1. Thesis Project Nirvana
Brian Newberry

2. Thesis Project Nirvana
It All Starts With An Idea
The idea often comes from one’s personal experience and is often conceptualized as a problem that needs a solution.
A good idea is one in which you have some interest but not one that you must solve to be happy or fulfilled as a human being. The reason is because of the need for compromise that is built in to the process.
For you see, you must do what you can in the time you have with the resources available to you. Seldom will you have enough time (deadlines) or enough resources.
Above all, the project must be one that you can complete!

3. Thesis Project Nirvana Preliminary Literature Review
Delve into the literature base and find three or more important articles/books that can form the backbone for your investigation/development.
Ideally one or more of these will tie you into an accepted but not tired theory and will give you a lot of good ideas for your project.
This preliminary literature review should help you choose your three areas of literature review and assure you that there is sufficient depth in the literature base to make a full literature review possible.

4. Thesis Project Nirvana Proposal (MA Project Application)
It is now time to develop your proposal. The purpose of the proposal is to provide your thesis committee sufficient information so that they can understand what you intend to do, how you intend to do it and to give them confidence in your ability to complete the project.

5. Thesis Project Nirvana
Proposal (MA Project Application)
The proposal has four parts:
Introduction
Literature Review
Method
Conclusion or Summary

6. Thesis Project Nirvana Proposal (MA Project Application)
Introduction
The introduction identifies the problem or the topic for your development, situates your project in the context of the situation in which you will implement the project and explains why this is a significant issue to address.
The introduction parallels chapter 1 of your thesis. (1 – 3 paragraphs)

7. Thesis Project Nirvana Proposal (MA Project Application)
Literature Review
The literature review for the proposal should identify the three major areas of review and should provide at least the three major works in each area. Additionally the literature review should explain what you expect each area of the literature review to provide in terms of informing or guiding your project.
The literature review section of your proposal parallels chapter 2 of your thesis. (3-7 paragraphs)

8. Thesis Project Nirvana Proposal (MA Project Application)
Method
The method section of your proposal should explain how you will complete the project. Specifically you should address your analysis, any delivery decisions that have already been made, and anticipated testing procedures.
The method section parallels chapter 3 of your thesis. (3-5 paragraphs)

9. Thesis Project Nirvana Proposal (MA Project Application)
Conclusion or Summary
The conclusion or summary attempts to predict foreseeable problems and how you will deal with them should they occur. Additionally the conclusion or summary should explain what you expect to learn from doing this project and your anticipated outcomes as you understand them at this point in the process.
The conclusion or summary often contributes to what will ultimately be chapter 4 of the thesis. (1-5 paragraphs)

10. Thesis Project Nirvana Complete Literature Review
Locate 50 or more articles/books etc. for your literature review. You will not use all of them but they will all help in some way.
It is helpful to find a few theses or dissertations in the general area you are working. I suggest finding at least one bad one and several good ones. The good ones will have good bibliographies that can become a way to help you find good articles. The bad one can motivate you when you need it.
Develop three or more threads or main topics that inform your development.

11. Thesis Project Nirvana Institutional Review Board
IRB
Institutional Review Board
Irb.csusb.edu
The Board is responsible for assuring compliance with accepted research procedures involving human subjects.
You need to submit the appropriate forms to IRB for review of your project data collection.

12. Thesis Project Nirvana
Instructional Design
Analysis
Design
Development
Implementation
Evaluation

13. Thesis Project Nirvana
Analysis
Analysis helps you find the answers to three important questions: Who, What and How.
Who is your product designed to teach and what are their characteristics?
What does your product need to teach?
How will you know you have successfully taught that which you have identified for your project?

14. Thesis Project Nirvana
Analysis
There are three categories of tools or methods used in an analysis, People items, Mining the Literature Base and Document Recovery.
People items are things like surveys, focus groups, questionnaires, task analyses, and interviews.
Mining the literature base means finding information in the research in the field.
Document recovery refers to finding any artifacts related to your topic such as prior teaching materials, standards, curriculum materials and texts.

15. Thesis Project Nirvana
Design
Design includes all activities related to the planning for production of your product. Some practices that are used for design include story boarding, navigation prototypes, navigation tests, paper or other media models, delivery decisions, and chunking choices.

16. Thesis Project Nirvana
Development
Development refers to all activities related to the production and pre-release testing of your product. This includes development of writer’s guides, development of content, development of final templates, assembly of content into templates and testing.
Testing at this level can include both Alpha and Beta levels. Alpha testing occurs at the early part of development where you are still able or willing to revisit key assumptions in your design or content. Beta testing occurs after the point in your project where you will no longer undertake major changes, but rather restrict yourself to correcting errors.

17. Thesis Project Nirvana
Implementation
Implementation is the part of your process where you put your product into use and gather performance data.
This can be at the point where you are done with testing or this can be at the Beta test level where you may use data gathered from this process in order to make final corrections to your product. Please note that it is important not to enter implementation until you are confident that your product is stable and effective.

18. Thesis Project Nirvana
Evaluation
Evaluation includes making judgments about the effectiveness of both your process and the effectiveness of your product.

19. Thesis Project Nirvana
Final Thoughts
It is a good idea to keep a log or journal of your development process. This helps you capture major decisions as you make them which makes writing about them much easier long after you might otherwise have forgotten them.
Undertaking a development project is a great learning opportunity. You will learn new skills, create new instructional design tools for yourself and you will learn about your capacity for work and self motivation. You will have moments of self-doubt and. Work through these and continue! Rely on peer, professional and personal relationships to support your work.