1 Research and Professional Development INFO61003 Harold Somers

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Research and Professional Development

INFO61003

Harold Somers

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What this module is about

From the module description: “To equip students with a range of technical,

managerial and personal skills which enable them to effectively undertake the dissertation stage of their degree programme”

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What does that entail?

• Academic knowledge– Understand the objectives and rules specific to the MSc/Diploma

project and dissertation. – Understand professional ethics– Project planning (including risk analysis)

– use of appropriate tools to support project planning– necessary writing skills for academic writing (including referencing)

• Intellectual skills– Produce a coherent, structured report aimed at giving

– background to the problem– analysis of relevant literature and related work– project requirements and when possible a design overview

– Produce a coherent project plan and risk analysis• Subject practical skills

– Devise a project plan and specify milestones and deliverables

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Today’s session

• General ideas about doing research

–Some Golden Rules

–Skills and Resources

• How this module works

• Quick overview of future topics

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A variety of topics

• Dissertation topics in this School are very varied ... broadly–Very computational

– writing programs– integrating components– interfacing with resources

–Modelling and design– systems analysis

–Relating to human factors– designing, testing interfaces– cooperative computing

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• Information systems– Text mining, databases– Information management

• Signal processing– Speech, images

• HCI– Social web– Virtual agents– CSCW, CAL– Assistive computing

• e-business• Requirements modelling• Software engineering• Language processing

– Speech, spelling, editing, translation

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A variety of topics

• Student backgrounds also very varied

• Not all skills covered will be equally relevant for YOUR dissertation (this time around)

• But, this module is about developing research skills in general, e.g.

–Ethics

– (Software) evaluation

–Experimental design and (simple) statistics

–and several others

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Today’s session






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Golden Rule #1: Know what you are doing

• You should have

–a clear and concise one-sentence summary of your topic

–a clear and concise one-paragraph summary of your topic

• You should be able to explain your topic

– to your peers

– to your friends

– to someone you meet on the train

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Sign the attendance sheet (this time)...

• Next to your name (duh)

• The name of your supervisor

• A very general characterisation of your topic (3/4 words) if known

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Golden Rule #2: Always have a plan

• Know what the targets for your research are, in precise enough terms that you will know when you are done

• Make explicit what the intermediate steps on the way to your targets look like

• Risk analysis should realistically assess the likely/possible main difficulties–Have some contingency plans in mind, and

make them explicit in your planning document

• “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”

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Golden Rule #3: Think outcomes

• Where do you want to go or what do you want to do after?

• What will your CV need to look like to achieve that?

• Identify the differences between your current CV and the one you need, and plan how you will remove the difference

• Focus your activities on the main game

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Today’s session






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Skills Area #1: Reading

• Read widely

• Split your reading time between material focussed on your topic and more general background material

• Read for important content

– What should you read?

– Learn how to get the most out of what you are reading

– Recognize whether something really is worth reading

• Read with specific questions in mind

• What does it mean if you don’t understand the paper you’re reading?

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What does it mean if you don’t understand the paper you’re reading?

• You are the problem because

– you are stupid

– you aren’t stupid, but you lack some background knowledge

– you’ve misunderstood some key element, or made some false assumption about the paper

• The paper is the problem because

– it’s badly written, or badly structured

– it’s not relevant after all

– it is making unreasonable assumptions about the reader

– it’s bad science

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Skills Area #2: Writing

• Write constantly• Write clearly and get colleagues to read your

stuff• Examine other people's writing to see what you

think makes it good• You develop your academic writing style by

reading• On a practical note:

–Think about “Version control”–Use your word processor properly

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Use your word processor properly

• Spell checker• Style definitions

– They help you keep your presentation style consistent– Automatically number sections: this helps readability

• Tabs, tables, figures• Split long documents up into smaller files

– Style definitions will make merging easier• What fonts and font sizes should you use?

– Check out the regs: you might as well use the prescribed style from the outset

• A nicely presented piece of work says “Read me”• A badly presented piece of work says “Fail me”

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Skills Area #3: Presenting

• Work on being interesting to listen to

• Audio- and video-tape yourself

– identify your idiosyncracies

• Consider doing an improvisation course

• When you see a good presentation, consider why it was good, and adopt those features in your own presentations

• When you see a bad presentation, consider why it was bad, and eliminate those features from your own presentations

• Learn how to use PowerPoint effectively

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Skills Area #4: Organization

• Always have a plan

–Research plan with contingency plans

–This is the main outcome of this module

• But also a personal plan

–Understand where your time goes

–Ask others how they organise their time

–Don’t spend all your time planning

• Involve your supervisor in your plan

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You and your supervisor

• Different supervisors have different styles• Be proactive in meetings

– On first meeting (have you arranged it yet?):– Ask what they expect of you– Tell them what you expect of them– (Actually, what do you expect of them?)– Decide on frequency of meetings

• At least 4, probably 6 (= fortnightly) for this module– Subsequently, YOU set the agenda

– Be ready to tell them what you have done since last meeting– Know what you want to talk about– Take notes and produce a summary shortly after the meeting

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You and your supervisor

• Supervisor will provide feedback on written work, but is NOT a proof reader or English teacher

• Give your supervisor a reasonable amount of time to read stuff

– Never more than 25 pages at a time• Pastoral issues: supervisor is first port of call

– Otherwise (eg if difficulty is with supervisor) course leader (who is it?)

• You will have a regular meeting slot– It is discourteous to be late or not turn up without warning

(on both sides)– Find out your supervisor’s attitude to skipping meetings if

you’ve nothing to report

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Skills Area #5: Researching

• More on this over the next 12 weeks but, briefly, – Be aware of what has been done before and try to

BUILD on that: Don’t reinvent the wheel– Understand how to use the library– Understand how to use on-line resources– Post queries to mailing lists but check locally first:

avoid early career egg-on-face• Research is about a hypothesis

– What is your research question?– How will you know you have answered it?– What if the answer is “No”?

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Today’s session






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How this module works

• Weekly lectures– Big class so not as informal as I would prefer– Several “guest” lecturers – Some associated practical sessions

• A range of topics– Not all necessarily relevant to your research– But should be of interest (long term)

• Assessment– Project Preparatory Work report due 24th April 2007 – Some (voluntary) exercises for you to discuss with

your supervisor

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Preparatory Work report

• Precise content will depend upon the nature of a particular project but will typically include:

– Requirements and specifications– Success criteria – Project plan (for the overall project including dissertation stage)– Initial survey of the relevant literature– Initial study of the relevant research methods, design

methodology, and implementation tools• Length max. 20 pages (excluding cover page, table of contents,

abstract and list of references) – Additional material in appendices up to 10 pages – Strict size limit will be enforced; excess pages will not be

marked• Due in 3pm, 24th April 2007

– Both hard copy and e-version via the WebCT page for this module

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Today’s session






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Future topics

• What is research? – hypothesis, background, method, criteria for success

• Ethics• Research technologies I – interfaces, usability,

experimental design • Research technologies II – programming,

implementation, documentation• Evaluation of systems• IT resources• References and citation, incl. plagiarism• Presentation – written and verbal, how to do a demo

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1 Research and Professional Development INFO61003 Harold Somers