|
 |
ERASMUS Intensive Program 2001
Collegio Volta, Pavia - Italy
May 7-18, 2001 |
 |
Introduction
The Intensive Program IP2001 took place in Pavia at the
Collegio Volta from May 7th to May 18th.
16 students as well as 6 teachers have participated to this IP2001
(a list of participants is available).
Most of the two weeks were dedicated to research work in small groups of one
teacher and four or five students from different countries. Several plenary
sessions were scheduled to synchronize the parallel group works and to
stimulate the cross talk between groups.
Monday 7th: on the first day short presentations introduced the
teachers, students and topics;
Friday 18th (morning): the final presentation of the results
obtained during these two weeks.
The four research groups treated the following topics: Machine vision
in 3D led by Robert Sablatnig and Martin Kampel from Vienna (Austria);
Scale-space face detection in unconstrained images led by
Stéphane Bres and Franck Lebourgeois from Lyon (France);
Shape description via Fourier analysis led by Alberto Aguado from
Surrey (United Kingdom);
Document analysis systems led by Luca Lombardi from Pavia (Italy).
In order to emphasize the cultural and scientific exchanges, all the working
groups have been located in the same building, sharing the same resources
(library, computer rooms ...). Moreover, the location of students' rooms
allowed to limit to the very minimum the every day transportations.
Finally, social events have been organised: a guided tour to the Faculty of
Engineering and the historical buildings of Pavia University (Monday,
May 7th); a visit in Venice (Saturday, May 12th); a social dinner at
Chalet della Certosa (Wednesday, May 16th).
The benefits of IP2001
The main benefit of such IP is obviously the cultural exchanges for both
teachers and students.
Also this year, we had students of many countries even being sent to the
IP by only four University partners.
In order to preserve this benefit, we have to convince students and teachers
at our partner's institutes from as many countries as possible.
However, two weeks without any breaks are required by the ERASMUS
regulations and in order to complete such an intensive program.
This is a too strong constraint for many teachers and students (due to the
exams and mainly the diversity of the European systems).
This is why this year two of our partners (Lyon and Vienna) decided to send
two teachers, one for each week (and this can involve problems in
insuring the continuity of the research group's work and moreover, the
transportation cost is increased by splitting the teaching).
The educational structure of this year's program was more or less the
same for all four research groups and consisted of the following activities:
- Teaching units: The teachers introduce the basic concepts of the
domain, the
content of the study to be carried out by the group (including the teacher
which must be a member of the group and not an external advisor).
This introduction is required because the students come from very different
grades and range from undergraduates to PhD students.
- Studying the literature: Further insight in the research topic
requires to acquire the state of the art.
This is mainly done by searching some bibliography and reading papers
selected by the teachers. It is of importance that within a short period,
the teacher focuses the readings of the students to the most important works
related to the topic. Thus, the teacher must have prepared this list of
works and/or really do the bibliography with the students.
These readings must also give rise to an interactive analysis inside the
group in order to extract the main ideas and concepts.
This part is the second main benefit of the IP. Indeed, in most standard
situations, the students do not have immediate feedback from an expert when
they have to perform such bibliograhic research, e.g for their thesis.
We argue that this is a very valuable experience for the students
(in depth analysis of specialised papers with an expert) of any level and
especially for those who will start or just started a PhD program.
- Proposal and/or experiments: Depending on the topic, the
innovative work of each group is a proposal, e.g. a set of trends toward a
better approach of the main drawbacks of the techniques found in the
literature and/or a set of experiments related to the topic. Experiments,
especially in computer vision domain, are not easy to perform in such a
short period. However mainly all the groups succesfully finished such
experiments taking advantages of the computer facilities offered by the
teachers on local computers or through the network.
- Presentations: Each group had to prepare two oral presentations
of twenty minutes each as well as a written report. Thus any student had to
speak in front of a quite large audience.
This is another benefit of the IP. Even more, these presentations and the
report have to be ready on time and most of the students and the teachers
understood the last night why this exchange program is called intensive
program.
A short feedback
The last day of the IP, the students had to fill a feedback form.
The main points can be summarized as follows:
| |
Too short |
|
<-> |
|
Too long |
| The amount of time used for the presentations at the beginning
of the IP was |
|
|
8 |
1 |
2 |
| |
No |
|
<-> |
|
Yes |
The presentations at beginning were interesting
|
1 |
|
1 |
|
11 |
| |
Too short |
|
<-> |
|
Too long |
| The amount of time used for teaching was |
2 |
|
9 |
|
2 |
| |
No |
|
<-> |
|
Yes |
| There was too much theory in the lectures |
7 |
1 |
3 |
|
2 |
There was too much practical work in the lectures
|
5 |
1 |
4 |
|
|
| |
Too short |
|
<-> |
|
Too long |
| The amount of time used for the preparation of the final talk
and final presentation was |
5 |
1 |
5 |
2 |
1 |
| |
Very bad |
|
<-> |
|
Very good |
The technical facilities for writing and preparing were
|
3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
|
| |
No |
|
<-> |
|
Yes |
| In general, the topics presented at the IP2001 were
interesting |
|
2 |
2 |
|
10 |
I was able to extent my background knowledge and is useful
for my future work
|
|
2 |
1 |
|
9 |
| |
Very bad |
|
<-> |
|
Very good |
Overall rating for the IP2001
|
|
2 |
3 |
2 |
6 |
As a conclusion, here are some free advices and/or reports from the
students:
- More computing facilities will be better (specially Internet).
Publishing topics earlier to be able to select carefully.
Finally, we'd like to thank all Italian people (prof. and students) for
their effort, help. They are really, very nice people. Hope to meet you again.
We enjoyed the place, weather, people very much. Thanx.
- The design of the projects and the titles should be chosen more carefully
and according to students interests. For example, each project should be
divided in smaller tasks-steps, so the team can present some results in the
case that one task does not work. Additionally, if several tasks can be
performed parallel by team members and put them together at the end, it would
be more efficient.
- Topics studied in IP2001 are interesting. It will be useful, if the
topics have more common relation, in such a manner that all groups can
work together.
- I believe it is very nice time for going in Italy. And so the Italian
people are very kind, specially the organisators. I have only one notice.
In field of Internet in the beging and also the reception in the beging.
That is meaning it is very difficult for coming here for the people don't
speak Italian language. Also, concerning the restaurants universitary,
it is not very good organized. It is very far from the Collegio A. Volta.
Finally, I want to thanks all people, which organized this one IP2001 and my
2 Italian Prof. for the eating in Chartoza and for Vineze.
Thank.
|