Extra Credit Assignment:

Write a paper on a topic of your choosing.
No two students may use the same topic.
Total length should be between 1000 and 2000 words. (about 4-8 pages)

Must email instructor to ok topic before proceeding.
Email for topic must contain a short paragraph explaining
the area that you wish to explore.  The idea is to take
something that we have brushed the surface of in class
and explore it in more depth.

Format: Simple title page, with single staple, no fancy covers.
Double spaced text.  Fully documented with end-notes.
An electronic copy must be also emailed to the instructor.
(If diagrams are used, you may use Microsoft Word or other
word processing document format)

Due Date: Must be turned in by the final exam.  No exceptions.

Grading:  May increase your final grade by up to 7 points.
Paper will be graded on difficulty of material covered,
completeness of topic coverage, originality of arguments presented.

Plagiarism: All papers will be checked via the web
site http://www.turnitin.com/ Plagiarism will not be tolerated.

Style: I will not be paying special attention to style, but
papers that are not formatted in a standard way may have
points deducted.  I expect that the paper will have
an introduction, a body, and conclusions.  A section
outlining topics for further exploration that this paper
doesn't cover might be a good idea as well.

Some sites to start at if you need help in with the style.
     http://www.stthomas.edu/writing/
     http://psdam.mit.edu/2.000/tutorials/writing/technical-writing.html
     http://webster.commnet.edu/mla.htm
     http://webster.commnet.edu/writing/writing.htm
     http://www.quintcareers.com/writing/index.html

Topic ideas:

  •      The interaction between ATM's ABR mechanism, and TCP flow control.
  •      How BER and 8b10b line coding interact.
  •      Different resource allocation mechanisms, and how they can be evaluated.
  •      Comparison of different queueing mechanisms in ATM or packet based switches
  •      Different authentication protocols and how they compare.
  •      Comparison of a filter based firewall and proxy based firewall.