UofG Research Methods and Techniques (M)

Research Methods & Techniques teaches key research skills like how to search the literature for relevant papers, how to critically review a research paper, and how to write a literature review. Researchers often work together on research papers, funding proposals, etc, and a literature review is a key component in these; generally, with the aim of showing how their research has (or will) extend existing work and knowledge. When writing these literature reviews, each member of the team will contribute their own knowledge and bring their own perspectives, often on different disciplines.

This exercise is a change to try this, working in a small team to produce written research paper summaries and a literature review. This coursework also demonstrates the ability to meet three of the intended learning outcomes of this course:

• undefinedLO1 Critically review research papers.
• undefinedLO2 Perform a comprehensive literature search.
• undefinedLO3 Write a comprehensive literature survey.

Everyone will be placed into a team of 3-4 students and a private channel will be set up in the Research Methods & Techniques area on Teams.

Choose a research topic

For this coursework exercise, a suitable research topic would need to be chosen from the following list. A literature search for relevant papers will be performed on the chosen topic. The available research topics are:

• Input techniques in augmented or virtual reality.
  • E.g., new devices for AR/VR input, new input methods for interacting with content in AR/VR, application areas for new input devices, etc.
• Sensitivity classification of digital documents.
  • E.g., methods for identifying sensitive information in a corpus of digital documents, methods for classifying sensitivity, approaches for automatically redacting sensitive information, etc.
• Computational optimisation of user interface design.
  • E.g., modelling interactions to represent user input actions/output perception, using optimisation approaches to design an ‘optimised’ UI, comparison of optimised vs designercreated UI designs, etc.
• Deep neural networks for object detection.
  • E.g., methods using DNNs or similar for detecting and classifying objects in images, application areas where these are being used, etc.
• Functional programming in the classroom.
  • E.g., use of functional programming in computing science education, methods for teaching functional programming, student experience when learning functional programming, etc.
• Speech synthesis algorithms.
  • E.g., new methods for modelling speech, algorithms and methods for synthesising speech for text-to-speech output, etc.
• undefinedSecurity concerns with the Internet of Things.
  • E.g., security threats with IoT devices, methods for improving IoT device security, user’s privacy concerns about IoT devices, etc.

Find at least ten relevant research papers

After agreeing on a research topic, the team members should each do a literature search and identify relevant research papers. In the final coursework submission, ten relevant and high-quality research papers need to be written on the chosen topic. These should be connected in some way; for example, they may address similar problems, use similar methods or discuss related issues. There needs to be an explanation in the summary on why a paper was chosen - so make sure they fit together. It will also be easier to write a good literature review if there is a clear connection between the papers.

In practice, one would need to find and read more than ten papers in order to choose those that best fit the narrative of the literature review. Work as a team to identify promising papers before reading and writing about them in detail. In narrowing down the selected works, consider how they might fit together to tell a cohesive story about the chosen research topics.

Each selected paper should be from a peer-reviewed journal or conference and be at least six pages long. If it is unclear if a paper is peer-reviewed, search for the journal or conference and read about their review process. Paper must be six pages or more (excluding references) so that there is a substantial enough piece of work to critique. If short papers are chosen, it may be difficult to adequately critique them in detail and obtain a good grade. So, choose papers that make a substantial contribution, not an “extended abstract” or “poster” paper.

Read papers and write a structured critical summary for each

Next, read each paper in detail and write a “Level 3” paper summary. As part of the final submission, the team will need to submit these summaries alongside the literature review. The provided summary format provided must be used when summarising each paper.

The team is free to decide how to distribute this work - e.g., dividing the ten papers between team members or jointly reading papers to discuss and summaries collaboratively, etc. However, make sure the team agrees that each summary is an accurate representation of the paper, so that it can be integrated into the literature review. At times during this process, members will need to share notes, thoughts and findings with the team. The process of writing detailed papers summaries will help develop understanding of the research and help to articulate ideas to the team.

As an outcome from this step, the team should have detailed written summaries about ten research papers.

Write a Literature Review

Finally, the team should write a detailed literature review that discusses and critically reflects on the papers chosen. The aim is to discuss these papers collectively rather than individually, e.g., to present a perspective on the research topic. The literature review should tell a ‘story’; e.g., presenting the state-of-the-art or key developments in the research area, identifying limitations with current work, flecting on the methodologies used in those papers, etc. This story is what adds value to a literature review, as opposed to a disjointed list of paper summaries that offer limited critical insight.

The review should be no more than 1000 words (excluding the references in the bibliography and paper summaries). All papers must be cited corrected and listed in bibliography.

For collaborative scientific writing, it may be helpful to use Overleaf to write using LaTeX. Overleaf has an institutional login option, which provides free access to paid collaborative features (e.g., sharing a project with several authors, revision tracking, etc). Paper references can be shared in Overleaf via a BibTeX bibliography file.

Submission details

The team needs to submit one .pdf file containing the literature review and all paper summaries. Submit the coursework using Moodle, following the instructions provided. Every team member should submit and must submit the ‘own work’ acknowledgement.

Marking Criteria

Grade (Weight)	Paper Summaries (40%)	Literature Review (60%)
A (Excellent)	Clearly and wholly correct summaries. Highly insightful critiques, drawing on external knowledge and/or sources where relevant.	Extremely fluent, with excellent integration of the ideas from the selected papers.
B (Very Good)	Very good summaries and assessment of the worth of the research, making appropriate critical points.	Very good integration of ideas to produce an easy-to-read literature review.
C (Good)	The summaries are good, and several interesting critical points made.	Some integration of ideas; not especially fluent.
D (Satisfactory)	The summaries are satisfactory (perhaps with a few errors). Some interesting critical points made.	Hard to see how the ideas fit together.
E (Weak)	Weak understanding of the papers. Very little critique.	No attempt at integrating the ideas.
	Shows little evidence of having understood the papers. No critique at all.	No attempt at integrating the ideas.

Penalties for Late Submission

If the work is submitted late, the team will be penalised as follows:

• For every day (or part day) late, the mark will be reduced by two secondary bands. So, if the work is marked as an A5, the grade awarded will be a B2.
• If the coursework is submitted more than 5 days late (i.e., after 120 hours after the deadline), an H will be awarded.

Extensions may be given in situations of ‘good cause’ (e.g., illness, bereavement etc). Refer to the University of Glasgow’s policy on good cause for more information.