts Utrecht). The project is a team project. One or two GMTE students collaborate with a number of HKU students. The task is to design and develop a game for an external stakeholder. At HKU, the project is known as "Context Project ", part of their Games and Interaction program. The GMT student works at the venue of the HKU at Ina Boudier Bakkerlaan 50, Utrecht.

• HU Media Small Project, at the University of Applied Science Utrecht.

The project takes place at HU (Hogeschool Utrecht/University of Applied Sciences Utrecht). The small project is a team project. One or two GMTE students collaborate with a number of HU students. The task is to design and develop a media application for an external stakeholder. At HU, this project is known as a "Studio Design" project, part of their Communication and Media program. The GMT student works at the venue of the HU at Heidelberglaan 15, Utrecht. 

• Company GMTE Small Project, as an internship.

The project takes place as an internship at a company or other external organization, to be found by the student. We do not find a company for you, but you can find help via Career Services. To avoid conflict of interest, the company cannot be owned or founded by the student. It is an individual project.  The project should be more then just development of some software for the company. For example, there can be an additional comparison with another solution, a usability test, or an experiment about the effectiveness. 

• Internal GMTE Small Project, to support a running (PhD) research project. 

The project takes place as part of a running (PhD) research project. For example, the student performs an experiment to evaluate the performance of an algorithm, such as the running time or output quality. Or the student may compare two methods with respect to chosen quality criteria. The project takes place at UU, supervised by researcher, to be found be the student themselves. It is an individual project.

Literature
There is no fixed literature for this project.