RESEARCH, PLANNING and COMMUNICATIONS (ELEE1169)

RESEARCH, PLANNING and COMMUNICATIONS (ELEE1169) Main Assignment - Individual Research Practice (70% weighting)

Term 2, Academic Year 2020-21, By Prof James Gao

You are required to write a proposal of a small-scale research project. The project should be in the subject area that you are studying and should be completed within the period of 12 months by 1 researcher (yourself, full-time). The assignment is NOT your final MSc project, but the proposed project can be in relevant area of your final MSc project. Your report should not overlap with your final MSc thesis by 20%. PART ONE [30 marks]

§ Write an abstract (or executive summary) of your proposed project with a project title [6]. § Write an introduction to the research area [4], problems to be addressed [4] and potential benefits

to industry and/or the society [4]. § Describe the aims [2], objectives [4] and scope of your project [2]. § Describe the novel points of your research (i.e., contribution to knowledge) [4].

PART TWO [40 marks] When you write this part of the assignment report, do not follow the style of the ‘Background’ section of the example proposal used during lectures. You should follow the instructions below: § Obtain copies of 10 references that are of direct relevance to your project. Review the references

and write your comments. For each reference, you should write one paragraph about its main contribution to knowledge [20], and one paragraph about its shortcomings [10]. You should not take the Abstracts and Conclusions directly from the references.

§ Do NOT include the actual copies of the references in your report, use the Harvard referencing system to list the references at the end of your report, and cite the references in the main text [5].

§ Based on your comments on the 10 references, write an overall summary of research gaps. [5]

PART THREE [30 marks] § Describe the approaches and techniques (e.g., case studies, data collection methods) to be use in

your project [5] § Make a work plan by defining the tasks [4] to be carried out during your project, and scheduling

the tasks into phases [3] with milestones and deliverables [3] in a Gantt Chart [5]. You should give full explanation [4] to the Gantt Chart.

§ List key deliverables of the project [4] and potential risks [2]. SUBMISSION

Submit your report with your Gantt Chart (in one single file) through Moodle by 23:30 PM, Friday 30th April 2021. After the deadline, you have to use the ‘late submission’ link to upload your report, and your marks are capped to 50%. NOTE: The font size of the main text should be 11, single line spacing. The margins of each page should be 2.54 cm on all sides. The total number of pages of your report including the Gantt Chart and list of references should not exceed 10 pages. Do not include your MSc project sign-up form. You should avoid using the contents of this report (especially the literature review section) in your final MSc thesis, otherwise the system will identify that you have too much overlapping contents.