CS357: Foundations of Artificial Intelligence - Literature Review (50 Points)

Purpose, Task, and Criteria

Purpose: To ground your project in evidence rather than intuition, and to make your understanding of the problem genuinely multi-disciplinary by reading what the stakeholder's own field says about it.

Task: Individually annotate 2-3 credible sources, then as a team write a one-page synthesis that connects them to your problem statement and names the gap your project will address.

Criteria: Assessed on faithful summaries in your own words, specific credibility assessments, relevance tied to the problem statement, a required span of at least two disciplinary perspectives, and a gap that actually follows from the sources; see the rubric below for the full breakdown.

Assignment Goals

The goals of this assignment are:
  1. To research the team's stakeholder problem through published sources, assessing each source's credibility and relevance to the problem statement (Goal 11)
  2. To build a multi-disciplinary understanding of the problem by drawing sources from at least two disciplinary perspectives, including the stakeholder's own discipline (Goal 12)
  3. To synthesize individually gathered sources into a team-level account of what is known and the specific gap the project will address
  4. To practice information literacy — finding, reading, and critically evaluating scholarly and technical sources

Background Reading and References

Please refer to the following readings and examples offering templates to help get you started:

The Assignment

In this Project Thread milestone, your team finds out what the world already knows about your stakeholder’s problem. The review runs in two phases: Phase 1 is individual — each team member builds an annotated bibliography of 2-3 sources — and Phase 2 is a team synthesis — one page connecting everyone’s sources to the problem statement and naming the gap your project will address. The assignment goes out at wk5.0 (as your Stakeholder Briefs come back from peer review); Phase 1 is due wk6.1 and Phase 2 is due wk7.1.

A literature review is not a book report and not a pile of links. It is an argument: here is what is known, here is who knows it, here is the hole in it, and here is why that hole matters to our stakeholder. The two-phase structure means every member does real source work (there is no way to ride along on a teammate’s reading), and the synthesis forces the sources to talk to each other.

Key Concepts

Term Plain-English Definition Where It Appears
Annotated bibliography A list of sources where each entry carries a paragraph of your own: what the source says, whether to trust it, and why it matters here. Phase 1
Scholarly source Peer-reviewed work (journal article, conference paper, academic book). Its claims were checked by other experts before publication — which makes it slower and usually more careful than other sources. Phase 1 requirement
Technical documentation Official docs, standards, white papers, and engineering reports. Authoritative about how a thing works; not evidence about whether it helps anyone. Allowed, in its lane. Phase 1
Credibility assessment Your judgment of what a source can support, based on venue, method, incentives, and recency — not a binary “credible/not.” Every annotation
Synthesis Writing that connects sources to each other and to your problem — agreement, conflict, and complement — rather than summarizing them one at a time. Phase 2
The gap The specific missing thing your project will address: a question no source answers, a population no study covers, a tool no one has built for this context. Phase 2
Citation chaining Finding sources by following a good source’s references (backward) and the papers that cite it (forward). The fastest honest way to map a literature. Information literacy guidance

Phase 1: Individual Annotated Bibliography (due wk6.1)

Each team member, individually, finds and annotates 2-3 sources relevant to the team’s problem statement. Requirements per person:

  • At least one scholarly source (peer-reviewed article, conference paper, or academic book chapter).
  • Technical documentation is allowed (official docs, standards, agency or NGO reports) where it is the right tool — but it supplements, not replaces, the scholarly requirement.
  • Coordinate as a team so that, combined, at least one source comes from the stakeholder’s discipline and the set is not three copies of the same paper. Divide the territory in a standup and log the division.

Each annotation (150-250 words) has three labeled parts:

  1. Summary — what the source claims and on what evidence, in your own words. If you cannot summarize it without the abstract open, read it again.
  2. Credibility assessment — venue and review process, method and sample, who funded or published it and what they might want, how current it is, and — most importantly — what this source can and cannot support. (“Peer-reviewed” is the start of an assessment, not the end of one.)
  3. Relevance to the problem — which element of your team’s problem statement this source informs, and what it changes: does it confirm an assumption, kill one, or open a question?

