Guidance on Part III projects for students and supervisors

The official requirement for the project report is a document of not more than 12,000 words in length (excluding bibliography, photographs, diagrams, data listings and appendices, but including narrative text in tables, captions, and footnotes) on a topic approved by the Head of Department. The Board of Examiners advise that candidates should aim to submit no more than 40 pages of material for examination. 

These guidelines for projects refer to the conduct of project work, to the status of project results, to the structure of the research project and to issues relating to confidentiality and intellectual property rights (IPR). The IPR guidelines are generally intended, but they are particularly relevant to projects being done in cooperation with outside organizations (industrial or other).

1. The project is primarily intended to meet the course requirements of Part III in Computer Science, i.e., it should demonstrate the student's knowledge and skill in a rounded piece of work. The project work officially starts in Lent term and the thesis is submitted during the following late May or early June. To satisfy the course requirements it is necessary for students to obtain a pass mark for the project. The project specification has to be approved by those responsible for the course, and the student should have a formal supervisor within the university. The student's prime place of work is normally at the University. Where an outside organization is involved in the project, the student will usually visit the organization to discuss his or her work as thought necessary, with expenses being paid by the organization.

   Students are required to submit a written research proposal and work-plan for their project, to be explicitly agreed by their supervisor by the deadline specified in Lent Term. Students and supervisors meet to discuss project progress on a regular basis. Many supervisors find that arranging regular weekly, half-hour meetings with students works well.

2. The "project results" are defined for the purposes of examination and any subsequent exploitation as being represented by the project report itself and any software (or hardware) produced during the work.
3. 1. At the point of submission for examination, project reports will include an anonymised cover sheet with the student's University candidate number, course, and project title (as approved by the Faculty of Computer Science and Technology).
   2. The following page must provide the title and a one-page abstract the reverse of which will include the word count and the method how the word count was derived. The word count is defined as the number of words in the main body of the project report excluding the abstract, bibliography and appendices but including footnotes and captions.
   3. Additionally, candidates will also provide a copy of the report identical to the one above but with the anonymised coversheet removed and replaced with the title page, followed by a page containing the declaration of originality, as follows:

      • I, [Name] of [College], being a candidate for Part III of the Computer Science Tripos, hereby declare that this report and the work described in it are my own work, unaided except as may be specified below, and that the report does not contain material that has already been used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose. In preparation of this report, I adhered to the Department of Computer Science and Technology AI Policy. [The project required the approved use of [insert name of technology] and such use is acknowledged in the text at the relevant sections.] [I am content for my report to be made available to the students and staff of the University.]  

        Signed [signature]

        Date [date]

   4. Candidates must also email the Postgraduate Education Office their Confirmation of Authorship must also be submitted as a loose document with the project reports.
   5. The title page should include the course name in the University of Cambridge; the title of the report; the student's name and college; and the month and year of submission.
   6. Students will submit all project material via the virtual learning environment (VLE).
4. The report should clearly indicate the scope and results of any experimental work done. All data used should be clearly described. Non-essential appendices may be appropriate to present this material and to enable reproducibility, but keep in mind that you cannot expect the examiner to read these. For example, if the results are copious, they should be summarised in the main text and given in full in a non-essential appendix. Similarly additional straightforward yet verbose elements of a proof can be placed into a non-essential appendix. Where a project has as its main aim the production of a piece of software, the project report should state clearly what test procedures were adopted and should include test output.
5. All collaboration should be specified in an acknowledgements section.
6. The research project should explicitly describe the starting point for the project, making clear what existing software or other resources were used. If a student is building on any work that they did before starting Part III, this should be indicated. The report should include a concise summary of the work undertaken by the student in the course of the project.
7. Original software produced by the student should be made available for inspection by the examiners. This can be done by sending supervisors a pointer to a readable directory at the time of submission, or by other means that may be agreed by the supervisor and an examiner. Where software has been produced by extending an existing piece of software, then those parts of the existing software which are necessary to understand the operation of the new software should be included but should be clearly marked as being not the student's own work.
8. The Faculty Board approves project report titles during the Lent Term. If you wish to change the title from that originally specified, you must discuss this with your supervisor and notify the Postgraduate Education Manager in good time so that the Faculty Board may be informed, and by no later than the third week in May. 
9. Students should note that the situation regarding intellectual property generated by a project is complex. Students should discuss with their supervisor any result which they consider might have commercial significance and they must do so in good time before publication or other disclosure so that suitable protection can be obtained.
10. Where third parties are involved, such as companies proposing and/or being involved in supervising Part III projects, there may be a need for a collaboration agreement to be signed before commencing the project. This agreement will typically cover confidentiality and specify how exploitation of any results might be achieved. No commitment with regard to the assignment of IPR should be made by a student without taking advice from the University (via the academic supervisor). Companies should note in this respect that it is extremely difficult to assign IPR up-front and the University prefers to work on the basis of an exclusive license to any generated IPR being negotiated on fair and reasonable terms after the project has finished when the full nature of the exploitation is known.
11. All students should note that publication for reports is represented by their being made generally available, as in the Department's library, and should also observe two general consequences of the formal rules:
    
    1. that student projects should not make use of any material supplied by an organisation to which any confidentiality is attached, or, without appropriate safeguards, where the organisation wishes to retain rights; and
    2. that student projects should not make use of any material supplied by others within the university, e.g. by the supervisor or other staff members, without their rights being safeguarded; written statements would appear appropriate for this. Prudent students might attach a copyright declaration to their reports.
12. Students are also reminded that they have signed the Computing Service form agreeing to abide by the Rules Governing Use of University Information Services, and that this applies to University resources used for projects, as for other course work.

Updated 

November 2022