1. Chapter 3: Formalities, psychology, ethics and philosophy
Introduction
3.1 Some formalities
3.2 Some psychology
3.3 Ethics
3.4 Some philosophy
3.5 Conclusion
3.6 Problems

2. Introduction Formal requirements of institution
Select a topic that suits your personality
Select a project that can be completed in ethical manner
Research is straight forward

3. 3.1 Some formalities For M: Show that you know how to do research
Ability to go through the motions is more important than obtaining stunning results
For Ph.D: Should obtain results that are significant contribution to the body of knowledge in the field
Ability to publish in refereed journals indicates that your results are accepted by other academics

4. 3.2 Some psychology Selecting a topic Selecting a supervisor Myths
Perceived importance, availability of bursaries, cost, availability of study leader
Must be interesting for you
Read articles, talk to others before making a decision
Selecting a supervisor
Personality, experience, amount of prodding and pushing s/he is willing to give
Myths
Postgraduate studies will not make you rich, are not difficult, are not easy, don’t prove that you are clever
Motivation
Research is done at your own pace, unlike coursework with assignments, due dates and exams.

5. 3.3 Ethics Experimenting should not
put people’s lives/health/job security at stake
risk large financial loses

6. 3.4 Some philosophy
Research in IT differs from other scientific research
Others try to understand nature; they observe reality
The research subject
Not the study of computers, but the study of computing
IT research endeavours to realise theories to guide construction of automated systems
A paradigm is an accepted model or pattern that proved able to guide research.
The research process
Similar to the completion of a building
Fitting each brick in the building

7. Workshop
Google the following and evaluate the ethical merit of the projects:
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Stanley Milgram’s experiment on Obedience and Individual Responsibility
The Willowbrook Hepatitis Study
Laud Humphrey’s Tearoom Study
The Stanford Prison experiment
The experiments that Nazi doctors conducted on prisoners in death camps
What was Dr. Werner Bezwoda accused of doing? How did the research community, his employer and the scientific literature react?
Discuss the possible ethical mistakes that you can make in the research project that you identified in workshop 1.