Research Seminar - Thesis Projects for ICTiB

Research
Seminar

Thesis
Projects
ICT
in
Business

Dr.
Michel
R.V.
Chaudron,
Leiden
Ins7tute
of
Advanced
Computer
Science

Program
director
M.Sc.
ICT
&
Business

Leiden
University.
The
university
to
discover.

Agenda

-  Objec7ve
of
this
course

-  Logis7cs

-  1st
:
What
and
how
thesis
projects

-  2nd
:
Case
study
research
(next
week?)

Michel Chaudron Leiden University. The university to discover.

Objec;ve

-  Execu7ng
a
research
project

-  Learning
through
experience

-  Start
exploring
&
planning
for
ﬁnal

M.S.c
research
thesis
project


Objec;ve

-  Execute
a
small
research
project

-  Deﬁne
a
research
ques7on

-  Deﬁne
a
research
approach

-  Get
feedback/review
on
proposal

-  Execute
(collect
data
+
analyze)

-  Report
and
present


How
to
get
a
thesis
project

-  The
student
is
responsible
for

-  crea7ng
a
research
project

-  ﬁnding
a
supervisor

-  Involvement
of
a
company
is
not
a
university

requirement,
(but
a
possibility);
examples:

-  Eﬀec7veness
of
in-‐game
adver7sing,

-  What
is
the
value
of
Enterprise
Architecture


How
to
execute

-  Get
approval
from
your
university
supervisor
at
the

start
of
your
project

-  Get
feedback
early
and
oen

Don’t
show
up
in
July
with
your
ﬁnal
thesis
aer
your
last

talk
was
in
march.

Plan
an
intermediate
presenta7on

-  Make
a
planning
that
can
accommodate
changes

-  The
risk
of
your
project
should
decrease
over
7me

-  Include
a
trial
phase


How
to
execute

-  Mo7va7on

-  If
you
radiate
that
you
don’t
really
like
your

project,
or
only
complain,
…

-  Scien7ﬁc
goals

-  High
standard
on
yourself


How
to
not
start
a
thesis
project

-  Company
internships

-  Internships
≠
research
project

-  some
work
needs
to
be
done

no
intellectual
challenge

-  Do
not
combine
internship
with
research
project

by
splibng
7me
across
both


Guidelines
for
grading

Category Arguments
in
favour
and
against
(pro’s
and
con’s) Grade

Thesis
Work
(including
software,
paper)

Please
mention
authors,
title,
conference/journal
and
whether
the

paper
has
been
accepted
Publications
that
came
out
of

the
project
(if
any)

Project
Execution

Final
Presentation

Defense

Other
items
delivered

(poster,
exhibit,
…)
Grades
can
be
‘halves’
except
for
5.5.

Overall
grade


Components
of
Grading

-  Quality
of
the
thesis

-  Originality
of
the
research
ques7on

-  Crea7vity
in
crea7ng
a
solu7on

-  Depth
of
Analysis

-  Soundness
of
the
approach

-  Systema7c
applica7on
of
methods
and
techniques

-  Quality
of
the
repor7ng
(structure
of
the
thesis,
grammar)

-  Cri7cal
Thinking:
the
student
does
not
take
presented
informa7on
for

granted,
but
challenges
this.

-  Contribu7on
to
scien7ﬁc
knowledge
(Has
a
publica7on
been
realized?)

-  Characteris7cs
of
execu7ng
the
project

-  The
student
has
made
a
good
planning
and
largely
stuck
to
this
planning

-  Autonomy
(self-‐propelling):
student
has
performed
the
work
largely

autonomously
with
lidle
input
required
from
the
supervisors


High
Diving

Grade
is
determined
by

-  Difficulty
of
the
jump

-  Quality
of
the
execu7on

Image Source: Wikimedia

-  Oen
not
easy
to
increase

difficulty
during
flight



Originality

-  A
study
into
success
and
failure

factors
of
…

-  Best
Prac7ces
in
…

-  Think
about
the
surprise

factor
of
the
ﬁndings
when

you
deﬁne
your
ques7on.



Contribu;on

-  Most
important:
scien7ﬁc
contribu7on

Which
new
knowledge
does
your
project

discover?

-  Don’t:
label
your
sec7on
‘relevance’.

relevance
≠
contribu7on

-  Avoid
the
obvious

(“open
deuren”).



Quality
of
the
thesis
(repor;ng)

-  Quality
of
the
content!

-  Clear
Structure

-  Clear
and
Concise
English
–
Grammar

-  Be
precise
and
to
the
point

-  Traceability
of
the
argumenta7on

‘Chain
of
Evidence’


Example
thesis
outline

-  Introduc7on

-  Context

-  Problem
descrip7on

-  Mo7va7on
of
relevance/importance

-  Related
work

-  Exis7ng
State
of
the
Art
/
Literature
study

-  Approach

-  Process
&
Method
(for
collec7ng
&
analysing
data)

-  Results

-  Conclusions

-  Future
work

-  Discussion


Conclusion
includes:
Chain
of
Evidence

Conclusion
è

Claim
è

Evidence
è


Descrip;on
of
Research
Method

-  Don’t:

-  We
analyzed
according
to
‘Yin’.


Analysing
Interviews

-  Yin

-  Coding
Handbook
–
Saldana

-  Transcribe
–
all/most/important
parts

-  Read
-‐>
iden7fy
theme’s

-  Link
cita7ons
to
theme’s

-  Analyse
theme’s.


