CSCD 506 Research Methods for Computer Science Fall 2018 Lecture 1 Course Overview 1 1

Topics Goals of the Course Activities Your role My role Grades 2

Course Trivia Website http://penguin.ewu.edu/cscd506 Not using Canvas for this course Meeting Times and Days: 2:00-4:30 pm Mon, Wed Instructor email: ctaylor@ewu.edu Office hours: Tues, Thurs 1 – 2 pm Anytime I am in my office

Goals of this Course Overall, to learn how to do research in Computer Science More specifically …. To learn how to conduct literature reviews including critically reading papers, assessing their results and summarizing the results in a written form To learn how to pose a researchable question What constitutes a chunk of research at the Masters level? 4

Goals of this Course continued To learn the difference between a project and a Thesis To learn how to write a publishable paper within the field of Computer Science. And, by extension, how to write a thesis or project report To learn how to use statistics to support your work 5

Activities to Support the Goals Research Activities Conduct a Literature Review Define a Research Question Write a Research Proposal Previous steps feed into the Proposal Analyze some data sets and learn to use statistical software If there is time and interest Presentation of your Proposal 6

Conduct a Literature Review Reading papers relevant to a topic you are researching What is a Literature Review? And, why do you do one? A Literature Review Surveys and summarizes scholarly research on your topic. It should critically evaluate and explain why the chosen articles are significant in relation to your research topic You use the results to better shape your research Knowing what others have done allows you to find the “gaps” in the knowledge where you can contribute 7

Come up with a Research Question What constitutes a “doable” chunk of research? No hard and fast rules for this Guided by time-frame and ambition of researcher If you have 3 – 5 years to complete your project, you do more, ask harder questions If you have 1 – 2 years, you ask a smaller question Ultimately, your advisor guides you on extent of your problem, but it should ideally be your idea 8

Masters vs. PhD Masters degree PhD Thesis: Learn to conduct research Experiment, but doesn’t have to be original, could reproduce someone else’s work or extend it a small amount Project: Produce a significant piece of software or system PhD Needs to be original. Assume already know how to do research. Add to body of knowledge in a significant way. Exactly how and what depends on your committee. 9

Thesis Examples Sampling of Computer Science Thesis's University of Nebraska Lincoln 1. An Unmanned Aerial System for Prescribed Fires by Evan M. Beachly 166 pages 2. Significant Permission Identification for Android Malware Detection by Lichao Sun 61 pages 3. Bandwidth Estimation for Virtual Networks by Ertong Zhang 138 pgs https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/computerscidiss/104/ Cal State University Northridge 1. A study and comparison of NoSQL databases Choi by Christopher Jay 74 pages 2. ECG and wearable computing for drowsiness detection by Gupta, Nipun 71 pages http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/854

Dissertation Examples A sampling of Dissertations 1.Inference in Networking Systems with Designed Measurements by Chang Liu 174 pages 2.Knowledge Representation and Reasoning with Deep Neural Networks by Arvind Ramanathan Neelakantan 121 pages 3. Fundamental Limits of Covert Communication by Boulat A. Bash 166 pages Plus many others …. Umass Amherst http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cs_diss/

Research in CS Computer Science Research is Diverse Designing and building new computer systems, Proving mathematical theorems, Writing computer software, Measuring the performance of a computer system, using analytical tools to assess a design, Or studying the errors programmers make as they build a large software system Can also study users of systems as in Human Computer Interaction or Security Usability 12

Research in CS Researcher chooses activities appropriate to answer questions that arise in research investigation, New questions arise as an investigation proceeds, Research activities vary from project to project and over time in a single project A researcher should be prepared to use a variety of approaches and tools 13

Define a Research Question The hardest part of the Masters degree!!! What am I going to do? We will explore steps to help you define your question A few of the questions you need to ask are on the next slide 14

Define a Research Question What PROBLEM you are trying to solve? Or what is research QUESTION you are trying to answer? Why is this problem/question worth solving/asking? Who would care? How have other people tried to solve or answer it? What is your NEW approach to solving or answering this problem? Or What improvement are you making on an existing solution? 15

Research Question Defining the right question helps you craft a solution Doable Of sufficient difficulty to constitute research or at least a different approach Interested in answering the question or solving the problem Feeds into the Research Proposal

Write a Research Proposal Steps to Accomplish This Review other's work, become familiar with your chosen “field” Reading papers from journals, conferences, experts in the area Define, or refine your question or problem you want to solve Create your solution Write a proposal that presents your idea for solving the research question 17

Analyze Data sets with Statistical Software For research problems, need to know how to analyze data Computer science research doesn’t always require statistical analysis Depends on the problem If collect data as part of an experiment, likrly need to analyze data Will look at courses available at EWU for further study on statistics 18

Present Proposal Will have chance to do a presentation of your research topic Presentation skills are invaluable for everything you will do in the future Both non-academic job activities and academic If you can’t present your ideas, in a way that is understandable, no-one will care about them 19

Your Role Actively participate in class Contribute links and any other interesting material you think will help yourself or other students I am one person You are many ... will likely discover resources that I have not encountered Try hard to choose a topic you can use for your research 20

My Role Guide to the literature on Computer Science research Show you helpful articles, a few books and other resources There are many resources at other schools, from other professors and within ACM/IEEE literature I have not written any of it … What qualifies me to guide you? I have done research in pursuit of both my Masters and PhD Somewhat qualifies me as a guide Will use other’s experience as well 21

Acing the Class Put in an honest effort Do the assignments, contribute to the class Might not finalize masters topic by the end of the quarter But, you should try!!! This is something you need to do anyway, and you get credit for it Should use this opportunity to practice writing skills before it really counts 22

Look more at CS Research Next time, Look more at CS Research End 23