Research
- Overview
- What are you doing?
- Title, aim and objectives
- Why are you doing it?
- Background
- How do you do it?
- Research Methods
- Aim
- A single aim helps focus the mind on what it is that you are trying to achieve.
- It is your signpost.
- Keep your eye on it.
- Example:
This work aims to produce a theoretically and practically sound framework to help assess the strategic and operational readiness of a group of SMEs to engage in both the organisational and technical aspects of knowledge management.
- Title
- The title is a short version of the aim, e.g.:
A framework for assessing the knowledge management readiness of SMEs.
- Project Objectives
- The achievement of your objectives should result in the achievement of your aim
- If you achieved every objective would the aim be achieved? If not, rewrite the objectives.
- Work top-down
- Check bottom up
- What makes a good project idea
- What level of difficulty
- What level of detail
- SMART
- Role of the Project
- To integrate knowledge and skills gained in previous modules
- To apply them to a major piece of work
- To produce an identified product, with an identified purpose
- To develop and demonstrate investigative, organisational and communication skills
- Project Types
- Research-based projects
- Development projects
- Evaluation projects
- Industry-based projects
- Problem-solving projects
- Finding a Good Project Topic
- A good topic will allow you to demonstrate that you can:
- apply knowledge and skills you have gained in previous modules
- carry out high quality research
- analyse a problem, and determine the best solution
- recommendations / draw conclusions / evaluate
- document your work clearly and attractively
- manage your time and activities effectively
- A good project will be:
- Ambitious, but realistic
- Sufficiently challenging
- Original
- Useful (preferably to a client)
- A good project will have:
- Sufficient scope and depth
- All projects must have a product:
- Software
- And/or Report for client
- Or Dissertation
- And a project report
- How to Come up with an Idea for a Project
- Think about what you have done in previous modules
- How could it be applied?
- How could it be extended?
- Who could benefit from it? (This is essential)
- Think of bad experiences you have had with organisations
- Could you provide / design / recommend solutions?
- Apply an existing idea to a new area
- Think about your own hobbies and interests
- Do they provide scope for an IT application?
- (which must be of interest to others)
- Approach friends / relations / contacts / complete strangers
- Do they have application areas or problems you might tackle?
- Having a client is a big advantage
- Try not to present yourself to your supervisor without any ideas at all
- He / she may supervise up to 15 projects
- He / she cannot come up with 15 ideas
- Background
- In a dissertation or project proposal, the reader will appreciate what it is you are trying to do from
- The title
- The aims and
- The objectives
- Chronologically, these will have emerged after
- You have done background reading and investigation into organisation and the specific problem situations that you are addressing
- The background tends to be of two kinds
- The problem context
- The concepts