Work Term Report

All graduate co-op students should be assigned a supervisor; by the end of the first work term, each graduate co-op student must have a supervisor. The student should contact your supervisor to get advice on choosing the work term report topic.

By the end of the second month of each work term you should select a topic for your work term report. If the work you have been assigned does not lend itself to writing a work term report, the onus is on you to explore potential topics and ask your supervisor if he or she has any topics that would be useful for you to research.

Choosing a topic for a workterm report is sometimes difficult. You are not required to work on something directly related to your work (especially, if your job is not particularly interesting or conductive to such a report). You can pick a different CS topic in any area (e.g., artificial intelligence, computer animimation, computer game design, computer graphics, databases, hardware, programming language design, software engineering methodologies, etc.). Where possible, you should tie the topic to your work experience. For example, if you don't like the operating system used it at your place of work, you might devise a list of useful features for an operating system and then compare the operating system you used to other available operating systems. However, if you are working (say) on a Help Desk and you cannot think of a topic related to your job that is interesting to you, you may choose to write on any technical topic in Information Technology instead.

Remember, the workterm report cannot be something that you're recycling from another class, which would be a violation of the University's academic integrity rules. The workterm report also should not be a day-by-day or week-by-week account of what you did at the office.

If you are still unsure about a topic or how to approach your report please take the following measures:

• Review the work term report section in your co-op student handbook.
• Check out some of the research areas of our faculty members. Might any of them relate to the job you are doing? If so, dig in and learn some more of the background for this type of research.
• Contact the department Co-op Academic Coordinator.

One last reminder: don't leave the report until the end of the work term or start of the academic term. You will find you will not have enough time to complete it!

1. Letter of Submittal. Formal business letter (include academic coordinator's name and address, and student’s name, student number, outline the report's subject, acknowledge people who helped, etc.).
2. Title Page. Student name, student number, report title, student’s work term number (1, 2, 3, or 4), and whether report is for a single or double work term.
3. Table of Contents. List each section of the report and page numbers. You should have a separate list for figures or tables (if applicable).
4. Executive Summary. Justify the report's existence and briefly outline each major point of the report. Then state your conclusion in one sentence.
5. Introduction. Background on the report, introduction to special terms (e.g., ISAM, VSAM, FDDI, ESDN) that you will be using throughout. 
6. Main Body of the report. Must have at least five (5) but not more than seven (7) pages with 12-point font, typewritten, double-spaced pages with one-inch margins all around.
7. Analysis. The body of the report that includes your discussion of alternatives, presents your arguments, etc.
8. Conclusions. Your analysis should be a buttress for your conclusions.
9. Recommendations. Not always necessary, but may be needed if you're writing an evaluation, or similar.
10. Appendices. Includes things like data, or code.
11. Bibliography. List any books, magazines, journals, FAQs you have used. This can be a good starting path for readers who're interested in learning more about the subject.

The standard of graduate co-op work term report should be higher than the undergraduate co-op work term report but lower than the project based report. It is a formal technical report. The overall format is similar to the undergraduate work term report. It should be about 25 pages long from introduction to conclusion. 

For consecutive work terms:

If a student is on the first term of a double co-op term, they will submit a shorter report including only Letter of Submittal, Title Page, and Executive Summary at the end of first term and submit a full report at the end of second term.

If a student is on a co-op term spanning 12 consecutive months, they will submit a shorter report including only Letter of Submittal, Title Page, and Executive Summary at the end of first term and full reports at the end of second and third terms.

If a student is on a co-op term spanning 16 consecutive months, they will submit shorter reports including only Letter of Submittal, Title Page, and Executive Summary at the end of first term and third term and full reports at the end of second and fourth terms.

If a student is on a co-op term spanning 20 consecutive months, they will submit shorter reports including only Letter of Submittal, Title Page, and Executive Summary at the end of first term and third term and full reports at the end of second, fourth, and fifth terms.

During the process of constructing their work term reports, students are encouraged to pass their ideas and drafts by their employers for feedback. At this point an employer might express concern that the proposed topic or some information shared in the report is of a proprietary nature and must remain internal to the organization (hence confidential). There are three options in these circumstances:

1. The student chooses a new topic or material for the report that will not expose the proprietary information. This is the recommended course of action.
   
2. The employer requests non-disclosure of the report from the department's Co-op Academic Coordinator. Such a request is required at least six (6) weeks in advance of the end of the work term. If the request is approved, only one faculty member of the Department of Computer Science is made privy to the report. The employer is provided with that member's name and contact information. The member looks at the report only for evaluation purposes and then ensures the report is either destroyed or returned to the employer for safe keeping. This method ensures that confidentiality of proprietary information is maintained, while allowing the Department of Computer Science to evaluate the student's report writing skills and make recommendations needed for subsequent reports.
   
3. The employer requests full confidentiality of the report from the department's Co-op Academic Coordinator. Such a request is required at least six (6) weeks in advance of the end of the work term. If the request is approved, the student writes the report in the same manner as any other co-op report. When the report is completed, it is submitted to the employer instead of the Department of Computer Science.

NOTE: Students are only permitted one (1) confidential work term report during their Computer Science Co-op program. Confidential reports are not be permitted for double work terms under any circumstance.

The employer grades the paper on a pass/fail basis and discusses it with the student. The discussion can occur verbally or in writing. The discussion should highlight the strengths as well as the areas for improvement of the report.