Winter 2002-2003

Acknowledgement

This assignment was developed by Dr. Mark Sebern.

Overview

The term paper is a research report on some aspect (your choice) of the design of operating systems, and is to be an individual effort. The format should be compatible with guidelines taught in MSOE composition courses (EN-131 and EN-132), and include appropriate bibliographic references. No specific length is set, though it seems unlikely that a reasonable job could be done in less than 15-20 pages of "double spaced" body text.

Note that you are expected to research your topic in some depth. Your sources must include technical journals, books, and similar "reputable" sources. While you are encouraged to use internet/web resources as well, be careful to assess the quality of the information you find. Be especially critical in evaluating information provided by someone with a vested interest (e.g., the vendor of a particular operating system or software package). Your treatment of your chosen topic should extend beyond any related material in the textbook.

A preliminary outline and bibliography is to be submitted before the second lecture of week 4.

The final paper must be submitted (as Project 1) in .pdf format before the first lecture of week 8 and will be posted on the Web. Creating a .pdf can be done with Win2pdf (free for personal use but adds an extra page), Ghostscript (free), or PStill (free for personal use), or you can use an online conversion service like TOM Conversion Server, goBCL, or ps2pdf.com

Each student will give a short (approximately 8 minutes) oral presentation, covering the highlights of the term paper content.

Example Topics

In past offerings of this class, students have chosen term paper topics such as:

• Processor allocation and CPU scheduling, multi-processor support
• Processes, threads, kernel threads, and associated implementation issues
• Comparisons of different operating systems
• Windows 95 graphics architecture
• File systems
• Network queuing theory and its application to computer system models
• Scheduling systems
• Security and protection
• Virtual machine operating systems

You may wish to look over the term papers from Dr. Barnicki's Winter 2001-2002, Winter 1999-2000, and Winter 1998-1999, sections and/or Dr. Sebern's Winter 1998-1999, Spring 1998, and Spring 1997 sections. Note that the posted copies are not graded, so you may have to make some judgments about which ones to choose as models for your own work.

Believe it or not, many past students have found the term paper to be a valuable and enjoyable project. It may be difficult to choose a topic early in the course, when many operating system subjects have not yet been discussed. Feel free to read ahead in the textbook, to visit the library, to surf the Web, or to consult the instructor.

Presentation Schedule and Papers