CprE 585X: Review for project 10
http://home.engineering.iastate.edu/~alexs/classes/2011_Spring_585X/final_projects/Cao_Clausman_Luong_project.pdf

1. Project number and Title
10
Inducing Out-of-Body Experiences by Visual, Auditory and Tactile Sensor Modality Manipulation

2. Should this project be considered for the Best Project award? (yes/no)

yes

3. Should this project be considered for the top 3 project awards? (yes/no)

yes

4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall organization/clarity
of the project report? (1-10)

9

5. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall project idea? (1-10)

10

6. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall research
contribution of the project idea, methodology and/or results?  (1-10)

10

* Overall, is the project report clear, concise, and well-organized?

Thanks for the table of contents, this made the report easier to read. The report looks very professional and well organized overall. However, rather than a single piece this should probably be at least two separate conference submissions and possibly a third unifying paper. 

* How does the project idea and methodology fit within the framework
of Developmental Robotics?

The idea of OBE is important for several reasons, tantamount among these is the notion of consciousness and the replication of the human experience within synthetic environments or within synthetic entities. As a general concern, I think the connection between human developmenta and robotic development should be emphasized more within the field of developmental robotics. This coursse and these authors did a good job of examining this connection. 

* Describe what you like BEST about the project?

I really like the project idea. I think the replication of the OBE found in previous research is a clever extension that also serves to question/confirm previous results through replication. 

* Describe what you like LEAST about the project?

The experiment was almost too complicated. Presenting all of the results within one paper may be problematic and it would probably be wise to split this into separate papers. 

There is a body of prior work that I am aware of that was not cited.

The authors did not do a sufficient job at explaining the statistical significance of their findings. 

I also feel like there is more prior work from other fields, such as Psychology and Neuroscience, that have extensively dealt with the idea of OBE. Examining this prior work would strengthen the authors' work by broadening the range of possible comparisons and claims. 

* Do the methods, results and contributions of the final project
correspond to what was presented in the initial project proposal?

Yes, as far as I can tell, these are the same experiments. Although the VRAC itself was not used (as I believe was originally intended) the final experiment was still a clever implementation. 

* Are there any major details left out with regards to the methods,
algorithms, or experimental design described in the report?

No, the authors were especially thorough. I like that the survey was included at the end and that the authors did not clutter their writting with this. 

* Do the experimental results reported in the paper demonstrate success?

Yes. However, these results to not appear to be significant. I did not clearly see any comparative tests for significance. Due to the similarity with humanities, this paper would have benefited from such a comparison. Nonetheless, there are significant trends that need to be explored and represent an interesting phenomenon that is clearly occuring based upon the apparatus and mehtod employed. 

* Do you have any suggestions for improvement and future work?

This is picky, but, in general, bar-graphs are better than pie charts. When representing the results from the surveys, try putting a bunch of bar charts next to each other- this will allow readers to more easily and quickly analyze results -> more reader involvement. 

* How close is the final project report to being publishable as a
conference or journal paper (consider the research papers that were
part of the course reading)? What would it take to get there?

This is problematic. The authors have done greate work, but I do not feel that it is cohesive enough for a single submission. This is not a consequence of poor organization since the authors excel at this. Rather, I see this as possiblly two separate conference submissions along with the possibilty of a single unifying paper coming out that connects the two into a 'scientific discovery' paper. This sort of thing is farily common in academics and would also benefit the authors with more publications.