Also note how you found it (database and search terms, or what you chained from). You are the primary author of your own annotations — they are individual work, individually graded.

Phase 2: Team Synthesis (due wk7.1)

One page, with a named primary author (drafting responsibility — the whole team reviews and signs). The synthesis must:

  • Connect the team’s combined sources to the problem statement from your Stakeholder Brief — organized by idea, not by source (“Three of our sources agree that X; the exception is…” rather than “Source 1 says… Source 2 says…”).
  • Show where the disciplinary perspectives converge, conflict, or measure success differently — and what that means for the project.
  • Identify the gap the project will address, and show it follows from the sources: what exists, what is missing, why the missing piece matters to your stakeholder.
  • Note honestly where your source base is weakest (the seed of future work, and of your proposal’s risk section).

Hard requirement: the team’s combined review must span at least two disciplinary perspectives (e.g., computer science and public health; education and economics), including the stakeholder’s discipline. A review whose every source is a CS paper fails this requirement regardless of quality.

Information Literacy: Finding and Reading Sources Critically

Two ways into the same skill — a search recipe and a reading protocol.

The search recipe:

  1. Start at the library databases (via the Ursinus library site) and Google Scholar, not the open web. Search the stakeholder’s vocabulary and yours: the education literature says “formative feedback” where CS says “evaluation loop.”
  2. When you find one good source, chain it: mine its references for older foundations (backward), and use Google Scholar’s “Cited by” for what came after (forward).
  3. To reach the stakeholder’s discipline, look up which journals their field actually reads (your interview’s “what should we read?” question was for this) — or ask a librarian, which is not a fallback but a professional move.
  4. Log your search terms as you go; each annotation reports how its source was found.

The critical-reading protocol (for a scholarly paper): read the abstract, then the introduction’s last paragraph (the claimed contribution), then the figures and tables, then the conclusion’s limitations — then decide whether the middle is worth your hour. As you read, keep three questions open: What is the actual evidence (sample, method, effect size)? Who is not represented in it? What do the authors themselves say it cannot show? For technical documentation, the questions shift: What version is this, is it current, and is it describing designed behavior or measured behavior?

A note on AI assistance: you may use AI tools to find candidate sources or to explain difficult passages, but every annotation must be written by you from the actual source, every quote and claim must be verified against the source itself (models fabricate citations fluently), and all AI assistance goes in the disclosure. An annotated bibliography with a hallucinated source is an integrity violation, not a formatting error.

Deliverables

  • Phase 1 (wk6.1): each member submits their own annotated bibliography (2-3 annotated sources, search notes, complete citations) individually via the LMS.
  • Phase 2 (wk7.1): one team PDF containing the one-page synthesis (primary author named), the combined bibliography, all members’ typed signatures, and the team AI-use disclosure.

Reflection Prompts

Answer individually in your Reflection Notebook, keyed to the Open Questions (Goal 15):

  • How can we understand the world? — Pick the source from another discipline that most changed how you see the problem. What does that discipline accept as evidence that surprised you, and has your idea of what “knowing something” means shifted at all?
  • What should matter to me? — The gap your team named is a claim about what deserves work. Whose needs does that gap center, and whose did your sources let you overlook?
  • If collaboration beyond your team occurred, identify it. Do you certify that your annotations represent your own original reading and writing, and that the synthesis represents the team’s? Please identify any and all portions of your submission that were not originally written by you.
  • Approximately how many hours did this assignment take you personally (I will not judge you for this at all…I am simply using it to gauge if the assignments are too easy or hard)?

