Project Overview: Each team of students will have chosen an Area of Interest (within a list). They must choose one topic within the area of interest, and gather a few papers on that topic, and summarize them. They may also interview an ECE professor on his/her research related to the chosen topic, and design a plan of classes (ECE and others) for anyone to take if interested in that topic. At the end of the project each team much write a final paper presenting the topic.

Summarizing for the Final Paper: Each member on the team must contribute to the final paper, i.e. write portions of it. The paper must refer to the topic chosen, and explain, for example, the most important feature for that topic, its background, etc… In doing so, each team will use the literature to look for information. With the advent of internet, and the explosion of resources, it is tempting to forget to make references to sources taken from the internet. Make sure you always name all sources from which you have used information. It is also even more tempting to simply copy and paste. Summarizing a set of paper does not mean gathering sentences from the papers you have read and arranging them in a logical way. Even if quotations marks are used (which is fine with the proper source referenced) it will not be acceptable for the ECE 110 final paper: you will be asked to limit to a strict minimum the number of direct quotations from sources. The writing exercise for the ECE 110 final paper should consist of an analysis of each paper read, a synthesis of the information read, and in using your own words to present the information in a summarized way. Paraphrasing is ok, as long as the previously mentioned steps have been taken (do not simply replace a few words in a sentence to make it look like your own; even with the source cited, a poor paraphrasing is plagiarism). You must still list all your sources, (use special marks for the interviewee speaking) and reference them at all appropriate locations.

For Students: It is very well known, and it applies to numerous situations and areas, that we often learn much more by doing than by reading only. There are great educational benefits for students to use Turnitin: if desired, each team will be able to submit (at most twice) its paper to the "turnitin test" before it actually counts for a grade. Each team will get a complete report that will inform them on the originality of the paper. The report contains details for portions that are questionable (plagiarized). This early assessment will help students become more aware of plagiarism issues and to better understand what is acceptable and what is not in terms of plagiarizing. It will, as a result, help them to become more responsible as members of an engineering group or institution, learn its rules, especially those related to academic integrity. We believe that this learning experience has one great component in the sense that learning will be achieved in a relaxed environnement, with less pressure, and no fear, since no grade will be generated from the early originality assessment.

As Instructors committed to our mission, we are very serious about all aspects of teaching duties, including those related to academic integrity. By giving the option to all students of an early assessment of their paper through Turnitin, instructors expect a 100% success: they hope that students will have learned topic researching, and analyzing, and how to avoid plagiarism in a positive environnement, hopefully making this project a lifelong learning experience. By allowing students to precheck their work if so desired, we expect nothing less but all papers -from all teams- to be "reasonably" original (below a "reasonable" percent for plagiarized parts). We will naturally proceed with the appropriate university procedures in case of academic integrity infractions; we might reserve the right to ask students for an oral presentation of their written work.