The topic of this year’s seminar is “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain.” The blockchain has emerged as a novel distributed consensus scheme that allows transactions, and any other data, to be securely stored and verified without a centralized authority. For some time, the notion of blockchain was tightly coupled with Bitcoin, a well-known proof of work hash-based mechanism. Today, there are more than one thousand alternate blockchains. Some are simple variants of Bitcoin, whereas others significantly differ in their design and provide different functional and security guarantees. This shows that the research and industrial communities are in search of a simple, scalable, and deployable blockchain technology. Various reports further point to an increased interest in the use of blockchains across many applications and a significant investment by different industries in their development. The blockchain will likely induce considerable change to many systems and businesses. Distributed trust, and therefore security and privacy, is at the core of the blockchain technologies and has the potential to either make them a success or cause them to fail.

In this research driven seminar, you will have the opportunity to explore this exciting research and development area and gain cutting-edge skills for your future career development. To get a further feel about the importance of the topic covered in this seminar please see an overview of the blockchain technology’ potential impact in AI (https://101blockchains.com/blockchain-and-ai/).

This seminar will help you to:

• Obtain in-depth knowledge and skills in the seminar topic area
• Learn and practice research and development skills
• Improve the ability to identify original research challenges
• Improve your scientific thinking
• Learn how to conduct studies in the information systems
• Learn how to perform a literature survey in the information systems
• Improve the ability to communicate research results

• Standard FS (=”Forschungsseminar”) attendance policy applies.
• Overall attendance for 80% of the time is required.
• Attendance in the first unit is mandatory (unqualified absence will result in deregistration from the course).

The final deliverable of this course is a scientific survey, which should be completed by a group of students.

The scientific survey should possess the following qualities:

Formatting Guidelines:

• The minimum required length is 10 pages.
• The final report must be formatted using the IEEE LaTeX Template (Download here).
• Submissions using other formats (e.g., Word) or templates will be rejected.
• Follow the formatting rules as demonstrated in the sample documents.
• Use the following document class: \documentclass[10pt, conference]{IEEEtran}
• All content, including tables, must be formatted in LaTeX.
• Students typically use Overleaf (Online LaTeX editor) for editing.

Academic Integrity:

• Any form of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated.
• Previously submitted work from other courses or projects is not permitted
• All content must be original and developed specifically for this course.
• Refer to the MIT Academic Integrity Handbook for detailed guidelines, particularly regarding paraphrasing rules.

Use of AI Tools:

• LLMs (e.g., ChatGPT) may only be used for grammar corrections.
• AI-generated content beyond grammatical fixes is not permitted in the submitted papers.

Language and Writing Standards:

• The report must be written in formal academic English.
• Ensure that there are no grammatical, syntactical, or stylistic errors before submission.

The following four components determine the final grade:

• Research Proposal Submission
• Deadline: 28.03.2025,  14:00 PM
• Weight: 10%
• Includes:
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
• Minimum References: 3
  
  
• Mid-Term Paper Submission
• Deadline: 25.04.2025,  14:00 PM
• Weight: 20%
• Includes:  
  • All previously submitted content revised and improved based on supervisor's feedback
  • A Literature Review/Related Work section -- a review of at least 5 existing survey papers.
  • A part of Results section -- a review of at least 10 research papers and outline of the section’s structure.
• Minimum References: Number of references from the introduction + at least 5 existing surveys + 10 review papers in results section
  
  
• Class Presentation
• Date: 26.05.2025,  14:00 PM
• Weight: 20%
• Duration: 10–15 minutes
• Based on: Final Paper
  
  
• Final Full Paper Submission
• Deadline: 13.06.2025,  14:00 PM
• Weight: 50%
• Includes: 
  • All previously submitted content revised and improved based on supervisor's feedback
  • Complete Results section --  a review of at least 30 research papers
  • Discussion (synthesis of obtained findings)
  • Conclusion
• Minimum References: 40 total (includes at least 5 existing surveys, 30 review papers in results section)

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sajjad.khan@wu.ac.at