Bill Cowan's Student Page
Philosophy of Graduate Education
All graduate education has two components, a breadth component in which
the student acquires a mature, integrated understanding of his or her field
of knowledge, and a research component in which the student learns how to
conduct research. The breadth component is supposed to demonstrate the
student's ability to teach undergraduate courses, and also plays an important
role in research, because seeing a project in perspective means understanding
its value within a social network, which is the research community. This page
is not, however, about the breadth aspect of graduate education, but about
the research aspect.
We do not really teach students how to do research. What do I mean by
this? Part of truly understanding a subject is knowing how to teach it to
others: its substance is summarized in a collection of concepts and rules,
which can be learned economically by a suitably prepared student. An example
might be the derivative calculus, in which the level of proficiency possessed
by Newton is nowadays achieved before their twentieth year by many students,
who obtain this knowledge using only a small fraction of their available
thinking time. This is possible because mathematicians have developed a
pedagogy of calculus: a collection of notations, instructional methods and
exercises by which students learn. (These comments are not intended to imply
that the pedagogy of calculus has reached anything like an optimal state,
which it has not, according to the testimony of many students.)
Lacking a pedagogy of research we fall back on a more primitive method of
teaching: apprenticeship. A master and an apprentice work together, doing the
activity the apprentice wishes to learn. The apprentice observes the master,
and models his or her actions on the observed actions of the master and, when
the modelling is successful, achieving similar results. The master observes
the apprentice, noticing imprecisions and false turnings, then providing
commentary and correction. The advantage of apprenticeship is that the master
need not be able to articulate what is being taught, and the apprentice need
not be able to articulate what has been learned.
The advantage is, unfortunately, also a disadvantage. Not being able to
articulate what has been learned the apprentice easily becomes discouraged,
`I've been working on my Ph.D. for two years and I haven't learned anything.'
The master, also a victim of this problem, cannot provide any but the most
generic reassurance, which is frequently not enough. The problem is
exacerbated when the apprentice is a graduate student. Why is this so? The
best, and hardest to gain, knowledge re-organizes patterns of thinking in the
student, simplifying conceptual schema. This knowledge, once attained,
drastically changes the way the student thinks about a subject.
Unfortunately, it's then almost impossible to think without it, making it
invisible, or when it's visible, trivial.
Relationship of graduate education to research.
Learning to do research by apprenticeship, graduate students actually do
research. So much is obvious, but what is research? It comprises three
stages:
- finding and defining a research problem,
- solving the research problem, and
- communicating the solution.
There are many tensions among student, supervisor and university in this
process. To get them out in the open, let's look schematically at the goals
of each participant.
- The university wants quantity and predictability, the education process
should graduate as many students as possible, with the learning process
as predictable as possible. Universities very commonly try to model the
graduate education process on undergraduate education, where a
predictable process, taking the specific sequence of courses in the
program, is easily measured in terms of milestones, each course passed
being a measurable increment in the direction of the degree. This is
possible in the undergraduate case, of course, because undergraduate
education occurs in the presence of an established pedagogy. (When the
pedagogy is shaky the system pretends that it is firm.)
- The supervisor is caught between two incompatable goals,
- To maximize the number of students and publications, which makes
granting councils and universities happy, and to minimize the time
acquiring them, which keeps family and friends happy, and
- To maximize the depth of the research ideas in the publications,
which increases the respect of high-ranking researchers.
- Students, in my experience, tend to fall into two relatively distinct
classes: those who wish to have as good a degree as possible as quickly
as possible in order to get on with something else to which the degree is
an entry ticket (Type I), and those who wish to do and learn as much as
possible (Type II).
- Type I students want a predictable process that maximizes the value
of qualifications earned while minimizing time.
- Type II students want the freedom to think independently, and with
minimal constraints.
The above characterization is, of course, a little too glib. Real
students are neither purely Type I nor purely Type II, but exist
somewhere on a continuum joining the two types.
Let's note that there is an obvious consistency amoung the goals of the
university, the Type I students, and the first goal of the supervisor.
Current Students
Doctoral
- Tyler Nowicki
Masters
- Simon Parent
Past Students
Doctoral
- Victor Klassen, 1989, Device Dependent Image Construction for Computer
Graphics.
- Alan Paeth, 1993, Linear Models of Reflective Colour.
- Ben Bauer, 1995, Linear Models in Colour Visual Search, co-supervised
with P. Jolicoeur.
- Masum Hasan, 1996, The Management of Data, Events, and Information
Presentation for Network Management.
- Ian Bell, 1996, Spline-based Tools for Conventional and Reflective
Image Reproduction.
- Wilkin Chau, 1999, Colour Reproduction for Reflective Images.
