Concepts
Motivation and Purpose of the Book
Although the material covered in this book is applicable to all five computing disciplines, we will focus on examples related to computer science and information systems. These concerns are due in part to the lack of suitable textbooks and the lack of references specifically aimed at students doing projects in computer science and information systems.
Purposes of Thesis Projects
The purpose of the book is to bridge the gap between different research methods and describe the general process of carrying out a project in the computing disciplines. The second objective is the 'research' part of the project, in which you deepen your understanding of the field and contribute to the general knowledge and understanding of the field.
Actors in the Project
It introduces students to the fascinating world of science and makes the latest knowledge available to them. In fact, you should expect undergraduate studies, wherever appropriate and possible, to incorporate the latest research findings.
Process
Assessment Criteria
The level of knowledge is evident from the arguments presented to support the decisions made in the project.
Reading Guidelines
The Landscape of CS and IS
The second problem is illustrated by a focus on both technical and human issues in the context of CASE tools. What are the critical elements shaping the organizational changes associated with the adoption and use of CASE tools.
What is Research?
Research problems that focus on the human and organizational aspects of CASE tools are naturally IS-oriented, while research problems that focus on the technical aspects of CASE tools are more CS-oriented. Such results are mainly disseminated through scientific journals and conferences (cf. the journalist who is normally said to be conducting research when gathering material for an article.
Research Methods
The question should be central to the project, thus helping to keep the focus on the purpose of the project. In other words, addressing validity is closely related to minimizing the limitations of the findings in the project.
Linkage Between Research and Thesis Projects
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the roles of the people involved in your project, emphasize their responsibilities and elaborate on their mutual relationships. The number of people involved in your project may vary, as a project may include several students or supervisors.
The Student
- The Responsibilities of the Student
- Projects with Multiple Students
Plan and discuss with your supervisor the topic of the project and time frame, including a schedule of meetings where appropriate feedback can be provided. Discuss with your supervisor (taking into account any input from the supervisor) the preparation of the report and determine when it will be ready for submission.
The Supervisor
- The Responsibilities of a Supervisor
- Projects with Multiple Supervisors
Reasonably before completion, the supervisor should ensure that you are prepared for the oral part of the exam, i.e. after the oral exam, the supervisor should advise and assist you in drafting the final manuscript, addressing the implications of any recommendations . data prepared by the examiner.
The Examiner
- The Examiner as Quality Evaluator
- The Examiner as Quality Assuror
- The Responsibilities of an Examiner
If the examiner provides feedback during the process, he or she will also influence the final outcome of the project. At some stages of the project, the examiner may take a more active role in monitoring the process.
Choosing a Subject Area
- Start Early
- How to Choose a Subject Area
Finding and selecting a topic area for a project is a task that benefits from being started well in advance of the actual project. One of the most important factors for success in the project is the motivation to work in the chosen subject area.
Choose Problem to Focus on Within the Subject Area
- Descriptive Projects
- Theory Oriented Projects
- Applied Projects
- A Comparison of Theory and Practice
In the first type, the goal is to categorize and compare previous work within a subject area. In the second type of project, the goal is to gain an understanding of the current status of the subject and identify important factors.
Assure Quality of Initial Ideas
Write and Submit a Project Proposal
- Structure
- Project Proposal Checklist
Remember that one of the main purposes of a project proposal is to convince the reader that your project is worthwhile. Have you discussed the project proposal with a potential supervisor or someone else with expertise in the chosen subject area.
Quality Control of Project Proposal
If you haven't met before, it might be good to talk to him or her to see if you have any personal differences. After submitting the project proposal, continue reading the literature, arranging meetings, etc.
Matching Supervisors and Students
These problems can in most cases be resolved by further discussions with (potential) supervisors and revision of the proposal. As you develop the project proposal, you should refresh your knowledge of how to identify appropriate literature and how to use citations.
Appropriate References
In the next two paragraphs, we outline two situations when it is appropriate to use oral sources together with a literary source. For example, if you have a research paper on database security, you can use oral references (or newspaper articles) to describe situations that occurred when database security was low.
