Assignment 1
Research Methodology Autumn 2017
Aims:
This is assignment aims to establish a basic familiarity with fundamental concepts of research methods including literature review, referencing, research design, data collection and qualitative design.
Objectives:
On completion of this assignment, you should be able to:
• understand critical literature review,
• understand the research design and
• understand data collection and qualitative research.
Specifications:
This assignment consists of two parts. Complete all parts.
Part A: Annotated bibliography and literature review (10 marks)
Select five papers about Cloud Computing from IEEE Explorer, SpringerLink, Google Scholar, DBLP and/or ScienceDirect. Create an annotated bibliography for these papers, using latex and Endnote. It must contain the following contents:
a. Citation
b. Introduction
c. Aim and research method
d. Scope e. Usefulness
f. Limitations
g. Conclusions
Note: since you will use these papers for Part B, you should select papers which are suitable for your knowledge and discipline, i.e., it can be related to topics in information systems, information technology, or computer science.
Part B: Critical literature review, qualitative design and qualitative analysis
Using the method of exploratory design, design your research on a topic about Cloud Computing. Your design should consist of the following phases:
a. Critical literature review
b. Identifying a research problem,
c. Survey, and
d. Qualitative analysis.
Critical literature review (10 marks): review these papers you selected in Part A and write a report to summarise them including
a. describe related work,
b. describe the significance and contribution of each paper and compare them,
c. describe the limitations, and
d. identify a research problem you want to address.
Research proposal (10 marks): Your proposal should cover the following aspects:
a. the background and research problem,
b. the review of literature or theoretical framework of the study,
c. objectives or aims,
d. the methodology and procedure of the study,
e. implications or significance of the problem,
f. expected outcomes and
g. bibliography.
Survey – Questionaries (10 marks): With the research problem in mind, create questionaries to collect the information you want to use to derive the answer or solution to your research problem. Your questionaries should be written in two A4 papers and can consist of any number of questions. Find ten people who can answer your questionaries and collect their answers.
Keep in mind that you will adopt a coding method in your qualitative analysis, therefore, you should embed proposed code words in your questionaries.
Qualitative analysis (10 marks): You should the follow the following procedure for you qualitative analysis:
a. Compiling,
b. Disassembling (using a proper coding method),
c. Reassembling (using multi-level coding to derive a conclusion),
d. Interpreting and e. Concluding.
Submission
You need to submit the following
a. annotated biography of five selected papers,
b. report of your literature review,
c. research proposal
d. questionaries and
e. research report on your qualitative analysis.
(Bonus marks: if you can write it into a proper paper, you will receive 5 bonus marks)
Late Submission: 25% deduction per day.
Plagiarism
A plagiarised assignment will receive a zero mark and be penalised according to the university rules. Plagiarism detection software might be used for this assignment.