- Robert Kroeger, 2004, Admission
Control for Independently-authored Realtime Applications.
- Jiwen Huo, 2008,
- Martin Talbot, 2011,
Masters
- D. R. Forsey, 1985, Transposing Harmony
- Mike Schwarz, 1985, An Empirical Evaluation of Interactive Colour
Selection Techniques.
- W, V, Wong, 1987, Harmony for the VAX 11/750.
- Lyn Bartram, 1989, Configurable Multi-tasking: a Method of Experiment
Prototyping in a Multiprocessor Environment.
- Frankie Sun, 1989, Using X11 to Demonstrate Visual Effects.
- Jim Boritz, 1990,
- Scott Flinn, 1990, Visualizing Program Execution in Real Time:
Representing Multi-processor Real Time Program Behaviour as a Statistical
View of State.
- Kevin Schlueter, 1990, Perceptual Synchronization in Window
Systems.
- Marc Gauthier, 1991, Communication Firmware and Distributed File System
Support for the Harmony Realtime Operating System.
- George Heckman, 1991, Implementation and Evaluation of a Video
Compression System Based on the CCITT Standard Recommendation H.261.
- Marco Imperatore, 1991, Designing and Implementing Configurable Systems
for Prototyping and Controlling Multitask Realtime Applications.
- Jim Lai, 1991, Implementation of Colour Design Tools Using the OSA
Uniform Colour System.
- Blair MacIntyre, 1991, A Constraint-based Approach to Dynamic Colour
Management for Windowing Interfaces.
- Teresa Lau, 1992, Cost-benefit Analysis in Software Engineering.
- Philippe Bertrand, 1993, A Server-less Window System for Multi-tasking,
Multi-processor Systems.
- Heloise Doucet, 1993, Design of a User Interface for Adding Multiple
Dancers to the Benesh Notation Editor.
- Lijiang Fang, 1993, Constraint-based Rendering for Scenes with High
Dynamic Ranges.
- Louis Lin, 1993, Using Visual Textures in Window Systems.
- Ed Dengler, 1994, Perceptual Properties of Graph Layouts.
- Pat Finnigan, 1994, The Effect of Format on Performance in Display
Differentiation.
- Robert Kroeger, 1994, Sonification: Adding Streams of Sound to a User
Interface.
- Fabrice Jaubert, 1995, A Study of Delays and De-synchronization in a
Multiple-view Direct Manipulation Task.
- Sandra Loop, 1995, Depth from Shading as an Attentional Cue in User
Interfaces.
- Eduardo d'Oliveira, 1996, Growing Software: An Economic Analysis.
- Thomas Pflaum, 1996, Colour and Reflectance in Image Synthesis.
- Bill Wallace, 1996, A Theoretical Time Model for Searching Menu
Systems.
- Michael Wong, 1998, Statistical Models to Guide Just-in-Time
Compilation.
- Tom Glover, 1999, Education Strategies for Optimized Output in the
Presence of Skill Obsolescence.
- Celine Latulipe, 1999, A Longitudinal Target Selection Study with Force
Feedback.
- Raymond Yiu, 2000, Double-Blind Scores of an Object-Oriented Modeling
Survey.
- Maggie Dulat, 2001, The Force Buffer: A New Architecture for Force
Feedback.
- Chris O'Sullivan, 2001, Scalable Distributed Virtual Worlds.
- Navid Sadakali, 2001, Perspective and Perception in Computer
Graphics.
- Josee Lajoie, 2002, Slow Animation: Animations as Painting.
- Joanne McKinley, 2002, Volume
Visualisation via Variable-Detail Non-Photorealistic Rendering.
- Tim MacPherson, 2003, Applying Game Theory to User Interfaces.
- Guillaume Poirier, 2003, Human Skin
Modelling and Rendering.
- Rui Xu, 2003, Political Aspects of Ubiquitous Computing.
- Erin Lester, 2005, Early
Language Learning is a Good Model for Studying Early Interface
Learning.
- Edwin Vane, 2006, Composer-centred
Computer-aided Soundtrack Composition.
- Maria Wong, 2006, Emotion Assessment in the
Evaluation of Affective Interfaces.
- Jeff Dicker, 2008
- Vladimir Levin, 2008
- Jingwuan Huang, 2010
- Cherry Zhang, 2011
- Eugene Greene, 2011
Undergraduate (mostly) Research Assistants
- Olivier Blanc
- Richard Billson,
- Elodie Fourquet, 2002.
- Shawn Morel, 2005.
- Eoghan Sherry, 2006,
- Calvin Ho, 2009
- Eric Miranda, 2009
- Maxime Quiblier, 2009-2010.
- Daniel Goc, 2010
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