D. E. Koditschek kod@seas.upenn.edu 358 GRW ESE 290/291 Introduction to Electrical & Systems Engineering Research Methodology & Design https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1270759 http://ese290.highermedia.com Lecture 3: What’s Your Problem? (Problem Formulation) D. E. Koditschek kod@seas.upenn.edu 358 GRW

Project Proposal Proposal Environment Proposal Components Context: many ideas; few resources ($, time) Conceptual Challenge: reduce the broad unknown to one narrow question Technical Challenge: assess the answer(s) Social Challenge: communicate the value Proposal Components Motivation: why does humanity need to know or have this? Gap: what is the advance relative to present state of the art ? Hypothesis project: specifically, what work needs to be done to establish what gain of knowledge or capability? metrics: what is the predicted outcome and how can it be compared against the claimed advance? means: what methods, equipment, supplies and effort are required to perform the work and measure the outcome? Top Value 21st Century Skill: passion-driven technical vision think globally (highest level view); act locally (research as mud-wrestling) technical persuasion: anyone can know the facts; it takes vision to see the opportunity

Creativity in Science hugely varied, exciting opportunities down in the mud choice of tools or technique what to communicate and how … today’s topic most creative act: what problem to work on most important moment in scientific process questions more important than answers “see the universe in a grain of sand” risk and reward too hard to succeed in the short run? too far-out to communicate? too small to kindle excitement and ambition?

This Week’s Assignment Statement: write a problem formulation combine sponsor’s ideas with literature identify a compelling area for advancement propose a specific research project to close gap support all statements via citations to annotated bibliography Rubric (20 pts for ~5 paragraphs + bibliography) Target: what is the missing knowledge or capability? could be entirely new – or include some of prior C.1 & C.2 writing must cite all statements using high quality sources of authority some old lit; likely some new; all to be presented in bibliography Gap: show it is really missing best to find some recent publication that states so use annotated bibliography to establish how you searched for gap-closing successors with no success Project: exactly what work is needed propose concrete design or knowledge step to address the gap strive for concise focus, detail, clarity Refutability: how will you know the project has succeeded or failed? must be able to assess whether the proposed work truly shrinks the gap measurement for experimental project; analysis for applied math project Means: how would one go about applying those measurements? as great detail as possible: mock table with labeled rows and columns for blank entries start planning now for any supplies, equipment, tools, etc Annotated Bibliography: same rubric as for C.2 (likely some new entries)

Week 2 Assignment Literature Review Problem Statement write a brief review using high quality sources to document project importance and your way forward features one general review (importance & state of the art) and one focused technical paper (next step) use cited and citing papers to corroborate and bolster your understanding paragraph structure of review + annotated bibliography motivation: vivid and specific description of what is needed and what impact it would have state-of-the-art: appraisal of 2 – 3 most important recent publications technical approach: logical next step toward targeted advance surrounding literature: precursors (cited) and successors (citing) of featured papers helpful vs unhelpful results of naïve search open problems: alternative “next steps” annotated bibliography Annotated Bibliography complete citation (following some archival journal format, including live link) evidence of quality (venue, authors, publication) relevance (a few sentences of annotation showing you’ve “read” the paper) what is the paper about? what sort of contribution does it make to the literature? how does it relate to your topic or inform your project?

Week 1 Assignment Source Acquisition Problem Statement Find two high quality sources from the relevant scientific literature summarizing the state of the art in your general technical area thereby exposing technology or capability gap Use their insight to find two different motivating sources they‘ve (almost surely) motivated the importance of the gap you‘re to verify by finding cited (or citing) motivating publications Suggested Problem Approach Start with your sponsor’s suggested papers (or simply Google/Wiki/GS) Go to GS and find some other likely high quality publications Look up those papers in Scopus to find your review articles use their cited and citing publications (and recursively so as needed) to look for the most recent highly cited review-style publications Use review articles to find high impact corroborating motivation Your job: provide evidence that your authors, papers, and venues are high quality impact factor of venue; publication citation count; author h-index show intellectual resilience in the face of inevitable obstacles The publication is very new so there are very few citing pubs – but the venue and author(s) are clearly great The publication is very new and so are the authors – but the venue is great and the institutions are reassuring There are too few publications in this area (give evidence by reporting some details of how you searched)