Using
a
DB
in
analyzing
interviews


Depth
of
Analysis

-  Don’t

Just
list
the
outcomes
of
the
survey.

-  Do’s

Try
to
explain
–
build
a
theory!

Find
rela7ons,
contradic7ons,
…

Relate
to
theories/ﬁndings
in
related
literature.

Have
the
goal
in
mind
to
publish
your
work


Soundness


Traceability
–
Chain
of
Evidence

claim
warrant

claim claim
warrant warrant


Why?


Create
a
theory


Future
work

-  Not:

…
more
case
studies

…
survey
in
addi7on
to
a
case
study

-  Suggest
ques7ons
that
delve
deeper:

-  In
this
thesis
we
found
that
Reviewing

Requirements
is
cost
eﬀec5ve
for

preven5ng
defects.

-  Future
work:
for
all
types
of
defects?

Maybe
you
have
a
suspicion
about
something…


Planning

-  A
plan
includes:

-  Reading
relevant
literature

-  A
phase
of
exploratory
research

•  Either
interviews,
surveys,
…

•  Perform
a
trial
before
the
real
thing

-  A
phase
of
in-‐depth
research

•  This
builds
on
the
ﬁndings
of
the
exploratory
research

-  No
exploratory
research
only


Manage
risk

-  In
your
planning
you
can
have
some
decision

points
where
you
can
resort
to
‘plan
B’


Be
realis;c

-  Is
it
realis7c
to:

-  Get
access
to
all
CIO’s
of
AEX
companies?


Finishing
a
research
project

-  The
quality
of
the
work
determines
the
grade

-  Not
how
much
7me
you
spent
on
it

-  On
average
thesis
projects
take
longer
than
6

months
to
ﬁnish.

-  “Dear
supervisor,
my
project
needs
to
be

ﬁnished
by
august.”


Confiden;ality

-  We
need
to
be
able
to
assess
the
difficulty

(and
amount)
of
work

-  We
will
sign
an
Non-‐disclosure
if
asked

-  We
will
not
sign
off
IP

-  We
do
not
provide
insurance


Administra;ve
procedure

-  Send
Judith
Havelaar
an
e-‐mail
that
you

would
like
to
join
a
diploma
ceremony

-  Your
last
grade
need
to
be
in
5
weeks
before

the
diploma
ceremony


Final
Presenta;on
&
Defense

-  Select
a
date
with
your
supervisors

-  Reserve
a
room

-  Presenta7on:

-  about
30
minutes

-  ques7ons:
un7l
the
commidee
is
sa7sﬁed

-  Send
your
presenta7on
to
your
supervisor(s)

for
review


-  BinckBank
–
rela7on
between
corporate
strategy
and

IT
strategy

-  Walter
Kosters
/
Frank
Taakes
(LIACS)

Social
Networks
(ﬁnd
company
yourself)

-  Pieter
Kwantes
(ABNAMRO)

Domain
Speciﬁc
Language
for
Securi7es
Trading

-  Thomas
Ba”ck

-  Op7miza7on
,
Gene7c
Algorithms


-  Chaudron:

-  Empirical
studies
in
Soware
Engineering

•  Cost
of
Quality/Defects
over
lifecycle

-  Architecture
(value,
oﬀshore,
modeling,
reasoning)

-  Risk
measurement

-  Katzy

-  E-‐learning

-  Innova7on
Management,
Entrepreneurship

-  Virtual
Teams


Other
contacts

-  ING

-  Na7onale
Nederlanden

-  KPMG

-  Heineken

-  KLM

-  Soware
Improvement
Group
(SIG)

-  Ministry
of
Finance

-  ChipSo

-  T-‐mobile

-  ….

-  Check
out
ICTIB
alumni
on
LinkedIn


Ques;ons


Ideas
TB

-  Give
a
list
of
good
ICTiB
thesis
topics
which
we
consider
of
high
quality

-  Outline
table
of
contents
of
a
thesis

-  We
could
introduce
a
masterclass
ICTiB
(similar
to
the
masterclass
CS;
I
am
happy

to
explain
this
in
further
detail)

-  I
think
we
should
have
topics
in
collabora7on
with
industry,
may
be
not

necessarily
combined
with
an
internship

-  Emphasize
the
idea
to
produce
scien7ﬁcally
publishable
work


Ques;ons
to
address
in
your
plan

-‐

A
Time
plan
with
intermediate
milestones
(to
monitor
the

progress
of
the
project
,
and
to
get
early
warning
signals
if

something
goes
wrong)

-  What
are
the
necessary
resources
(data,
money,
access
to

interviewees,
IT)
and
where
do
you
get
them
from?
(to
avoid

surprises
and
delays
in
the
process)

-‐

Project
risks
and
how
to
mi7gate
them

(e.g.
case/company/person/...
disappears,
etc.)


Ques;ons
to
address
in
your
plan

-‐

What
is
the
scien7ﬁc
domain
and
what
are
the
literature

keywords
and
the
main
literature?

(make
sure
what
to
contribute
to)

-  How
does
your
research
relate
to
the
research
agenda
of
the

group?
(so
that
they
integrate
and
re-‐use
work
instead
of

repea7ng
it
endlessly)

-  What
is
the
intended
academic
contribu7on?

-  What
is
the
intended
concrete
result?

-‐

What
is
the
research
method?

(to
make
sure
the
work
is
scien7ﬁcally
credible/rigorous)


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