Senior Thesis Information

Life with a senior thesis is so much nicer if 1) we're doing something we're both interested in and 2) we already have some expectations as to how the advisor/advisee relationship will go. So, in general, to work with me you should:

• Have taken a class with me before, and
• Be interested in software engineering, software reliability, databases, agile development, or computer science education

NOTE: I will be taking substantially fewer Senior Thesis students this year compared to previous years.

I'm certainly open to your ideas for a project, but do you need some thoughts? Here's some ideas that I've got:

Question Database for Non-Profit Quiz Game - The Chemical Educational Foundation (CEF) is a national non-profit organization committed to enhancing science education among every generation, beginning with our youth. In accordance with its mission to foster a greater understanding of the science of chemistry and the benefits of chemicals, CEF has developed the You Be The Chemist programs to emphasize the central role of chemistry in all the sciences and our everyday lives. The Challenge, which now operates in 19 states, is slated for continued growth. In response to the projected, CEF is experiencing a greater need to organize its questions in a searchable and easily extractable format. To accomplish this goal, the Foundation would like to create a custom database for its Challenge questions.

Financial Software for Appalachia Service Project - If you been in one of my classes, you've heard my story about the wonderful folks at ASP and the system I've been maintaining for them. I could use some help for this year, and you would get to help out some really nice people build software that they will actually use. (Don't worry - I'll do the support still...)

Android Projects - I've got a couple things that I want people to work on with Android phones. In particular:

• Can you connect an Android to a Kinect and use it as a sensor to send information back to a web service?
• Can you connect an Android to an Andrino platform to have it work with other sensors?
• Imagine you left an Android just sitting around in a room... what sort of data could you just pick up and return back to a server?

These will almost assuredly be group projects. So you may be on a group with people you know and/or don't know.

PairEval - I would like for work to continue on PairEval, improving the system and also improving the methodology for matching up students with potentially good partners. The system should allow students to rate the performance of the other students in the group. The system will tie into either NetBadge and/or Collab (I have some code that will help you do this). What types of students tend to work well together? This project will require the student to do some research into learning styles and issues in Computer Science to try to find ways to automatically pair students together.

Program Change/Defect Visualization - There's already some research out there on mining software repositories (CVS, SVN, etc) and using that info to see exactly how development is progressing. I would love to have someone use so pre-existing code that I have and build on it to pull down software change records and then graphically show things like defect density, change velocity (how much parts of the software is changing), and where code is stagnant. This could also drill in and out to and from file and component levels.

2010-2011

Jared Harding - Mobile HCI
Calvin Li and George Washington - Voice Interface for Portable Learning
Bennett Sorbo - CavDaily Advertising
Nikhita Karki - Scheduling System for Student Volunteers at UVa Hospital
Daniel Magnusson - Motion Sickness with Video Games
Kevin Leach - Prescription Databases
Michale Devine and Olex Ponomarenko - Generating Music and Art using Microsoft Kinect
Derrick Brameyer and Alan Kush - Agile Development in Student Projects

2009-2010

Bluetooth Identification for Vehicles - Matt Beattie and John Szumski
Lego Mindstorm NXT Sensor Simulation - Joshua Joyner
Mobile GPS Social Applications - Seth Micalizzi
Mobile Virtual Reality - Charles Plucker
Teaching Time Concepts to Early Elementary Students - Emma Rosenfeld
PairEval v2.0 - Steven Trombetta
Student timecard system for Newcomb Hall - Jessica Vasconcellos

2008-2009

Web-based Software Configuration Management of Source Control Repositories and Users - Jeffrey Gaither
An Analysis of Static Metrics in Open-Source Software Projects - Michael Miller
UVaCollab: Compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 - Ben Plunkett
Compatibility of Partnered Students in Computer Science Education - Joshua Sennett

2007-2008

A New Paradigm for Tutoring at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia - Eric Bradbury
Automated Fix Generator for SQL Injection Attacks - Fred Dysart
Web-based Kennel Management System using PHP and MySQL - Maureen Maughn
Integrated Querying in C# using Microsoft LINQ - Danny Shih