Seminar report review instructions

Each report has been assigned two student reviewers and a tutor from the research group. All three persons carefully read the draft report and give constructive feedback on it. The feedback consists of a commented version of the draft manuscript as well as general comments in free form. Additionally:

• The first student (according to the review assignments in Moodle) will also write a more formal review as instructed below. (The instructions may be adjusted during the seminar so please check back when writing your review.)
• The second student will also prepare three exercise tasks on the key contents of the report (see below).

All three reviewers will meet with the author to orally give their feedback, to hand over the review, the exercises, and commented reports, and to discuss the report and all the feedback. For the schedule, see the Moodle page of the seminar.

Formal review (student reviewer #1)

Please fill in the identification information. Then address the questions to the extent they are applicable to the report and explain your answers. Give constructive comments. Point out both positive and negative aspects; for the negative ones, describe how you think the report could be improved. At the end, you can give detailed comments on suggestions. Your assessment should be based on what kind of report you yourself would like to read in the seminar!

Advice:

• Studend feedback from previous seminars has indicated that these review reports tend to be too soft. Thus: do not hesitate to be honest in your review -- detailed and thoughtful criticism is the best help you can give as a reviewer to the student who authored the report.
• Especially, if you don't understand something in the report, tell it to the author. As a rule, it is the author's fault, not the reader's: the seminar participants are the audience of the seminar reports and presentations, so the author must prepare and present the material for this audience.

Submit your review report as a pdf file in Moodle: find the draft report you reviewed and leave a comment to it with your pdf file(s) included as attachments.

Review form

Author of the seminar report: _________________________________________

Title of the seminar report: __________________________________________

Name of the reviewer: ___________________________________________

• Topic. In a few sentences, describe what you think are the key points in this report.
• Goals and Tasks. Does the report state the goals of the research? Does it specify clearly the tasks under study?
• Significance. How important and original is the work reported? How difficult is the problem it attacks? What lesson(s) does the report
  teach the reader?
• Description. If the report describes a system or a method, does it specify the methods to let readers replicate them? If the report describes an application, is the application domain described, is the choice of a particular methodology discussed and the chosen methodology described? Bear in mind that the seminar reports have a limited length and therefore, necessary details can be omitted; are the omitted detailes clearly identified and are suitable references given for looking up the details?
• Claims and Evidence. Does the report make explicit claims or draw clear conclusions? Do the results reveal the underlying reasons or causes for phenomena?
• Context and Limits. Does the report motivate the research, place it in the context of previous work, and explain its contribution to the literature? Does the report note the approach's limitations and suggest directions for future work?
• Presentation. Are the title and summary descriptive? Does the introduction motivate the reader to read the report to the end? Is the structure of the report clear and cohesive? Are the contents appropriate in relation to the length of the report? Are there enough illustrating figures and examples? Is the language good and polished? Are the references appropriate?

More detailed comments and suggestions for improvement (use as much space as you need):

Design of exercise tasks (student reviewer #2)

Please fill in the identification information. The design exercise tasks for the students of the seminar. These exercises will be done in the classroom after the seminar talk. Ideally, the exercise tasks

• address central topics of the seminar report (and presentation)
• help students check if they have learned the central points, or help them learn the central points
• can be performed using pen and paper based on material in the report (and the presentation)

The questions can be modified after the feedback discussion, based on mutual understanding of what is central for the seminar work and what are feasible tasks. Also, the seminar author may well learn how to improve the report (and presentation) to better identify and explain the central contents.

Submit the tasks by email to the author and the two other reviewers for the feedback discussion. Submit the final versions by email to Hannu.

Form for seminar exercise tasks

Author of the seminar report: _________________________________________

Title of the seminar report: __________________________________________

Name of the reviewer: ___________________________________________

Task 1:

Example solution to task 1:

Task 2:

Example solution to task 2:

Task 3:

Example solution to task 3: