Please Contact us in our instagram for this assignment.

CET351 Assignment 1: Research Plan

This assignment is worth 50% of the module mark

The deadline for this work is specified on the module website

Please read all of these instructions carefully!

You are to write a detailed proposal for a research project that is relevant to your degree but is otherwise of your own choice to demonstrate your ability to propose and plan a well justified, ethical and scientifically rigorous research project that includes detailed plans to evaluate the research outcomes. You are required to justify this work with reference to scientific theory and produce a viable schedule for this proposed work.

Applied Business Computing Students… should propose research that is applicable to applied business computing. For example:

• improving the design of computer systems in an application specific, but non-business specific, setting (e.g. predicting stock market trends, applying business intelligence in marketing, business intelligence to support research)
• improving the efficiency of businesses by developing new and novel computing systems (e.g. managing climate change, novel health care systems or enhancing criminal, legal or government systems)
• improving any aspect of software enterprise or user experienced design (e.g. adoption of enterprise application software or testing user experience through eye tracking)
• developing novel business applications (e.g. wearable technologies, 5G applications, new medical informatics or diagnostic systems)
• Note: a very wide definition of business applies here so this includes computing used within a public sector setting e.g. hospitals, within the voluntary sector e.g. charities or within a social setting e.g. online communications.

Computer Systems Engineering students… should propose research that is applicable to the design or development of computing systems. For example:

• enhancing the design or development of databases (e.g distributed database design or text mining and database fusion)
• enhancing the design or development mobile systems (e.g. usability issues, performance analysis, analysing smart phone data or lifestyle and health applications)
• enhancing the development of any advanced computing technique (e.g. artificial intelligence applied to medical diagnosis, scalable deep learning, natural language processing or machine vision)
• enhancing any aspect of cyber security (e.g. risk assessment, anomaly detection, real time IDS, mitigation of attacks or security architecture)
• enhancing any aspect of the software lifecycle (e.g. large scale collaborative agile development, quality assurance for deep learning)
• Developing novel applications (e.g. Internet of Things, wearable technologies, medical implants, smart cities)

Network Systems Engineering students… should propose any research that is applicable to the design or development of network systems. For example:

• Improving network security (e.g. securing the Control, Data or Management Planes of networking devices, the Internet of Things, frameworks for security visualizations, intrusion detection methods or WAN communication)
• Improving network efficiency (e.g. tuning quality of service for real time traffic flows, traffic engineering or routing protocols)
• Improving one aspect of cloud computing (e.g. failure management, scheduling or optimisation)
• Improving any aspect of mobile networks or telecommunications (e.g. protocol for wireless LANs or distributed and scalable frameworks)
• Improving underpinning technologies or customer experience (e.g. Internet of Things, 5G, access in remote locations)

Mobile and Web Technologies students… should propose any research that is applicable to the design or development of mobile or web information systems. For example:

• enhancing the design or development mobile systems (e.g. usability issues, performance analysis, analysing smart phone data or mobile lifestyle and health applications)
• enhancing the design or development web based systems (e.g. web-based learning environments, web-based geographical information systems or enhancing web security)
• improving any aspect of web or mobile design or user experience (e.g. mobile game design or behaviour profiling on mobile devices)
• Improving any aspect of underpinning technology (e.g. telecommunications, operating systems, or wearable devices)
• Developing novel applications (e.g. medical informatics & diagnostics)

Business Intelligence and Data Analytics students… should propose any research that is applicable to the use of Business Intelligence and Data Analytics within a business or social setting. For example:

• Improving data visualisation, user modelling or customer insights,
• Resolving current ethical issues (e.g. algorithm fairness, transparency or accountability)
• Improving any aspect of underpinning technology (e.g. databases, artificial intelligence, deep learning or anomaly detection and prediction)
• Improving any aspect of the application of theory (e.g. enhancing business strategy, operations, risk management or enterprise migration strategies)
• Developing novel applications (e.g. medical informatics, home energy management, manufacturing or education).
• Note: a very wide definition of business applies here so this includes computing used within a public sector setting e.g. hospitals, within the voluntary sector e.g. charities or within a social setting e.g. online communications.

Information and Communication Technology students… should propose any research that is applicable to methods or tools for IT Service Management within a business setting, including the application of Business Intelligence or issues relating to Cybersecurity & Digital Forensics. For example:

• Improving any aspect of IT Service Management (e.g. business processes, technical service reporting, cost estimation, impact of cloud computing, network management, data management or out sourcing)
• Improving any aspect of the application of business intelligence theory (e.g. enhancing business strategy, operations, risk management or enterprise migration strategies)
• enhancing any aspect of cyber security or digital forensics (e.g. risk assessment, anomaly detection, mitigation of attacks, security architectures or frameworks for forensics investigations)
• Developing novel business modelling applications (e.g. tourism, managing climate change, environmental or sustainability applications, forecasting demand)
• Note: a very wide definition of business applies here so this includes computing used within a public sector setting e.g. hospitals, within the voluntary sector e.g. charities or within a social setting e.g. online communications.

1 Write a Project Proposal

By taking either an existing client description from the collection provided, or alternatively by creating your own description of a client and their needs, and by considering current research literature (between 2 and 4 journal or conference papers) you are to propose a research project. In doing so you should define:-

• a clear justification for this research. As well as discussing the client’s needs this must include a discussion of the limitation(s) of our current computing knowledge, as evidenced in journal or conference papers, that requires research to resolve.
• a clear scientific aim i.e. a definition of the new or improved knowledge that will come from doing this research.
• a clear description of the practical outcome(s) for the client.
• a clear description of the proposed methodology for the practical work including a detailed description of the method proposed for evaluating the new knowledge obtained.
• a critical justification of the proposed methodology, with reference to scientific theory, to ensure the methods proposed are ethical and scientifically rigorous.

To do this you need to focus on using a practical problem experienced by an organisation as a vehicle not just to develop a practical solution for that client but as a vehicle to carry out a piece of academic research that could help the wider computing community.

This means :-

• Analysing academic literature and considering one limitation of current computing knowledge and how new or improved knowledge can be obtained by undertaking some practical or experimental work.
• Considering how a well planned evaluation can be conducted to assess the validity of the research outcomes.
• Considering if the new or improved knowledge can be applied to resolve one of the client’s needs.

When writing your proposal take care to explain and justify your choices and any major alternatives you are discarding.

You are to document this work by writing a research proposal that must be structured in the following set of sections:

1. Justification of the Research Proposed : – by discussing the limitations of current computing knowledge, as evidenced in current research papers, and by discussing the client and their needs, justify the research you are proposing and explain its potential impact on the wider computing community.
2. The Project Aim :- specify the main aim of this project from an academic research, i.e. scientific, perspective. This should clearly express the new or improved knowledge that will come from undertaking this project.
3. The Project Objectives :- specify the major project milestones that need to be completed in order to undertake this project. A numbered list is recommended for this section.
4. Practical Outcomes for the Client :- define clear and precise practical outcomes for the client that will come from undertaking this research project.
5. The Proposed Methodology :- describe how this project would be carried out i.e. what data would be collected, what experimental work or developmental work would be undertaken and what analysis would be carried out when doing this project.
6. The Evaluation Plans :- Describe in detail how the knowledge outcomes of this project will be evaluated i.e. how would the knowledge outcomes be tested to ensure the claims made are sound.
7. Scientific Justification:- with reference to scientific theory provide a critical justification of your knowledge evaluation plans, as described in section 6. Identify any potential limitations with these plans (e.g. the possibility of data error or bias) and state what steps in your experimental design you may take to overcome these potential problems.
8. Ethical Justification:- Evaluate the proposed methodology and evaluations plans (section 5 and 6) from an ethical, legal, professional and social perspective.
9. References (in the Harvard format)

Take care to explain and justify your choices and use references where appropriate to show this research will not just help the client but result in new or improved knowledge that will help the wider computing community. Keep in mind that your justifications and critical evaluation are as important as the work you propose and that you will be judged both on your ability to propose a sound research project and on your ability to justify that this represents a sound scientific, rigorous project design.

Use the template provided below for this proposal, replacing the comments and placeholders with the appropriate information.

The research papers you reference can be the same as those you will use for assignment 2.

The description of the client can be a) taken from one provided, b) an actual description of any other company or business you are aware of or c) fictitious but should be clear and detailed and should be written as if factual.

If you use an existing client description the words you take from the descriptions must be in quotes (as with any text you take from sources), the source cited (Kendal S, year) and the following details added to the list of references ‘Kendal S, year, Client Descriptions CET351 course materials’.

The word limit for this part of the assignment is about 2000 words (with 10% more or fewer than 2000 words allowance). The word limit excludes the references, the schedule and Gantt chart as described later) and you must put the word count on your assignment cover sheet (see template below).

2 Write a Project Schedule and matching Gantt chart

Having written the project proposal you are to produce a viable schedule and Gantt chart for this project and in doing so the whole thing will become a detailed viable project plan. For this you should assume that this project will be undertaken by one person, spending 600 hours over a period of 16 weeks (working between 35 and 40 hours per week).

Schedule this project to start from January 2024 and designate 16 weeks to it.

Use the templates provided below for the schedule and Gantt chart (do not use Microsoft Project).

In order to produce a good schedule you should take the project proposal, looking in particular at the objectives, the proposed methodology and evaluation plans, and break these down into a detailed set of tasks with appropriate timing and resource (hours) allocation to generate a proposed schedule. Then generate a Gantt chart to visualise the order and timing of these tasks.

Please pay attention to the following considerations:

• Each task should be clearly worded and be as specific to this project as possible. Vague wording that could apply to many projects such as ‘design system’ should be avoided.
• Assume this project will be undertaken by one person spending a total of 600 hours over a period of 16 weeks (working between 35 and 40 hours per week).
• Break down larger tasks into several appropriately smaller more manageable tasks (most of these tasks should be no more than 20 hours each and none should be larger than 50 hours).
• Make sure there is a clear mapping between the project objectives and the tasks on the schedule.
• Consider the deliverables. These should be clearly defined products that come naturally from completing each task (e.g. a list of research papers or a set of design diagrams).
• Consider which tasks can be done in parallel and which are logically building one on the other
• Consider the need for elapsed time: – five ½ hour interviews cannot necessarily all be completed in one afternoon as the interviewees may not all be available on one particular day.

The Project plan should occupy the last two sections of the template provided below:

1. Project Schedule (in tabular form, showing task breakdown, allocated resources, planned start and end dates and deliverables).
2. Project Gantt Chart (showing dates for each task in a diagrammatical form and total number of hours per week).
3. Assignment Submission and Marking
4. You need to produce a single, appropriately formatted document, using the template provided below, that contains the complete project plan as a Microsoft Word document. To help you can use this document by deleting everything apart from the template provided below.
5. The assignment will be submitted electronically via your module space in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The submission is electronic and there is no requirement for any other form of submission. Uploading your assignment constitutes the submission. Submissions will only be marked if they are uploaded by the deadline specified – the deadline will be specified in the VLE.
6. Assignments are normally marked within 4 working weeks – this does not include the three week holidays period at Christmas or Easter.
7. You can view your assignment marks and feedback by returning to the assignment link after this period.
8. At the end of this document a detailed marking scheme is provided. Familiarising yourself with it and using it to for guidance should help you gain maximum marks for this assignment. Excellent sample assignments are also provided for guidance with the module materials.
9. Assignment Marking Scheme
10. A detailed breakdown of this marking scheme is presented at the end of this document for further guidance.
11. Essential Information
12. 1) This is an individual assignment, the work must be entirely your own. The safety of your assessments is your responsibility. You must not permit another student access to your work.
13. 2) Your assignment will be submitted electronically via the module space. You must therefore sort out any module registration login problems within the first three weeks of the module and upload your assignment by the date specified. If you cannot log in and upload an assignment by the due date you will fail this assignment. You are strongly recommended to upload a draft assignment at least 1 week before the deadline and to keep uploading revised versions. Technical problems on the deadline day will not be accepted as a valid excuse for non-submission.
14. 3) The assignment should be submitted by 4pm UK time on the date specified in the VLE however to allow for internet problems assignments will still be accepted up until 23.59 UK time without incurring late submission penalty.
15. 4) You are required to submit your work within the bounds of the University Infringement of Assessment Regulations (see your Programme Guide). Plagiarism, paraphrasing and downloading large amounts of information from external sources, will not be tolerated and will be dealt with severely.
16. 5) You should upload a draft of your assignment via your module space early and respond to the ‘TurnItIn’ report generated. This report will indicate any non-original words in your paper including a) correctly quoted text, b) the reference list and c) and any plagiarized text. Reports that come back rated at less than 20% non-original text are usually fine. For this assignment you are allowed to use existing descriptions of clients though the text must still be in quotes and sources cited. As these quotes are likely to be longer than most other quotes it is possible the TurnItIn reports will come back with scores of up to 30% – this will be acceptable. Those that come back with a score of over 30% i.e. yellow, orange or red usually need fixing. Plagiarised text will not be tolerated. Please note that the generation of originality reports can take up to 24 hours. You are likely to fail the assignment if your TurnItIn report is above 40%.
17. 6) Where a word limit is specified the university has implemented a standard policy and penalties on assignments that go over the word limit. On your assignment you must provide your word count and lying about this is an academic offence.
18. 7) You can repeatedly submit your assignment up until the deadline and the last assignment upload at the deadline will be marked. You will be marked online and will be able to see your marks and feedback online at the same location – usually marks and feedback will be available after 4 working weeks (this does not include holidays).
19. 8) If you cannot complete this assignment for reasons that are outside of your control, e.g. serious illness, you can apply to the Extenuating Circumstances Panel asking for a deferral but you will need to provide appropriate evidence e.g. medical evidence covering the appropriate period. Technical problems on the day of the assignment deadline, module registration issues and failure to back up your work will not be accepted as valid excuses. Therefore you should a) ensure you can log into the module b) upload a draft assignment early and keep uploading revisions as you make changes c) keep electronic copies of your work. If you provide a good reason your local tutor can grant an extension of 72 hours but there are restrictions on this – see module guide for more details.
20. 9) The following learning outcomes are assessed by this assignment:-
21. Knowledge
22. An understanding of current research, scientific principles and research methodology
23. within an area appropriate to the students named degree. 🗹

An understanding of legal, ethical, social and professional issues that relate

to research. 🗹

1. Skills
2. the ability to plan and schedule a research project taking into account legal, ethical,
3. social and professional issues 🗹
4.  

Use this section of this document as a template for your assignment deleting the section descriptions and replacing them with your assignment text

CET351 Research – Project Plan

<Student’s Name>

<Student’s Registration Number>

<The name of the degree you are studying>

< Centre (if off campus)>

<Title of Proposed Project>

Word count <number of words>

1. Justification of the Research Proposed

Introduce the project and explain the context. What is the background to the project? What are the problems experienced by the client, what does the client want to achieve?

What is one limitation of our current computing knowledge, citing journal and / or conference papers as evidence?

Explain how by addressing one of the limitation in our knowledge we could help not just the client but also the wider world.

Keep in mind that a research project is not about developing a new system, or solving one client’s problems but should aim to extend one aspect of our knowledge.

Cite your sources and provide details of these in your reference list in the Harvard format. Ensure your citations are in the correct format i.e. the name should be outside of the ( )’s if part of the sentence. The format of the name should be the same format as used in the reference list.

2. The Project Aim

Based on the introduction state clearly the proposed aim of the investigation from a scientific perspective i.e. what new computing knowledge will come from undertaking this project?

This statement should be very short and clear. One or two sentences are enough. This should not need a long explanation.

This is a research project and thus the main aim should have a knowledge outcome. An unacceptable aim would be to ‘develop a system for a client’ – this would be a practical outcome not an expression of knowledge that would help the wider computing community

3. The Project Objectives

The objectives should follow a sound scientific and logical order and focus on the main steps or milestones to be completed to execute the project from initial analysis to the writing up of results (ready for publication). Aim for about 6-10 objectives. Each objective should have a tangible result such as a report on the academic literature / the results of interviews with the client / the results of an evaluation of the project.

The objectives should be as specific as possible to your project. Thus instead of ‘Perform a literature search’ you may wish to write ‘Search for research papers on methods for web interaction for visually impaired users’.

A numbered list is recommended for this section of your project proposal.

4. Practical Outcomes for Client

Explain briefly, but clearly, what the client will get from undertaking this project if done successfully. Note for research to be successful it should be limited in its scope and should have a very clear focussed goal. Therefore a computer system that solves all of the client’s problems is not a likely outcome of a research project. The outcomes could include a working prototype but are more likely to include smaller components, e.g. a new interface, and / or reports.

5. The Proposed Methodology

Describe the proposed methodology for this project. i.e. explain how the work will be carried out in terms of its type (e.g. comparative study / laboratory experiments / field study etc.)

