Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Research Methodology in Computer Science

Our autumn semester starts on Monday and I will be teaching the Research Methodology course for master students in computer science and software engineering. This is a 15-week course and I am looking forward to the challenge of keeping the students interested and busy over 30 course sessions. (I have taught short courses on this topic at master and PhD level at different institutions, but this is a substantially larger endeavour.)

At the end of the course, my students are expected to be able to
  • Explain research, research methodologies, and research in Computer Science; 
  • Select a research subject and conduct a research project;  
  • Write technical reports, papers, theses, and proposals effectively;  
  • Give good presentations;  
  • Read and review a technical paper properly; 
  • Explain professional ethics: allocation of credit, authorship issues, conflict of interest and misconduct in science.
I am compiling a list of resources available on the web related to these aspects of our job and will make them available in due course. What publicly available presentations, videos and essays would you recommend that I include? Are there any courses similar to this one that you think I should look at?