Thesis Projects Mikael Berndtsson • Jörgen Hansson Björn Olsson • Björn Lundell Thesis Projects A Guide for Students in Computer Science and Information Systems Second Edition Mikael Berndtsson University of Skövde Sweden Jörgen Hansson Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA USA Björn Olsson University of Skövde Sweden Björn Lundell University of Skövde Sweden British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2007936686 ISBN-13: 978-1-84800-008-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-84800-009-4 Printed on acid-free paper © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008 First edition Springer-Verlag London Limited 2002, 1-85233-332-4 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency

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Thesis Projects Mikael Berndtsson • Jörgen Hansson Björn Olsson • Björn Lundell Thesis Projects A Guide for Students in Computer Science and Information Systems Second Edition Mikael Berndtsson University of Skövde Sweden Jörgen Hansson Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA USA Björn Olsson University of Skövde Sweden Björn Lundell University of Skövde Sweden British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2007936686 ISBN-13: 978-1-84800-008-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-84800-009-4 Printed on acid-free paper © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008 First edition Springer-Verlag London Limited 2002, 1-85233-332-4 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Springer Science+Business Media springer.com Preface Any B.Sc. or M.Sc. study programme in the computing discipline typically ends with a capstone project. A capstone project builds and tests the skills and the knowledge acquired during the education and is an essential part of the training towards becoming a professional. There is a large number of different terms for these types of projects: capstone project, senior project, final year project, B.Sc./ M.Sc. thesis project, etc. In this book we will use the term ‘thesis project’, and in some cases, for the sake of simplicity, just ‘project’. This book focuses on thesis projects within the computing discipline. Thus, the type of project discussed in this book is in line with the capstone format described in the ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula 2001 Computer Science (p. 53): … an alternative capstone format is a research experience that includes some original work, a review of the scientific literature, and an investigation of a proposed solution, followed by a scientific paper and/or an oral presentation of the results. It is important to remember that these are undergraduates and be realistic about the amount and quality of research expected. Even so, it may be more worthwhile to expose outstanding students to the challenges of research than to have them design and build yet another program In this book, we present a process for conducting thesis projects with the researchorientation described in the quote above. This process was developed at the University of Skövde, Sweden, and it has been applied successfully at the B.Sc. and M.Sc. levels and to a wide spectrum of projects, addressing many different subjects within computing. Typical subject areas have included, for example, artificial intelligence, theoretical computer science, databases, data communication, distributed systems, human-computer interaction, operating systems, real-time systems, web technologies, software engineering, systems analysis and technology transfer. Some projects have been theoretical and others more empirically oriented, and they have included both science- and technology-oriented projects. In addition to this book, the interested reader can also find additional information on our experiences of these types of projects in the following article: Olsson, B., Berndtsson, M., Lundell, B. and Hansson, J. (2003). Running research-oriented final year projects for CS and IS students. In Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Reno, Nevada, USA, 19–23 February 2003, pp. 79–83, ACM Press. v vi Preface Who Should Read This Book? We have written this book with the aim of meeting the needs of students who are close to finishing a B.Sc. or M.Sc. degree. However, several other categories of readers may find this book a valuable companion. We hope that a number different categories of readers may benefit from the book, as outlined below. ? ? ? ? Students who plan to do a B.Sc. or M.Sc. project in which they are expected to: use scientific methods to solve a problem, work with a research-oriented focus, write a report in the form of a thesis, and/or present and defend their work orally (viva voce examination). Supervisors who supervise B.Sc. or M.Sc. projects. It is important that supervisors are familiar with and up to date on questions and issues that students might encounter in the various phases of their B.Sc. and M.Sc. projects. Examiners of research-oriented B.Sc. or M.Sc. projects. The book may be particularly useful for anyone who is new in the role as examiner and needs a head start on, for example, assessment criteria. Coordinators who are responsible for maintaining and developing course curricula for B.Sc. or M.Sc. projects, as well as other people involved in development of study programmes. In addition to the general descriptions and advice provided in this book, we want to emphasise that it is important for students to find out the exact requirements at the department where the project is undertaken. Changes from Previous Edition ? ? ? Terminology. We have updated the terminology and do not use the term Final Year Project. Instead we either use the more term Thesis Project or simply just projects. Information-seeking and use. A new chapter on Information-seeking and use and a subsection called Improve your learning (and grade) have been added to strengthen the material on how to search for relevant literature and also how to validate it. This material was written by Ola Pilerot, who is lecturer at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) at Göteborg University and at University College of Borås. Nuts and bolts. We have fine tuned the text and updated the information wherever appropriate. Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the support of a number of people, all of whom we wish to acknowledge with gratitude for their help and support. We are indebted to all our fellow examiners, supervisors and students who, during the period 1996–2007, improved the quality of the thesis project process. We would also like to thank Stig Emanuelsson, Anders Malmsjö, Pam Lings, Dan Lundh, Lars Niklasson, Ingi Jonasson, and Ola Pilerot for their support and assistance during our work on preparing this book, and Lars-Erik Johansson for his encouragement and support in the initial phase of this project. We are grateful to the University of Skövde and the Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University for their financial support, and to our friends at Springer-Verlag London Ltd, who have been very patient and understanding during the development of this book. Finally, our special thanks go to our families. Mikael Berndtsson June 2007 Jörgen Hansson Björn Olsson Björn Lundell vii Contents Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Part I 1 2 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Motivation and Purpose of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Purposes of Thesis Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Actors in the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assessment Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reading Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 6 7 7 8 Computer Science and Information Systems Research Projects. . . . . . 9 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3 Concepts The Landscape of CS and IS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What is Research?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linkage Between Research and Thesis Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 10 12 14 Actors Involved, their Roles and Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.1 15 16 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 22 The Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 The Responsibilities of the Student. