week 7.verbal presentation

8/22/2019 Week 7.Verbal Presentation

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Discussion regarding verbal presentation expectations and marking


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Objectives To give an overview of our expectations of your verbal

presentation of your project proposal

To work through and explain the marking scheme tobe used to assess your verbal presentations


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Presentation template Suggested headings for your research proposal

presentation - good idea to keep to this as themarking scheme follows these headings.

Remember you have only 5 minutes to cover all ofbelow so you need to be able to speak clearly abouteach important point in turn. You do not have timeto go into detail about the topic.

Scope of project: Title, Problem, Context:

Literature Research design: Data, Approach, Ethical

and Practical considerations, Evaluation Management: Planning, Communication


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Name: Title:

Scope of project Explanation Out of Mark CommentsTitle Is the nature of the project clear? Does the title scope the

project? 10Problem

Is there a clear stated problem to be investigated? Is there

clear justification for the implementation of the project? 10

Context:Literature

Is there evidence that a preliminary literature review has beenundertaken to assure that there is a body of knowledge to

refer to? Has existing work and knowledge been taken into

account in the research proposal? 20

Research design

DataIs there a clear identification of the data required in order to

provide the potential to answer the research question/address

the problem identified?10

ApproachIs the approach to data collection clearly identified and

consistent with the overall approach to the research? 10Ethical and

practical

considerationsHave practical, ethical and conceptual issues relating to data

collection been considered and resolved 10

EvaluationIs there a clear process of project evaluation (i.e. testing of

developed s/w, guidelines)? Is the research loop closed? 10ManagementPlanning

Is there evidence that the overall project has been considered

in terms of the time available? Are timescales feasible? 10

CommunicationIs communication if the project clear? (e.g. good English,

well-structured; easy to follow?) 10

Total 100


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Scope of Project The Research Proposal Title remember this is not

an essay.

Need clear problem title to signpost to reader what youare going to do in your project.

This should not look like an essay title but anindication of what you will have achieved by the end of

your project.

e.g. The identification of the critical success factors inmanaging a SMEs IT Desktop Support function.


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The Actual Problem The particular problem(s)

you will attempt to research. A brief overview of what it is you are going to do and

why it is worth doing?

e.g. Most business organisations have a Help Desk orIT User Support function either in-house or suppliedby an outside organisation. Although there arehierarchical structures for how IT User Support can bemanaged (e.g. Microsoft) many of the important

issues relate to soft or people problems and areissues that are not well catered for in the standardHelp Desk/ITUS guidelines. This project seeks toexplore how important such soft/people issues are to

an effective Help Desk/ITUS function in SMEs.


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The Context: Literature What sources do you have to help you understand the problem

and issues with the approach to resolve it. This should containreferred and published sources, not only URLs. If you insist thatno material is available, then you must explain where you havelooked.

e.g. In this section I would need to list some appropriate, hopefullyup-to-date journal articles, academic texts and maybe even sometrade journal articles. I would hope to restrict the number of myon-line references. The point of this section is to demonstrate that Ihave already looked at the secondary research and have an idea of

what is already published on the subjects I am covering.


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Research Design

What sort of data is required? Often there can be more than one approach to try to answer the problem; which

are you taking?

e.g. The intention is to:

(i) research the literature to see how the Help Desk/ITUSfunction is described and its successful implementation

judged. To identify issues/problems to either support theresearch hypothesis that soft/people issues are (a) a factor tobe addressed and (b) are not being addressed successfullyalready.

(ii) undertake a detailed study of one SME (e.g. name of

organisation or at least an indication of the SMEs sector) tosee whether, if as suspected the soft/people issues are aproblem area in implementing and managing a successfulsupport function. Explain why focusing on SMEs ; explainwhy this particular organisation/industry as opposed to anyother.


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Approach to collecting data - methodology A description of how you plan to resolve the problem you have identified. Note you

should explain what other ways may have been possible but why they were discarded. e. g.

Use of literature research to

(i) explain the Help Desk/ITUS function

(ii) unearth any problems issues surrounding soft/people issues in this function

(iii) identify criteria for judging success of otherwise of (Help Desk/ITUS function)

Primary research Conduct in-depth interviews with

(i) HD/ITUS personnel at different levels (e.g. ones established by SMEs supportframework) and

(ii) end-users

to assess soft/people issues and how they are addressed (or not) in this particularorganisation.

Need to consider type of interview strategy one-to-one, group? how sessions will berecorded and data collection, analysis and conclusions drawn regarding critical successfactors? As only one in-depth case study to be undertaken it is probably worth consideringsome form of narrative research approach. Some might have opted for a survey typeapproach but this would have been inconsistent with the nature of the researchquestion ie about soft/people issues so need an approach that will allow gathering ofthis type of data.


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Ethical and Practical considerations: For all projects you need to consider whether there are any

ethical considerations for what you are proposing to do aspart of your research. If so, you will need to consider an

application to the University Ethics Committee (UEC) (e.g.any research involving children). You may need to think of a contingency plan in the event that the

UEC rejects your proposal.

Before you finish planning your project it is important toconsider whether what you propose is practical i.e. possiblein terms of time, cost, technological development, access tocollaborators, equipment, etc. You might design a fantastic project which is just not possible in the

current technical, financial, cultural environment.


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Evaluation How will you know that your study is complete? How

will you know when you have finished? How will you beable to tell whether what you have learnt/designed/

demonstrated is true/useful/interesting? You may look to see how your results compare with others

(e.g. Go back to the literature to compare). You mightundertake an evaluation study to test yourideas/product/design? How will you collect data about this

evaluation process? How might conduct a series of feedbackinterviews with your collaborators to see what they havethought about your intervention in their organisation....


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Management

Plan Some indication of the time schedule required for your attempt, e.g. if

surveys are involved costs/printing/time to ask etc, if experimentationinvolved how long to program, set-up and analyse etc.

e.g. Based on a full-time MSc project being allocated 200 student effort-hours I would need to break this time down into appropriate, balanced

sections. 50 hours have already been taken up with the production of thespecification so I need to show this and the remaining 150 hours need tobe allocated to all the tasks I need to undertake: further literature reviewactivities, setting up and undertaking primary research; making sense ofthe data I collect; evaluation of the data, validation of my conclusions etc.,write up. I need to calculate time taken by supervisors for feedback, and to

make allowances for any necessary contingency plans. Holiday periodsneed to be considered. Different methods to show all this should beconsidered and one picked with which to present the plan.

Practical and do-able are the key words here.


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Communication

It is important that what you say/write is clear andcomprehensible to those listening/reading. You need tomake sure your presentation is well structured, usesgood English language and grammar, and is neither toocomplex (for the time available) nor too simplistic to beuseful.

The verbal presentation is a test to see whether you canpresent a complex set of ideas succinctly.

week 7.verbal presentation

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