Citations
In this case, the placement of the quotation can mean that it refers to the entire paragraph, since the quotation is placed after the last sentence of the paragraph. When you have used material from the World Wide Web, there is often no need to provide the URL of the site or page.
Improve your Learning (and Grade)
Hopefully our little example scenario shows that it's important to pay attention to things like the name of the journal (or the conference proceedings) in which the article was published - do you have reasons to come back to this journal. to whom the author is - has he or she written more on the subject. after the details about affiliation – it may be that the author is a member of a research group in which other documents have been produced that may be of interest to me. Here is a good example of when a search engine is an excellent tool, ie for identifying and locating people).
Meetings with Your Supervisor
Otherwise, it is unlikely that your supervisor will have time to read and comment on the text before your meeting. At every meeting, it is important that you take the initiative in the discussion, as your supervisor is not the one who has to think creatively in your project.
Time Plan
Regardless, it is important to find out how often you will be able to meet with your supervisor and to be well prepared for all meetings. If you want your supervisor to read and comment on something you've written, then you should normally submit it at least a few days in advance.
Activities to Perform While Developing the Aim
- Refine the Initial Aim
- Develop the Arguments Behind the Aim
- Write the Introduction
Now is the time to refine the objective into a clear and solid description of your project's goals. In short, you have three building blocks: (1) important concepts and factors (2) motivation behind the goal and (3) the goal.
Important Concepts
You can use a four-step process for this: (1) develop objectives, (2) find possible methods, (3) choose methods, and iv) present details of the chosen set of methods. For this project, we can identify "change car color to red" as the goal of the project.
Addressing Validity and Reliability
However, it is important that you understand and are sensitive to such changes that may occur during your studies. If deviations nevertheless occur, it is important that you acknowledge and motivate them.
Methods
- Literature Analysis
- Interview
- Case Study
- Survey
- Implementation
- Experiment
- Summary
In literature analysis it is important that you acknowledge your own initial understanding of the phenomena being analyzed. For the results of your study to be reliable, it is important that you properly address both the process and outcome of the analysis.
An Illustrative Analogy
We can characterize this approach as a form of survey, as the coach asks for input from many people. We can characterize this approach as a form of experiment, as the coach plans to test a new formation in ten games and then investigate whether the new formation has improved the team's performance.
A Four-Step Process
- Develop Objectives
- Identify Potential Methods
- Choose Among the Potential Methods
- Present Details of the Chosen Approach
For example, choosing a method that provides poor quality data will ultimately lower the quality of the final result of your work. First, you will be able to get a bird's eye view of the methods you have chosen and see their connections.
Presenting Non-Numerical Data
- Presenting Data from a Literature Analysis
- Presenting Data from Interviews and Questionnaires
- Presenting Data from Implementations
Again, if you always keep in mind the purpose of the literature review in your project, this should not be a problem. One of the best ways to learn how to present a literature analysis is to look at examples.
Presenting Numerical Data
- Using Tables and Graphs
- Avoiding Misleading Graphs
- Significance Tests
10.5, and indeed shows that the new algorithm performs worse than the standard algorithm for interval tuples. 10.4, the graph may give the misleading impression that the new algorithm is worse than the old one.
Analyse Your Data
- Descriptive Projects
- Theory Oriented Projects
- Applied Projects
- A Comparison of Theory and Practice
The result of this goal is an implementation of the new algorithm in the simulator. To complete this objective, examine the result of the third objective.
What is a Good Result?
The most important thing to remember about the conclusion part of your report is that it should refer to the purpose and objectives. In addition, you should do an analysis of your project in terms of identifying weak and strong points.
Summarising the Results
Putting the Results into Context
If so, you should also briefly discuss what adaptations of the algorithm would be necessary for the alternative application. If the results are mainly theoretical, you should discuss how they could potentially lead to practical applications.
