Background and Resources
This page provides a selection of background information that may be useful for the course. Note: I haven't gotten to sort things out here. So some of the links do not quite work yet.
Bibliography/Literature Search Resources
You will be looking for related work for your project. Here are some resources that you may find useful.
ACM Digital Library
The library hosts a vast collection of computer science publications form different areas. (journals, conference proceedings, books, ...)
Accessing Papers: Some papers are behind a paywall. Luckily, UBC has a subscription. To download a paper:
- click on "Get Access" above the abstract.
- select the institutional login
- Search for University of British Columbia. You should then be prompted with the CWL authentication sign.
- You should be redirected back to the paper. Click on the "PDF" button.
Exporting Bibtex:
Next to "PDF" above the abstract there is the '' button. Click on it to
download the citation in Bibtex format. Click on Copy on the bottom right.
References Those are the references this publications cited (usually listed at the end). You can use those to find related work in the past. Often you can jump directly to the citation in the ACM Digital Library.
Citations: Those are other publications that cite this publication. You can use those to find related work in the future. On the small sidebar next to the abstract: click on the arrow between the [i] and the eye. On the opened side menu select the tab "Citations". Here you can find other publications that cited this publication.
Hint: sometimes searching on your favorite search engine with the search term: ["Paper Title" site:dl.acm.org] produces the best results
USENIX Conference Sites
Usenix has all of its conferences as open access where you can find and download the papers. Unfortunately, the papers do not have clickable references as in the ACM Digital Library.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a search engine for academic (and other) publications. Simply insert terms and you will get a list of more or less relevant papers. Learn how to make your query more precise. It also has the "cited by" features where you can look who has cited this article, and a "related articles" feature that should show up related work.
On Writing and Reviewing Papers
- How to write a paper review for CS261
- How to Write a Scientific Paper
- An Evaluation of the Ninth SOSP Submissions, or How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper
- Collected advice on research and writing
- The Task of the Referee
- Writing reviews for systems conferences
- Common Problems with Conference/Journal Papers
On Research and Development
- The Instrumentation of Multics
- Observations on the Development of an Operating System
- The Emperor's Old Clothes
- End-To-End Arguments in System Design
- The Back of the Envelope
- The Envelope is Back
- Considerations on the Insularity of Performance Evaluation
- No Silver Bullet
- Does Systems Research Measure Up?