- Lecturer: Catherine Wilkins
There are two strands to this course: students may either choose a pre-approved project from a menu of six to eight possibilities, or suggest a project and supervisor of their own. Each pre-approved project has a quota of two to three students but there is no limit on those suggesting their own project. This course may be offered for examination at Part B as a double unit. It is equivalent to a 32-hour lecture course. Generally, students will have 6 hours of supervision distributed over Michaelmas and Hilary terms. Students considering writing a project should read the Part B Projects Guidance available at: https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/members/students/undergraduate-courses/teaching-and-learning/part-b-students/projects
There are two strands to BSP with students having the option of either taking Strand A or Strang B.
Strand A is where students select a pre-prepared, pre-approved project from our list of projects; places on these projects will be strictly limited due to supervisor availability.
Strand B is where students find their own project and supervisor, and submit a proposal for approval.
Due to limited places on Strand A, to be considered for this option students are advised to apply for BSP on time, and not to assume a space has been reserved for them until it has been confirmed.
Both strands are treated identically once the course starts with students expected to:
1. Learn about a current research problem by reading one or more relevant research papers together with appropriate material from textbooks.
2. Write up the problem and their findings in a report that is properly supported with detail, discussion, and good referencing, including any computational work if applicable.
3. Undertake peer review.
4. Give an oral presentation to a non-specialist audience.
Whilst the Strand A projects for 2025-26 are still being finalised, the projects considered are on topics such as:
1. Diffusion Limited Aggregation
2. Fractal Sets and Measures
3. Gaussian Fields
4. Modelling HPV
5. Numerical Linear Algebra
6. Thermohaline Circulation
Previous BEE topics (which would now come under Strand B of BSP) are very diverse and have included:
1. Application of Diffusion Models in Bioinformatics
2. Equi-distribution Estimates and Fractional Parts of Polynomials
3. Proof Theory and Diagrammatic Reasoning
4. The Isoperimetric Inequality
Teaching
At the beginning of the course students will be given written instructions for their chosen project.
Michaelmas Term
There will be a lecture (provided by Cath Wilkins) at the beginning of term outlining the course, and a class at the end of term to go over a practice peer review. Between these times, students will read around their chosen topic and take preparatory courses in LaTeX and Matlab, both of which are available from the department and are well documented online. Students will also meet with their specialist supervisor at the start and end of term.
Hilary Term
Week 1: Lecture on key skills, dissertation writing and the structure of the term.
Weeks 1-8: Students will meet regularly with their specialist supervisor.
Weeks 7-8: Help with presentations, including a mock presentation.
Tuesday Week 10: Submission of written report.
Easter vacation: Peer review
Trinity Term
Week 1: Oral presentation
Assessment
Students have sometimes expressed doubts about the predictability or reliability of project assessment. We are therefore concerned:
[i.] to make the assessment scheme as transparent as possible both to students and to assessors;
[ii.] that students who produce good project work should be able to achieve equivalent grades to students who write good exam papers.
The mark breakdown will be as follows:
[a.] Written work 75%
[b.] Oral presentation 15%
[c.] Peer review 10%
Note on [c.]: this may be a new kind of assessment for you. As with journal peer review, the anonymity of both writer and reviewer will be strictly maintained. Each student will be expected to read one other project write-up and to make a careful and well-explained judgement on it. Credit for this will go to the reviewer, not to the writer, whose work will already have been assessed by examiners in the usual way.