Contents

Assessment Scheme / Assessment Weighting

Reading Materials

Project Roadmap

Stage 1: Project Planning

Stage 2: Project Execution

Stage 3: Project Presentation.

Guidelines for the Final report

Assessment Weighting

Coursework 100%:

Intermediate deliverable (20%)

Final report (65%)
Viva voce (15%)
Reading Materials

Core Texts

Dawson CW – Projects in Computing and Information Systems, Addison-Wesley,

2005 ISBN 0-321-26355-3

Additional Texts

Mikael Berndtsson, Jorgen Hansson, B. Olsson, and B., Lundell., Planning and
Implementing your Final Year Project - with Success!: A Guide for Students in
Computer Science and Information Systems. (Paperback - April 2006)

Philip Weaver, Success in Your Project: A Guide to Student System Development

Projects. (Paperback - Dec 2003)
Project Roadmap

The project unfolds in a series of overlapping stages. Each stage involves a number
of distinct tasks each of which is intended to produce some outcome or results.
Some of these results will need to be in place before other tasks can begin whilst
other tasks may be able to run concurrently. To make good use of your time it is
important to plan your project so that there is always some task to be doing if you
ever need to wait for the outcome from some other task.

Milestone Deliverable

January 5th Intermediate

deliverable

April 5th Final Report

After Exams. Viva voce

Stage 1: Project Planning

Project Planning has the following tasks:

(i) Topic identification.

(ii) Preparation for supervision.

(iii) Subject area study.

(iv) Methodological considerations.

(v) Planning.

(vi) Communicating the Proposal. The final task of the Planning stage consists of
putting together all the components you have prepared in the early tasks to form
your Project Proposal. This is a verbal deliverable.

Stage 2: Project Execution

Project Execution has the following tasks:

(i) The Literature Survey. Here the task is to locate and digest relevant and current
literature relating to your topic. It is this task that will demonstrate your scholarship.
By reading and understanding what other researchers have been doing, you learn
more about your subject and it puts into perspective the work that you are planning
to do. Outcome: Specialist subject knowledge. Result: Bibliography.

(ii) Writing the Literature Review. All the knowledge that you have gained in the
previous task needs to be collected and presented as a coherent account together
with your own critical appraisal. This will become your literature review which is
marked specifically in your final report. It is well worth considering specifying your
review as the intermediate deliverable. Deliverable: Literature Review. (5th
January)

(iii) The main project work. At last you are ready to start doing the work that you have
planned. If your planning has been good you will just be following the development
methodology or the research design which you chose during the planning stage and
if you are lucky (and you are working hard enough) you will be able to stick to the
schedule. One by one, the deliverables you have identified will emerge. It is
important to keep in touch with your supervisor, discussing your ideas and strategies
and seeking guidance and advice where you need it. Try to arrange regular meetings
with your supervisor and keep a record of your encounters, reporting on what was
discussed and noting what is promised for the next session. Results: Project
Deliverables (final dissertation report) 5th April.

Stage 3: Project Presentation.

There is little point in undertaking the labour of your project unless you can convey
its results to others. In this module, the results are presented in two ways – the
Report and the Viva. These are the tasks:

(i) Planning the report. A good report is like a story – it should tell the reader how you
went from the initial stages to choosing your topic and problem, through all the
decisions you made about what to do and how to do it, and all the work you did in
learning more about your subject, up to the point where you achieved your results.
Then the report should go beyond that and give your views about your results – how
accurate or reliable they are and how valid they are; and also of the project as a
whole – did you achieve what you set out to do? A good story does not happen
without careful planning about what information to include, in what level of detail and
in which order. Consideration must also be given to the form of presentation – the
style and layout of the writing, labelling of diagrams and handling of references.
Results: Table of Contents and Document Template.
(ii) Writing up the chapters. Remember that the project stages can overlap somewhat
and this task is an example of where that can happen. If you can do a certain
amount of the writing up as you are completing the work, it gives you better chance
of sharing your output with your supervisor and benefiting from that additional
feedback. Writing up in this way is also a good way of using up ‘dead’ time that can
occur while you are waiting for the outcome of other tasks. Results: Report Chapters.

(iii) Conclusion and Abstract. These are two special parts of the report. The Abstract
is a summary of the whole report that appears at the very beginning and is the first
thing read by the reader (first impressions are important). The conclusion is the last
chapter and is usually the last thing read by the reader. It is therefore worth giving
special attention to the structure and scope and even the language used in these
sections. Results: Abstract and Conclusion. Deliverable: The Final Report.

Guidelines for the Final report

Your report should be near the recommended word length (around 15,000 words),
word-processed on white A4 paper. Single or one and one-half spacing is
acceptable. Chapters/major sections should begin on a new page. The marking
scheme is as follows:

Abstract - 5

Introduction and Background - 10

Literature review; references & citations - 10

Problem definition - 10

Collection and analysis of data - 30

Evaluation/discussion of data/ results - 10

Conclusion with critical reflection on problem as defined - 10

Presentation of report and quality of written English - 15

(iv) Viva voce (Oral Presentation). Finally you will need to prepare and deliver a short
spoken account of your work and then answer questions put to you by your
supervisor and a second assessor both of whom will have read your report (in
advance). This is referred to as a viva voce (which is Latin for ‘with a live voice’). If
you have developed software then you can demonstrate its operation during the
course of the viva. Deliverable: Live presentation.