Proseminar Assignment Summer 2026

The central registration for all computer science seminars will open on Feb 10th.

This system is used to distribute students among the available seminars offered by the CS department. To register for any of the seminars, you have to register here until April 7th, 23:55 CET. You can select which seminar you would like to take, and will then be automatically assigned to one of them by April 9th.

Please note the following:

We aim to provide a fair mapping that respects your wishes, but at the same time also respects the preferences of your fellow students. Experience has shown that particular seminars are more popular than others, yet these seminars cannot fit all students. Please only select seminars if you are certain that you actually do want to complete a seminar this semester. If you have already obtained sufficient seminar credits, or plan to take other courses this semester, please do not choose any seminars. Students who drop out of seminars take away places from those, who might urgently need a space or are strongly interested in the topic. We encourage those students who wish to take a seminar this semester, to select their preferences for all available seminars, which eases the process to assign students that do not fit the overly popular seminars to another, less crowded one. So if you are serious about taking a seminar this semester, please select at least three seminars (with priority from "High" to "Low"). If you urgently need to be assigned to a seminar in the upcoming semester, choose at least five seminars (with priority from "High" to "Low"). The system will then prioritize you for assigning a seminar (yet not necessarily your top choice). If you are really dedicated to one particular seminar, and you do not want any other seminar, please select the "No seminar" as second and third positive option. However, this may ultimately lead to the situation that you are not assigned to any seminar. Also, choosing "No seminar" as second/third option does not increase your chances of getting your first choice. The assignment will be performed by a constraint solver on April 9th, 2026. You will be added to the respective seminars automatically and be notified about this shortly thereafter. Please note that the assignment cannot be optimal for all students if you drop the assigned seminar, i.e., make only serious choices to avoid penalty to others.

AI Coding Assistants: Practices, Assumptions, and Implications by Sven Apel

Software development is inherently collaborative, relying on a range of practices and tools to support productivity, code quality, and knowledge sharing. In recent years, AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot have been integrated into everyday development workflows and are increasingly positioned as active collaborators rather than passive tools. Their growing use raises fundamental questions about how AI systems reshape development practices: To what extent do interactions with AI resemble collaboration with human peers? Where do they diverge, and how do they challenge established assumptions about learning, coordination, and the division of labor in software development?

In this seminar, students will engage in controlled, hands-on programming sessions under two conditions: pair programming with a human partner and pair programming with an AI assistant. Building on these experiences, students will work in small groups of two to three participants to develop research questions and analyze the data collected during the sessions. Each group will be supported by a dedicated advisor and receive regular feedback throughout the semester. The seminar concludes with a short written report and research presentations in which each group presents their results and reflects on their implications.

Kick-Off Meeting: Thursday, 16 April 2026

The seminar takes place Thursdays from 12:00 - 14:00 (~11 sessions in sum)

Participation in all sessions is mandatory.

Requirements: This seminar is open to motivated Bachelor and Master students who are eager to try out AI coding assistants in practice while critically and empirically examining their promised benefits. Previous experience with AI coding assistants is not necessary, but basic software engineering and programming knowledge is.

Places: 7

Algorithms and Complexity by Antoine Joux

This proseminar is meant to provide students an overview over foundational results in the area of algorithms and complexity. As a proseminar's primary purpose is to learn presentation skills, the seminar will feature two presentations from each student.

This proseminar will be organized on-site in block sessions.

After each presentation, the fellow students and lecturers will provide feedback on how to improve the presentation. This general feedback must then be taken into account for the second block of the course, where again each student will present.

For the first presentation, the student will present one of the proposed topics (which will be made available on CMS).

To not bore the audience, the second presentation will be on a related topic and based on a different reference document (book or research article).
This second reference will be chosen by the students (not from the initial list of references) and the relevance of the choice will be part of the grading of the second presentation.

The first presentations will count towards 30% of the overall grade, the choice of the second reference will count for 30% and the second presentation itself will count for the remaining 40% of the overall grade. Attendance in the proseminar meetings is mandatory. Because of the block structure, any absence needs a doctor's note as justification.

Requirements: Basic algebra. Notions of algorithms and algorithm analysis. Some knowledge of imperative programming.

Places: 14

Computer Architecture by Abdullah Giray Yaglikci and Michael Schwarz

This seminar covers cutting-edge and seminal research papers, focusing on fundamental research problems in the field of computer architecture. Relevant topics include: security and reliability of microarchitecture, memory, and storage, new and emerging paradigms in computer architecture (e.g., data-centric processing), energy efficiency, hardware/software co-design, and fault tolerance.

Requirements: A strong foundation of computer architecture is needed for this seminar.

Places: 12

Digitale Nicht-Souveränität by Jens Dittrich

Deutschland ist eine digitale Kolonie. Sowohl im Bereich Hardware als auch Software basiert fast unsere gesamte IT auf Produkten aus den USA und Asien. Zwar wurden (und werden) wesentliche Grundlagen für diese Technik in Deutschland erdacht und prototypisch gebaut, z.B. in der Informatikforschung oder durch frühe Computer wie die von Zuse oder Siemens Nixdorf. Aber die Kommerzialierung fand (und findet) fast ausschließlich außerhalb Deutschlands statt.

Hierdurch wurden im Laufe der letzen 40 Jahre Schritt für Schritt sehr große Abhängigkeiten geschaffen: bei Hardware, Netzwerken, Betriebssystemen, Office-Software, Suchmaschinen, fast jeder großen Shopping-Plattform im Netz, Sozialen Netzwerken, Streaming-Anbietern. Videoplattformen, etc.

Durch die Überwachungsaffäre 2013 wurde diese Problematik und die große Anbhängigkeit einem größeren Publikum mehr als deutlich.

