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KF7028 Research and Project Management - Northumbria University

Assignment - Project Proposal

Learning Outcome 1: Deploy comprehensive knowledge and understanding of appropriate techniques and tools to plan, research and manage a computing technical project

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

Learning Outcome 2: Systematically identify and analyse a complex computing problem and produce a project proposal to solve it, considering professional, ethical, social and legal issues

Learning Outcome 3: Appreciate and apply appropriate techniques, tools and knowledge to support effective project management, research and advanced scholarship Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

Learning Outcome 4: Demonstrate independent research and enquiry skills at an appropriately advanced level in the construction of a computing project proposal

Assignment Brief

Introduction

For the KF7028 assignment, you must produce a proposal for a short research project. The proposal is the foundation of the 60-credit project that you will study as part of your postgraduate programme, KF7029 MSc Computer Science & Digital Technologies Project.

This assignment is therefore doubly important:

It accounts for 80% of the marks for KF7028.
It is essential preparation for your research project.

As stated, the KFG7029 research project will account for 60 credits (one-third) of your programme of study. Typically, you will spend 600 hours on this project.

Your KF7028 research proposal will be approximately 2500 - 3000 words and specify the project background, motivation and relevance to your programme of study; its scope, aims and objectives; a plan of the major activities. Your proposal should draw on current and recent research and other appropriate sources of information and cite these sources using a consistent standard referencing system. The proposal will be assessed by your allocated module tutors for the module or by your supervisor and a second marker, feedback will be provided, consisting of suggestions and comments on how to improve the project.

You will be allocated your project supervisor in semester two of your study period. If you start your study in September, you will be allocated a project supervisor in second semester January - May. If you start your study in January, you will be allocated your supervisor in your second semester September - January.

This proposal should be based on the outcome of your own research and of the meetings with your tutors, peers and supervisors. This supervisor/tutors will be confirmed with you by the end of week 6. By this time, you should have produced a draft copy of your proposal. Your supervisor/tutor will provide individual support and formative feedback during the preparation of your research proposal.

Background, Motivation and Relevance - Support this section with sources from literature - 1500 words.
Outline what you want to do and why you want to undertake this work, some areas to consider are, , a gap in the knowledge base, continuation of previous research, personal motivation, skills set and career choices.
Outline and critically discuss what relevant research has been previously undertaken, in the past, in your area of interest and why this project is necessary.
Outline and critically discuss why the research will be of value, in the future, and what the anticipated impact of the outcomes will be.
Set out and justify, where your work will fit in the computing body of knowledge. This is not a literature review.
Provide a diagram such as a mind map illustrating the position in the computing body of knowledge.

Research question, Aims, Objectives Task list, Risk Assessment. - 1000 words (This section drives all the content of the execution of your project, you are measured against this in the judgment of your project.)

Research Question

You should aim to outline a research question. Your research question is the primary question your project sets out to answer, or the problem you are trying to solve.

Aim

Produce a summary of what your project will achieve in one or two sentences, expands the research question.

Scope, Objectives and Risk

Set out the project objectives. These are the steps you will carry out to achieve the aims and to accomplish what you have set out to do in the research question.

In this section you should be mindful of how you are going to be judged when you submit your project report, see the marking scheme in the KF7029 Digital Technologies Project Handbook (located under Blackboard assessment tab for KF7028).

For example, part one of the marking scheme requires a literature review hence your first objective should be, "Construct a literature review (in a subject linked to the proposed area of investigation). A further objective needs to reflect the practical work that you will carry out in the execution of the project.

For each objective outline, ensure your objective is specific and you can outline what will be delivered either to the project report or as a project artifact, estimate how long the objective should take in terms of days/weeks. Outline what research method/design you will adopt for each objective and how each method will support one another. Construct a statement that identifies how you will measure the quality of the contribution to the project. For example:

Construct a literature review in the use of AI and predictive systems.
Deliverable - Chapter 2 in the project report, recommendations to be incorporated into either the practical work or in future recommendations.

Approach will be to thoroughly explore research in the AI and predictive systems, focusing on research in the last 5 year.
Quality of the work will be judged on the use of literature, strength of the discussion, in terms of relevancy, logic, balance of the deliberation.

Task list

Break down the objectives into tasks and produce a task list, each task should outline, deliverable, resources (all types) required, skills required, time required.

Risk Log
Produce a risk log (see example on your Blackboard Assessment tab) for you project. Each objective should be assessed based on risks, such as technical, personal, resources, time, and costs etc factors.
Gantt Chart/Monitoring and Control Table

Using your task list, construct a Gantt chart and a Monitoring and Control table (see examples given your Blackboard Assessment tab. The monitoring and control table is set up in this proposal but used during the execution of your KF7029 project.

Sources and use of Knowledge.
Identify and justify a journal where your work would be relevant for publication.
Identify and apply aspects of the standards for publication in the target journal that you can incorporate into your project proposal, so for example the referencing system, font style and pitch etc, instructions usually found under the journal's advice to authors.
Identify, justify and critically discuss any authors, journals where previous relevant research has been published within the last 5 years.

Ethics, Legal, Social, Security and Professional Issues. 500 words

Using literature, write out a separate section for Ethics, Legal, Social, Security and Professional Issues. In your deliberations discuss, explore and define all of the issues associated with your project, including how you will consider security issues. If you think an area of this section is not applicable to your project, you should justify why this is the case; leaving any section blank will result in a loss of marks.

Attachment:- Project Proposal.rar