Informatics Research Proposal (IRP)
IRP Lecture
There will be a lecture on the IRP course and how to write a good
research proposal given by Alex Lascarides on
Wednesday 13th January
2010, in
Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 4, from
13:05
to
13:55.
This is the pdf copy of the slides used
for the lecture.
IRP Exemplars
Here are two example IRP reports from past years: one, two.
Transferrable Skills Courses
This year we have liaised with the transferrable skills department in
the university to offer you some support on IRP. This support
consists of the following three courses:
- Project Planning
IF Room 4.31, 14:00--15:30, Wednesday 3rd February 2010
The slides (pdf).
-
Effective Presentations
IF Room G.07, 14:00--15:30, Wednesday 17th February 2010
-
Proposal Writing
IF Room G.07, 14:00--16:30, Wednesday 3rd March 2010
The slides (pdf).
More detailed course information will soon appear at:
http://www.transkills.ed.ac.uk/services/masterstaught.cfm#informatics.
These courses are optional, but you are
strongly encouraged to register for
them. Transkills have asked that students
register via
pgskills@ed.ac.uk
providing the following information:
- your full name
- your matric number
- the course title and date
Short Description
The aim of this module is to develop generic research skills that can
be deployed in academic or commercial environments. Students will
demonstrate their ability to develop interesting concepts into
research/development proposals.
Activities and Outcomes
Each MSc student will collaborate with their project supervisor to
carve out a
project proposal for their summer project. If a student is already
assigned to a nominated project, then the student will flesh out more
detail on the proposal, again guided by the supervisor. To this end,
the student should meet the supervisor at least twice, but normally
three times. This may be a one on one meeting, or a meeting with all
the supervisor's MSc students.
By the end of this course, the MSc student will be able to:
- critically evaluate research literature appropriate for
their project subject.
- Use existing research literature to create hypotheses, and
justify experimental design choices for testing those hypotheses.
- Develop a structured research proposal.
- Outline project/research management issues.
Skills to be Developed
This course is designed to help you develop the following skills:
-
Project Design.
Consider carefully what research goal is being addressed
by the proposed
project, formulate a hypothesis for achieving that goal, and identify
what evidence will be needed to confirm or reject that hypothesis and how
this evidence will be provided. Break the project down into tasks,
estimate how much effort each task will require and partially order
them. Construct a workplan and identify milestones and deliverables.
Identify the major risks of failure and outline contingency plans for
dealing with them.
-
Motivating Research.
Explain why this project is important and timely. Place it into the
context of related previous and current research and explain why it is
original. Who would benefit from its successful completion and what
applications might arise?
-
Self-Assessment.
Identify what knowledge and skills are required to complete this
project. Assess which of these you already possess and which you
would need to acquire yourself or obtain by involving others. Make a
realistic estimate as to whether this project could be completed in
the time available.
-
Succinct Presentation.
It will be a challenge to say everything you need to say within the
page limit for the proposal. You will need to learn to express
yourself succinctly and clearly.
- Managing your Time.
The time available on this course is not a lot of time and can easily
be dissipated. You must structure your activities to make efficient
use of your time. Leave plenty of time for writing the proposal. Do
not leave everything until the week before the deadline!
Assignment Deadlines
There is one assignment for this course, consisting of a full project
proposal of about 6 pages; see
IRP Guidelines. This assignment is due
at
23:59pm, 25th March 2010.
Please submit this, in pdf format, by running the following
command under unix on a DICE machine:
submit msc irp 1 filename-of-your-submission
This assignment will be marked simply as ``pass'' or ``fail''. You
will recieve written feedback from your supervisor for this
assignment, but you won't know whether you passed or failed it until
after the Board of Examiner's meeting in June (due to University
regulations).
What is a Good Research Proposal?
IRP Guidelines give details
as to what will constitute
a good research proposal.
There are also
IRP
Marking Guidelines for how the research proposal will be graded.