1. Structure of a Research Proposal or Report INFO4990: Information Technology Research Methods DECO3008: Design Computing Prep Honours Mary Lou Maher March 2005

2. Contents Proposal –Introduction to topic –Literature Review –Research Methodology –Proposed Approach –Research Schedule –References Report –Introduction to topic –Literature Review –Research Methodology –Research Results –Contributions –References

3. Introduction to topic Start with a summary and significance of your title Motivation: what will we have when the research is done Significance: where are the holes in what has been done already Aims, Objectives, Claim, Hypothesis, Research Questions

4. Literature Review Critically review the research literature in the field that you intend to make your contribution Summarise the contributions of relevant literature Identify relevant claims, methods, validation State the relevance to your research

5. Research Methodology Relate your claim to the method and to the validation around one or more research methodologies: –Prototyping –Experimental –Surveys –Simulation –Case Study –Action Research

6. Proposed Approach How will you collect your evidence? Have you started the research? What is your big idea? Are there any preliminary results?

7. Research Results How did you collect your evidence? What are your results? Did you idea work as intended?

8. Research Schedule Identify the major tasks to complete the research Tasks should be derived from the methodology Identify the length of time to complete the tasks and the order in which they will be done Notice any tasks that will be done at the same time Draw a gantt chart