Submission

In your submission, please include answers to any questions asked on the assignment page, as well as the questions listed below, in your README file. If you wrote code as part of this assignment, please describe your design, approach, and implementation in a separate document prepared using a word processor or typesetting program such as LaTeX. This document should include specific instructions on how to build and run your code, and a description of each code module or function that you created suitable for re-use by a colleague. In your README, please include answers to the following questions:
  • Describe what you did, how you did it, what challenges you encountered, and how you solved them.
  • Please answer any questions found throughout the narrative of this assignment.
  • If collaboration with a buddy was permitted, did you work with a buddy on this assignment? If so, who? If not, do you certify that this submission represents your own original work?
  • Please identify any and all portions of your submission that were not originally written by you (for example, code originally written by your buddy, or anything taken or adapted from a non-classroom resource). It is always OK to use your textbook and instructor notes; however, you are certifying that any portions not designated as coming from an outside person or source are your own original work.
  • Approximately how many hours it took you to finish this assignment (I will not judge you for this at all...I am simply using it to gauge if the assignments are too easy or hard)?
  • Your overall impression of the assignment. Did you love it, hate it, or were you neutral? One word answers are fine, but if you have any suggestions for the future let me know.
  • Using the grading specifications on this page, discuss briefly the grade you would give yourself and why. Discuss each item in the grading specification.
  • Any other concerns that you have. For instance, if you have a bug that you were unable to solve but you made progress, write that here. The more you articulate the problem the more partial credit you will receive (it is fine to leave this blank).

Assignment Rubric

Description Pre-Emerging (< 50%) Beginning (50%) Progressing (85%) Proficient (100%)
Individual Annotations — Summary, Credibility, and Relevance (Goal 11) (40%) Annotations are missing, or are copied abstracts rather than the student's own account Two to three sources are listed but annotations summarize only, with no credibility assessment or no connection to the team's problem statement, or the required source types (at least one scholarly; at least one from the stakeholder's discipline across the set) are not met Each annotation contains a summary, a credibility assessment, and a relevance statement, but at least one element is thin — a credibility assessment that says "peer-reviewed, so credible" or a relevance claim that does not mention the stakeholder's problem Each of the student's 2-3 annotations contains a faithful summary in the student's own words, a specific credibility assessment (venue, method, funding or incentive, recency, and what the source can and cannot support), and a relevance statement that ties the source to a named element of the team's problem statement; at least one source is scholarly and technical documentation is used appropriately where included (Goal 11)
Disciplinary Breadth (Goal 12) (20%) All sources are from a single perspective, or the stakeholder's discipline is absent from the team's combined review A second discipline appears in the source list but the annotations do not engage with how that discipline frames the problem The combined review spans two disciplinary perspectives including the stakeholder's discipline, and annotations engage each field's framing, but the perspectives never meet — no annotation or synthesis paragraph notes where the fields agree, disagree, or measure differently The team's combined review spans at least two disciplinary perspectives, at least one source comes from the stakeholder's discipline, and the writing shows the perspectives interacting — at least one explicit observation of where the disciplines converge, conflict, or define success differently, and what that means for the project (Goal 12)
Team Synthesis and Gap Identification (Goals 11, 12) (25%) No synthesis is submitted, or it is a list of the annotations restated The synthesis connects some sources to each other but not to the problem statement, or names no gap The one-page synthesis connects the sources to the problem statement and proposes a gap, but the gap is generic ("more work is needed") or is not actually supported by the reviewed sources The one-page synthesis, with a named primary author, weaves the team's sources into a coherent account of what is known about the stakeholder's problem, states the specific gap the project will address, shows that the gap follows from the reviewed sources (what exists, what is missing, why it matters to the stakeholder), and honestly notes where the team's sources are weakest (Goals 11, 12)
Information Literacy, Process, and Submission (15%) An incomplete submission is provided Citations are incomplete or unformatted, search strategies are undocumented, or the Project Thread process elements (signatures, AI-use disclosure) are missing Citations are complete and consistent and the submission includes all process elements, with a minor gap such as an undocumented search strategy for one source Every source has a complete, consistently formatted citation; each annotation notes how the source was found (database, search terms, or citation chain); the submission carries all members' signatures, names the synthesis's primary author, and includes an AI-use disclosure stating what was AI-assisted (including any AI-assisted search or summarization) and how it was verified against the actual sources

Please refer to the Style Guide for code quality examples and guidelines.