Describe the work in sufficient detail so that the reader can see how this specific project is expected to be undertaken e.g. :-

• to develop a usable interface following the recommendations from the literature and an analysis of similar sites
• carry out a usability study using 20 students
• develop a secure user identification component by creating and testing iterative prototypes

A general explanation of qualitative verses quantitative data collection, or other general concepts, is not appropriate here – the description should focus on this particular project.

6. The Evaluation Plans

Sound scientific methodology requires some form of evaluation / experiment to verify the validity of the new knowledge claimed or the benefits suggested of the proposed research. This can take different forms such as formal proofs, lab experiments, field experiments or some other form of conclusive evaluation.

Describe, in detail, your proposed evaluation plans.

Specify what type of evaluation is proposed, explain what you are proposing to assess and why this is a valid evaluation given the aim of the investigation Explain in detail what experiments will be conducted, and what resources, data or users will be required. Explain precisely what data will be collected, how this will be collected and how the results will be analysed.

References to literature are not required here though if other researchers have used the same approach in their evaluation you may wish to cite and discuss these here.

7. Scientific Justification

Justify the evaluation plans, described in section 6, with reference to the scientific theory to show that these plans adhere to sound scientific principles i.e. write a short but critical reflection of these evaluation plans to identify any potential limitations or problems (e.g. the possibility of data error or bias) and state what steps you may take in your experimental design to overcome these potential problems.

You may wish to refer to the following list of scientific terms when writing this justification :- Basic research, Applied research, Quantitative research, Qualitative research, Knowledge, A hypothesis, Testability, Reproducibility, Precision, Objectivity, Validity, Reliability and Significance.

While you may refer to appropriate scientific theory here a description of this theory is not appropriate. Instead you should focus your discussion the justification of your specific evaluation plans.

8. Ethical Justification

Briefly justify the methodology and evaluation plans, described in section 5 and 6, from an ethical, legal and professional perspective i.e. make specific reference to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Framework for Research Ethics, Legal acts and Codes of Conduct and Ethics to show that this proposed project does not breach any of these guidelines.

State briefly any social implications this research may have.

9. References

List here any research papers used in this document – other sources used must also be cited and placed in the reference list though you should keep other sources to a minimum!

Ensure this list is in the Harvard format and references to journal and conference papers are formatted as in the module materials and thus highlight: –

All authors names, publication year, the title of the research paper (in quotes), the title of the journal or conference (in italics), the volume and page numbers.

References should not be numbered but should be in alphabetical order using the author’s name.

Any text taken from these sources must be in quotes and the sources cited.

If journal or conference papers are obtained via the web providing the web address is not appropriate or sufficient.

10. Schedule

Show how each of the numbered objectives are broken down into individual tasks and their expected deliverables as well as the allocation of effort to each task (in hours) and planned start and end date using the template provided below. A full and detailed list of tasks is expected covering the entire project.

The wording of each task should be clear, detailed and specific to your project.

The workload and timing of tasks should be appropriate.

11. Gantt Chart

Based on the schedule the Gantt chart needs to show the tasks and their timings diagrammatically using the template provided here. This should also show the total working hours planned each week.

While Gantt charts can be produced using Microsoft Project this is designed for larger multi-person projects scheduled in days not hours. Furthermore Microsoft Project files cannot be uploaded to TurnItIn and so for this assignment these are not allowed. You must therefore use the template provided below.

Schedule Template

ID	Task Title	Effort (hours)	Planned Start Date	Planned End Date	Actual Start Date	Actual End Date	Deliverable
1	Investigate Client Organization	50
1.1	Interview Manager	2	4/2/13	8/2/13			Interview notes
1.2	Interview Department heads	20	4/2/13	15/2/13			Interview notes
1.3	Interview Sample of customers	20	11/2/13	20/2/13			Interview notes
1.4	Discuss findings with Manager	3	21/2/13	22/2/13			List of comments / feedback
1.5	Write report on Client Organization	5	18/2/13	22/2/13			Written report

GANTT Chart Template

Task ID	Task Title	Effort (hours)	W 1	W 2	W 3	W 4	W 5	W 6	W 7	W 8	W 9	W 10	W 11	W 12	W 13	W 14	W 15	W 16
1	Investigate Client Organization	50
1.1	Interview Manager	2	2
1.2	Interview Department heads	20	10	10
1.3	Interview Sample of customers	20		10	10
1.4	Discuss findings with Manager	3			3
1.5	Write report on Client Organization	5			5
	Total Hours Per Week		12	20	16

This template ends here