# Task Selection

Task selection and defining research objectives are critical steps in any research project, providing focus, direction, relevance, and a feasibility check. This section aims to develop essential skills for academic research, including collaboration, literature review, critical thinking, project planning, and communication. You will learn to narrow broad interests into manageable projects, identify gaps in current knowledge, and clearly articulate their research ideas.

## Exercise

1. If you have not already formed a project team, navigate to \[People] in Canvas, type "**Team**" in the search bar, and form a team of 2-3 members who share interest in the same [research area](/ai-research-practicum/research-areas/ai-conferences.md).
2. Find three papers closely related to your team's research project that can serve as baselines. For each paper, provide an overview of its key methods, results, and main findings.
3. For each paper, provide an overview of its key methods, results, and main findings.
4. Select a specific task for your team and describe the types of data and/or domains you plan to focus on.
5. Outline the primary research objectives of your project, which may include:
   * Devising an innovative methodology that outperforms previous approaches on specific or relevant datasets.
   * Constructing a novel dataset that facilitates task adaptation to new domains or languages.
   * Conducting a comprehensive analysis of state-of-the-art models, focusing on comparative aspects to gain insights into their strengths and weaknesses.
   * Developing a practical application employing existing resources to advance translational research.
6. Create a concise slide presentation summarizing the above activities (one per group), and submit it to \[Assignments → Exercises → **Task Selection**] in Canvas.

{% hint style="success" %}
The novelty of your research will be assessed based on these objectives. Ensure that your objectives are designed to address the challenges outlined in the [motivation](/ai-research-practicum/introduction/motivation.md).
{% endhint %}


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