Geändert haben wir trotzdem (fast) nichts.

Erst durch die zweite Amtszeit von DJT in den USA ist die fehlende digitale Souveränität Deutschlands stärker in den öffentlichen Diskurs gerückt. So gibt es jetzt einzelne Akteure, die die Notbremse ziehen, wie z.B. Schleswig-Holstein. Aber im Großen und Ganzen werden Kaufentscheidungen genauso unkritisch und naiv getroffen wie eh und je: seien es Microsoft, Palantir, Google, oder AWS.

Ein zusätzlicher Aspekt ist die aktuelle KI-Welle, insbesondere durch LLMs, die fast alle in den USA oder China kommerzialisiert werden (positive Ausnahme: Black Forest Labs) und neue Monopole und Abhängigkeiten erzeugen.

Fehlende digitale Souveränität besteht aus einer ganzen Reihe einzelner Dimensionen:

- sozial: "wir haben uns an die Software aus USA gewöhnt"
- psychologisch "ich will nicht zugeben, dass die Entscheidung, die ich in der Vergangenheit für Produkte aus USA getroffen habe, Mist war"; fehlende Risikobereitschaft, um neue IT-Unternehmen zu gründen
- technisch fehlendes Verständnis für die Risiken
- ökonomisch: ungenügende Investitionskultur für Start-Ups
- politisch: Kommerzialisierung grundlegender Infrastruktur

In diesem Proseminar wollen wir diesen Dimensionen auf den Grund gehen mit dem Ziel:

1. Die einzelnen Dimensionen besser zu verstehen,
2. Die Probleme und Herausforderungen der einzelnen Dimensionen besser und schneller zu erkennen, und
3. Strategien zu entwickeln, um die Probleme der einzelnen Dimensionen zu vermeiden.

Hierzu werden wir konkrete Fallbeispiele angucken, Erfahrungsberichte analysieren und Lösungsmuster erarbeiten.

Requirements: Prog 1, Prog 2, BDE, Softwarepraktikum

Places: 12

Disagreement in NLP by Frances Yung, Anwesha Das, Vera Demberg

Traditional NLP approaches resolve label disagreements into a single “gold standard,” since disagreements are treated as noise in the data, resulting from the lack of attention or mistakes of the annotators, subjective bias, or insufficient annotation guidelines.
However, recent research highlights that a single gold label may not capture the ambiguity and diversity in language. For subjective tasks such as abuse detection and quality estimation, there is an even greater need for multi-perspective modeling in order to include different viewpoints and improve the robustness and fairness of NLP models.

This seminar explores disagreement in linguistic annotation and perspectivist approaches in NLP, focusing on learning from non-aggregated datasets and multi-perspective evaluation. We will explore the causes of annotation disagreements and strategies to address them. We will discuss current research on modeling diverse viewpoints and the broader implications for AI fairness and inclusion.

We will also discuss how these disagreement-aware models can interact with users in practice, including connections to human-centered AI, adaptive interfaces, cultural difference in visual language processing and cognitive models of interpretation and attention.

Places: 5

Embedded Systems Security by Ali Abbasi

From critical infrastructure to consumer electronics, embedded systems are all around us and underpin the technological fabric of everyday life. As a result, the security of embedded systems is crucial to us.

This seminar, provided by CISPA's EMSEC Lab (https://group.cispa.io/abbasi/), covers research papers addressing various topics in embedded systems security. This might include topics such as instruction profiling (template attack), fault injection and side-channel attacks, firmware static and dynamic analysis, intrusion detection in embedded systems, automotive/space systems security, and fuzzing embedded systems.

More info: https://cms.cispa.saarland/emsecsem_26/

Requirements: Background in cybersecurity

Places: 8

FoodHCI - Grundlagen und Stand der Forschung by Dr. André Zenner, Dr. Felix Kosmalla, Prof. Dr. Antonio Krüger

In diesem Proseminar werden die theoretischen Grundlagen und der aktuelle Stand des Forschungsgebiets FoodHCI vermittelt.

FoodHCI ist ein Forschungsbereich innerhalb der Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), der sich damit beschäftigt, wie digitale Technologien mit Essen, Trinken und essbezogenen Praktiken interagieren.

Nähere Infos hier: https://umtl.cs.uni-saarland.de/teaching/summer-2026/foodhci.html

Requirements: -

Places: 12

Introduction to Information Theory by Johanna Schmitz, Sven Rahmann

We will read the book Introduction to Information Theory, which gives an overview on how to measure information content and how this is related to data compression.
The proseminar will have bi-weekly meetings (depending on participants) with short presentations.

Requirements: Mathematik für Informatiker III , BioStatsLab or an equivalent lecture.

Places: 15

Pearls of Functional Programming by Holger Hermanns, Dominik Zimmer

"Functional Pearls" are the focus of this Proseminar. Functional pearls are elegant, instructive examples of functional programming. They are supposed to be fun, and they teach important programming techniques and fundamental design principles. This pertains, among others, to
- elegance in implementing algorithms,
- domain-specifc elegance (e.g. in parsing or in visualization),
- derivation of efficient implementations from inefficient references.

The individual presentation topics will mainly be based on research articles published as "Functional Pearls" in the Journal of Functional Programming or in leading conferences in the area of programming languages. Many of those works make use of the programming language Haskell. We will therefore spend the first few meetings discussing the quirks and particularities of Haskell, and contrast them to OCaml.

Besides the technical focus of the seminar, the learning objectives encompass learning how to read and digest scientific papers, how to summarize them, how to present research results, and how to provide feedback to peers.

Requirements: This Proseminar is for motivated first-year students who have just completed the Programming 1 lecture.

Places: 15