PSI Seminar: Security and Privacy

This page holds the binding rules for participants. Why the seminar is built this way, and what lecturers should know who would like to adopt the format, is described in the concept for lecturers.

The assignment: one essay in three versions

The essay explains one concept from security or privacy to advanced bachelor students, clearly and correctly, in 2500 words. The topics come from a list compiled by the instructor. The list is in the VC course; topics are assigned at the end of the session on 20 October according to the participants’ preferences. Whoever is absent on that date receives one of the remaining topics.

The essay is written in three versions, and this page uses the same three names throughout:

Dates

The seminar meets on Tuesdays.

Tools and LLM access

Any tool is permitted at all stages, including LLMs. The exception is the supervised revision on 2 February, which takes place without internet and without an LLM.

Participants receive centrally provided access to a current LLM for the duration of the seminar. For AI-generated content in submitted texts, the chair’s policy AI-Defend v1-Upload applies.

A text that an LLM produced and that nobody edited will generally not meet the assessment criteria. The seminar does not try to establish whether an LLM was used. It examines whether participants understand their text and can defend it.

Pair editing on 8 December

In pair editing, two participants read each other’s first drafts in the seminar room and discuss both texts. This feedback is not graded. Participants work it into their text on the same day and hand in the revised draft; LLMs are permitted for this.

What to bring: a printout of one’s own first draft, with line numbers if possible. Reading and marking up are done on paper.

Pairs: The instructor assigns the pairs and announces them at the start of the session. With an odd number of participants, one group forms a trio in which each person reads one draft and receives feedback on their own.

The 90 minutes:

• 25 minutes: both read the other person’s draft at the same time and mark it up.
• 20 minutes: feedback on the first draft. The person who read it speaks first, then both.
• 20 minutes: feedback on the second draft, in the same way.
• 15 minutes: each person plans alone what to change that evening. During this time the instructor moves from pair to pair.

Reading task: The reader answers four questions about the draft. What is its main point, in one sentence? Which passage is the strongest? Where could I no longer follow? Which claim do I doubt?

The Referat: reading another participant’s draft

The Referat is not about the speaker’s own topic but about another participant’s revised draft. It lasts 12 to 15 minutes and shows how closely and critically that draft was read.

Who reads whom. The assignment forms a ring: person 1 gives a Referat about person 2’s draft, person 2 about person 3’s, and the last person about person 1’s. Nobody gives a Referat about the draft of the person who reads theirs. The pair-editing partner is a different person from the one who gives the Referat about one’s own draft. The assignment is announced on 8 December, after the revised drafts have been handed in.

Three approaches. The speaker chooses the approach the draft needs. This choice is part of the grade: a weak draft that is merely retold, or a good draft that is picked apart, shows that the draft was misjudged.

After the talk. The Referat is followed by a discussion in the group and a short reply from the writer. Finally the instructor picks a sentence or paragraph from the draft, and the speaker improves it on the spot: 90 seconds to think, without any aid, then the new version is read aloud.

Notes. During the Referat about their draft, the writer takes notes on the feedback, on paper handed out by the instructor. The instructor collects the sheets at the end of the session and returns them on 2 February. Like an exam booklet, the notes stay in the room, so they cannot be expanded afterwards with an LLM.

Supervised revision on 2 February

The final essay is written in 180 minutes in the seminar room, without internet and without an LLM. It is handed in at the end of the session, together with a short response.

At the start, participants receive:

• their own notes from the Referat about their draft,
• a reviewer report by the instructor on the revised draft. It names exactly two issues: a question about clarity or structure, and an objection on substance.

Participants write on their own laptop, which stays offline during the session. They may bring the sources they used as local files and a printout of the revised draft, but no prepared passages of text.

The response explains how the final essay addresses the two issues of the reviewer report and the feedback from the Referat. The reviewer report is what counts most. If the Referat about one’s own draft was weak, that is no disadvantage.

The instructor is present and answers organisational questions, but no questions on content.

Assessment

The grade has three parts:

Criteria for the essay

Epistemic quality – Are the technical claims correct? Does the essay stay within what it can support? Do the sources exist, and are they described correctly? How does the text handle uncertainty and counterarguments?

Rhetorical quality – Structure of the explanation, clarity and conciseness, cohesion and coherence, a register that suits advanced bachelor students.

Document craft – Figures and their use, typographic care, visual hierarchy, overall impression.

Criteria for the Referat

Diagnosis – Does the chosen approach fit the draft?

Substance of the reading – Does the Referat engage with what the draft says?

Delivery – Pace, structure, handling of the discussion and of the on-the-spot task.

Criteria for the revision

Effectiveness – Does the final essay address the two issues of the reviewer report?

Reasoning in the response – Does it engage with the substance of the criticism?

Strengths kept – Is what was good about the revised draft kept or improved?

Attendance and dropouts

Attendance is compulsory from 20 October. Regular attendance is a requirement for admission to the module examination. What counts as regular is set out in § 9 (10) of the faculty’s general examination regulations (Allgemeine Prüfungsordnung, APO):

• At most two sessions may be missed for reasons within the participant’s own responsibility.
• At most five sessions may be missed in total, even when the reasons are outside the participant’s responsibility, such as illness.

Whoever exceeds either limit is not admitted to the module examination.

A participant’s own Referat and the supervised revision on 2 February are examination dates and do not fall under these absences. § 7 APO applies to them: whoever misses an examination date without a valid reason receives the grade 5.0 for that part. Reasons such as illness must be reported in writing without delay and supported by evidence.

If a participant drops out after 8 December, the ring is closed: whoever was to give a Referat about that participant’s draft instead takes the draft that had been assigned to that participant.

Bonus: badly written paragraphs

Participants who find a badly written paragraph about security or privacy in a published text, and explain in a paragraph of their own what is wrong with it, can earn a bonus. A good contribution improves the grade by one step, for example from 2.7 to 2.3. At most two contributions per person count. The bonus requires that the seminar is passed without it. Good contributions are used as exercise material in later terms.