1. CSCD 506 Research Methods for Computer Science
Winter 2018
Lecture 9
Generating Research Ideas What is Good Research 1 1

2. Topics Creating Research Ideas Excellent Research How to Recognize it
How to do it 2

3. Generating Research Ideas
Most graduate students have been passive consumers of knowledge
May ask questions, but they do not generate course content
Rely on professor to present ideas, and lecture on various topics in a course. Agree?

4. Generating Research Ideas
Graduate school is different
Requires a different set of skills
Advice is to ...
Becoming an Active Reader and Listener
What does this mean?
You transition from passive mode of learning that traditional lecture courses encourage to
An active and critical learning style

5. Getting Research Ideas
Whenever you read technical material, evaluate a piece of software, or listen to a research talk,
Ask yourself these questions:
From where did the author seem to draw the ideas?
You may never get the exact answer
What exactly was accomplished by this piece of work?
How does it relate to other work in field?
What would be a reasonable next step to build upon this work?
Are there ideas from related fields might be relevant this subject? In this mode, you should ask lots of questions

6. Exposing Yourself to Research
Set aside some time every week for trying to generate research ideas
Some possible catalysts:
Make a weekly effort to read abstracts from premier conferences or journals in your field
Choose an article or two to read in depth and then critique it
Make a weekly search to find preprints in your field.
Read selectively and critique
Attend a research seminar or colloquium series
Listen and critique
These can be online, TED talks or other

7. Directed Study
What do you think? Which comes first: the thesis advisor or the thesis topic?
The answer is, both ways work
If you have identified a compatible advisor, you could ask for an independent study course
Both of you together set focus for course, with you having more or less input depending upon your progress in identifying a subfield of research, CSCD 599

8. A Pitfall to Avoid It is possible to spend almost all
of your time in literature review
and seminars
Is this enough to develop research ideas?
The truth is that nothing will come of it unless you are an active reader and listener
You must also assign yourself time to develop your own ideas, too

9. A Pitfall to Avoid (2) More questions ….. Is it possible to
“finish a literature review and then start research."
Not really
New literature is always appearing,
You will continually see new connections and related areas that must be studied
Active listening and reading must be viewed as “continuing education'' that will involve your entire career
Don't fool yourself into thinking it must be finished before you can begin research

10. Choosing an Idea
How?
From reading, interacting with your advisor, course work, or working on a research assistantship, some possible projects will emerge
Also, interacting with other students
Talk to your peers about ideas
Make a list of open problems and possible projects that are of interest to you, and discuss them with potential advisors

11. Remain Active
Even after you have decided on your initial focus, important to continue a routine of reading new material
All of these sources can contribute to the development of your idea
At this stage you can add one more question:
How can these ideas help me solve my research problem?
Initial idea can be quite far from final thesis topic
If you remain active in identifying new ideas, it will be much easier to generate alternative topics if the time comes.

12. Excellence in Research

13. Research Excellence
Each year, many papers are produced and research conducted, question is
What makes a great research problem?
Ideas?
No one right answer
Research is a matter of taste or opinion
Over time, a research idea will gain in importance

14. Research Excellence
However, great research problems tend to share many characteristics:
Problem is difficult
Solving the problem creates new knowledge
Problem changes conventional thinking. While there is value in confirming conventional wisdom, great research typically offers surprising results, creates a new way of thinking about an area
In other words, a Paradigm Shift
Can you think of examples of this?

15. Research Led to Paradigm Shifts
Standard Networking Protocols
→ Universal Networks
Graphical Browsers
→ Internet
PC Computers
→ Ubiquitous Computing
Wireless Technology
→ Cell phones, Wi-Fi, Everything wireless

16. Picking a Good Problem Picking a good problem is important
Developing taste in research problems and learning how to identify good problems can take many years of experience
Students get structured training
Attend classes, read textbooks, and grind through problem sets in areas that might be called “established science”

17. Research Patterns
Do you believe that there can be “research patterns” that can be applied to problems?
Like software engineering design “patterns” for software but instead for research problems.
Research process is a lot more of a recipe than it might appear
There appears to be research patterns that can be applied to problems
A design pattern is a reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem
Example design patterns include iterators (for lists) and locks and thread pools (for concurrency)

18. Research Patterns
Researchers tend to coalesce around certain paradigms as they emerge
Finding these emerging paradigms puts you at the cutting edge of a research problem

19. Research Patterns
Reading conference proceedings to identify trend is reasonable, but you might not be at cutting edge
A better place to identify trends, is “upstream” of conferences. Funding agencies often set research agendas, through “calls for proposals”, and research community chases those opportunities
So, for example, if you see a funding call for digital health, it’s reasonable to expect that three or four years down the road, a trend or sub-community may emerge around this topic.
Funding agencies even hold workshops to help shape these trends, before calls for proposals are released.

20. Finding Good Research Problems
Revisit old problems where assumptions may have changed
Old problems can be a great source of new problems.
Previous solutions to old problems may have assumed certain constraints about processing power, storage, the cost of memory, the set of prevailing applications or protocols, etc.
Yet, technologies are continually advancing
A problem that was difficult or otherwise intractable five years ago might suddenly become solvable because old assumptions are now invalid
Can you think of some examples?

21. Finding Research Problems
Dream, and maintain wish lists
Many research solutions are ultimately about making everyone’s lives better.
Think about the “grand” research problems— curing cancer, forecasting disasters, and so forth
Note – There are already many “cures” for Cancer
They are just not profitable to the medical community

22. Finding Good Research Problems
These solutions seem like science fiction, yet they are achievable.
Significant problems involve
sub-problems, some of which
require creation of new knowledge
If they didn’t require new discoveries, problems would be solved already

23. Summary Good research doesn't just happen
Takes a lot of work and dedication
Identify important problems
Go outside the box to find solutions
If it was an easy problem, would already be solved
Inter-disciplinary solutions often yield better results (mine and other opinions)
Ideas come from a broader background 23

24. References How to do Great Research
patterns/
Graduate Study in Computer and Mathematical Sciences dy.html

25. Assignment – Project Proposal End25