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Projects with Multiple Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Responsibilities of a Supervisor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Projects with Multiple Supervisors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Examiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 The Examiner as Quality Evaluator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 The Examiner as Quality Assuror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3 The Responsibilities of an Examiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix x Contents Part II Process 4 The Process – An Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 5 Developing your Project Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 5.1 Choosing a Subject Area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Start Early . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 How to Choose a Subject Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Choose Problem to Focus on Within the Subject Area. . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Descriptive Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Theory Oriented Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Applied Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.4 A Comparison of Theory and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assure Quality of Initial Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Write and Submit a Project Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 Project Proposal Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quality Control of Project Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matching Supervisors and Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 28 29 30 31 31 32 32 33 33 33 35 35 36 References and Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6.1 6.2 6.3 Appropriate References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Improve your Learning (and Grade) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 40 42 Developing your Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7.1 7.2 7.3 Meetings with Your Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Activities to Perform While Developing the Aim. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 Refine the Initial Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Develop the Arguments Behind the Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.3 Write the Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 46 47 48 49 52 Developing your Objectives and Choosing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 8.1 8.2 8.3 54 56 58 58 60 62 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 6 7 8 Important Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Addressing Validity and Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.1 Literature Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.2 Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.3 Case Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contents xi 8.3.4 Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.5 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.6 Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Illustrative Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Four-Step Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.1 Develop Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.2 Identify Potential Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.3 Choose Among the Potential Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5.4 Present Details of the Chosen Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 64 65 65 66 68 68 69 69 70 9 Following the Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 10 Presenting and Analysing your Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 10.1 Presenting Non-Numerical Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.1 Presenting Data from a Literature Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.2 Presenting Data from Interviews and Questionnaires . . . . 10.1.3 Presenting Data from Implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Presenting Numerical Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.1 Using Tables and Graphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.2 Avoiding Misleading Graphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.3 Significance Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 Analyse Your Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.1 Descriptive Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.2 Theory Oriented Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.3 Applied Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.4 A Comparison of Theory and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 What is a Good Result?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 73 75 76 79 79 81 82 83 83 84 84 85 86 Drawing your Conclusions and Identifying Future Work . . . . . . . . . . 87 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Summarising the Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Putting the Results into Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evaluating the Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Identifying Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 88 90 90 Presenting and Defending your Work Orally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 8.4 8.5 11 12 12.1 Oral Presentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 12.1.1 Before the Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 12.1.2 The Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 12.1.3 What to Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 12.1.4 Handling Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 12.1.5 Preparing for the Defence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 xii Contents 12.2 Acting as Opponent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.1 How to Act as Opponent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.2 Preparing for Opposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 Prepare the Final Version of your Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 102 103 105 Part III Supplements 13 Information-Seeking and Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 13.1 13.2 Information Literacy for Computer Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Information Searching, Seeking, and Behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.1 Search Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 A Session with INSPEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.1 What will you Find? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.2 Boolean Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.3 Information Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.4 How to Get Hold of Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 The Information Seeking-Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5 Two Basic Strategies for Information Seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5.1 The Concept Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5.2 Personal Research Information Management . . . . . . . . . . 14 109 110 111 112 113 113 114 117 118 119 119 120 The Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who is the Report for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Requirements of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Structure of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.1 Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.2 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.3 Chapter 1 – Introduction Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.4 Chapter 2 – Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.5 Chapter 3 – Problem Description and Statement . . . . . . . 14.4.6 Chapters 4–6 – The Core of your Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.7 Chapter 7 – Related Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.4.8 Chapter 8 – Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.5 Style of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6 Managing References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6.1 The List of References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6.2 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.6....