Evaluating the Process
If your results contradict much of the important related work, then you need to have an extended discussion of the possible reasons for this. As a general rule, the more "controversial" your findings are, the more you need to provide strong arguments to convince readers that your findings and conclusions are correct.
Identifying Future Work
What is meant here is that you should think about the most important and possible continuations of your project after the current objectives have been met. For example, your project may have identified the factors most important to improving communication protocols for distributed database systems, which was also the project's purpose.
Oral Presentation
- Before the Presentation
- The Presentation
- What to Say
- Handling Questions
- Preparing for the Defence
One of the worst mistakes is to use a font that is so small that the audience cannot read the slide. Make sure you mention the most important things about your project in the first minutes of the presentation.
Acting as Opponent
- How to Act as Opponent
- Preparing for Opposition
Has the author explained the problem to be investigated in a clear and understandable manner. Has the author evaluated the stated purposes and goals based on the data obtained.
Prepare the Final Version of your Report
The summary must be written in the same language as the rest of the report. It is only a list of the references we use as examples in the following subsections.
Supplements
Information Literacy for Computer Science
According to this point of view, the information literate computer science student must develop a knowledge of the computer science domain. Another way to put it is to say that the computer science student must be aware of the particular conventions (unspoken or overt) that exist in the computer science domain.
Information Searching, Seeking, and Behaviour
- Search Techniques
It is not always easy to evaluate, for example, an article based on a 200-word summary. It is likely that you think about your work during many hours of the day.
A Session with INSPEC
- What will you Find?
- Boolean Commands
- Information Structure
- How to Get Hold of Documents
If you copy the title of a document you find in the database and paste it into Google, you will quickly and easily find out if it is available for free. Searching the periodical list for the ISSN of the publication you are looking for is an efficient way to find out if the publication is available in the library.
The Information Seeking-Process
However, sometimes there is only a physical "paper version" of the publication you are looking for. After this version of the session with INSPEC, we will return to the bigger picture and take a further look at the information seeking process.
Two Basic Strategies for Information Seeking
- The Concept Map
- Personal Research Information Management
It's a good idea to save the maps as they can provide an overview of the process you went through. They can give you a pretty good picture of how you were thinking at different stages of the process.
Introduction
An appropriate response is, "How short can you do that?" The point is that a report should contain only what is necessary and everything else should be excluded. There should be enough detail to: (1) follow the chain of thought at an acceptable level of effort; (2) be able to apply the approach and solution to a related problem elsewhere; and (3) verify your results and contributions.
Who is the Report for?
One of the basic requirements of a report is that there be enough detail for the reader to understand the knowledge produced in the project. Including examples in the report is one of the best ways to help the reader understand complex scenarios, but the examples must be adequate and of the appropriate level, i.e.
Requirements of the Report
By using section headings and introductions, you can inform the reader which section to read, which sections to skip, and where to go next in the report. Organize the content of your report so that it reads well and the reader knows where to find things.
Structure of the Report
- Title Page
- Abstract
- Chapter 1 – Introduction Chapter
- Chapter 2 – Background
- Chapter 3 – Problem Description and Statement
- Chapters 4–6 – The Core of your Report
- Chapter 7 – Related Work
- Chapter 8 – Conclusion
In short, an informative abstract should contain the most important statements from the report itself. These help the reader to understand the purpose of each section and to place the content in relation to the rest of the report.
Style of the Report
You can also elaborate on solutions to other problems that are identified and discussed in the main body of the report. To keep the report concise, make sure all material is within the clear focus of the project area.
Managing References
- The List of References
- Sources
- Reference Style
- References to Tables and Figures
The author's surname and the year of publication are indicated in the text. The full biographical details are given at the end of the report in the reference list.
The Examiner’s Roles
In conclusion, the result of the lecturer's well-intentioned advice to the student is a reduced grade. When giving advice on a project, the examiner may want to make this dilemma clear to the student and clearly explain what the consequences are.
What to Examine
Examples can be found in the "Report" section of the criteria listed in "Ability to handle references and citations". It also means that the examiner must take note of the opponent's performance during the defence.
