HT 2010, Period 1, II2202 Research Methodology and Scientific Writing

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Still under development

II2202 Research Methodology and Scientific Writing (II2202 Forskningsmetodik och vetenskapligt skrivande 7,5 hp) is a 7.5 credits course. The course provides the theoretical insight and practical skills required to plan, implement, analyse and report a scientific experiment in the area of communication systems.

The main parts of the course are scientific methods of projects including research methodology, and ethics both theoretical and practical. It also includes scientific writing, reviewing, and presentation of texts.

Course Organisation

The course is given in period 1. It is divided into three parts, where lectures and labs provide support for handling:

• Research Methodology (40%), which is motivating, and preparing as well as performing an
• Evaluation (20%), giving insights in evaluations for scientific research, and a
• Scientific Report (40%), reporting the outcome of the evaluation.

These three parts are examined by a project proposal (or project plan), a method description and a report as well as a opposition report. The guidelines for the assignments can be fetched from Bilda.

Assignments

There are four different assignments during the course. Observe that the assignment must be handed in before deadline to be considered during the course. Please check the schedule for the deadlines!

Scientific report

The scientific report should have the layout of a scientific paper, a maximum of five A4 pages in length (atleast 1200 words). The paper should reflect the number of hours put into it. The report is assigned 2.5 credits, which means roughly 100 hours of work. Two people will work together on the paper and each of the parts of the report must indicate who is the responsible student. Therefore, make sure you explicitly indicate who has written which section of the paper.

The course is taught in English. All scheduled course activities are located in Kista.

Information is available on:

• Learning Outcomes
• Prerequisites
• Contents
• Schedule
• Literature and Course Material (Textbook, Reference books and other references)
• Lecture Plan and Lecture Material (OH slides)
• Examination Requirements and Registrations
• Staff Associated with the Course
• Registering for the Course
• Other on-line Course Material (More References)
• Announcements
• Previous versions of the course

Learning Outcomes

The aim of the course is to give the students the theoretical and practical skills to conduct, analyze and present in written an experimental task in the area of data commuincation and to give insight and understanding of research methodology.

Following this course a student should be able to:

• explain and apply techniques for scientific writing and research methodology to prepare the writing of a scientific report.
• perform investigation using methods, explain and take position on the results as well as summarize related work
• apply the knowledge in scientific writing and research methodology and use the knowledge to write a scientific report.

Prerequisites

Good knowledge of English and basic knowledge of data communication.

Contents

To be added

Topics

• To be added

Examination Requirements

• To be added

Grades

For new ECTS grading:

Code of Honor and Regulations

It is KTH policy that there is zero tolerance for cheating, plagiarism, etc. - for details see KTH startpage->Student->Student rights See also the KTH Ethics Policies

Literature

Main Text-Book

The course will mainly be based on the books:

• Peter Bock, Getting It Right: R&D Methods for Science and Engineering, Academic Press; 1 edition (September 13, 2001), 406 pages, ISBN-10: 0121088529, ISBN-13: 978-0121088521
• Justin Zobel, Writing for Computer Science, Springer; 2nd edition (April 27, 2004), paperback: 280 pages, ISBN-10: 1852338024, ISBN-13: 978-1852338022; web page for the book
• Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research, 2nd edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing), University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (March 2003), paperback: 336 pages, ISBN-10: 0226065685, ISBN-13: 978-0226065687

Additional Reference Books

• Angelika H. Hofmann, Scientific Writing and Communication: Papers, Proposals, and Presentations, Oxford University Press, USA (December 16, 2009), Paperback: 704 pages, ISBN-10: 0195390059, ISBN-13: 978-0195390056

The books are to be available via the KTH student bookstore - 5th floor of the Forum building. There will also be copies of all the textbooks on reserve in the library.

Lecture notes will be available on-line in PDF format. See the notes associated with each of the course topics.

Supplementary readings

• To be added

Schedule

The schedule for the course is shown below (Note that in the following "xx" means "xx:00", not "xx:15".):

Note: The scheduled is subject to changes in times, dates, topics, and teachers.

Note that Ka-C1 and Ka-C2 are in the Electrum building in Kista (Isafjordsgatan 22); while Ka-Aulan, Ka-D, Ka-E are in the Forum building (Isafjordsgatan 39). Note that the prefix "Ka-" means that the room is in Kista. In the above table "TBA" means "To be annouced".

Lecture Plan and Lecture Material (OH slides)

Staff Associated with the Course

• Research Methodology:
  • Dr. Anne Håkansson (lecturer, kursansvarig, föreläsare) (annehak@kth.se)
  • Prof. Gerald Q. Maguire Jr. (maguire@kth.se)
  • Prof. Mark Smith
  • Esmiralda Moradian
• Research Methods: John Cantwell
• Scientific writing: Rebecca Hinks, Beyza Björkman, and Hans Malmström

Registering

Use the normal process for registering. For most students this means you should speak with your study advisor (studievägledare).

Other on-line Course related Material

Books, articles, web pages, and other information

• Tom Tullis and Bill Albert, Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics, Morgan-Kaufmann, 2008, ISBN 978-0-12-373558-4
• Thomas S. Lumley, Complex Surveys: A Guide to Analysis Using R, Wiley, March 2010, 296 pages, ISBN-10: 0470284307 and ISBN-13: ISBN: 978-0-470-28430-8
• Thomas S. Lumley, R survey package, web page, last modified 13 August 2010.
• Summary of Survey Analysis Software, Section on Survey Research Methods, American Statistical Association, last modified 9 September 2008
• Ken Kelley, Keke Lai, and Po-Ju Wu, Using R for Data Analysis: A Best Practice for Research, Chapter 34 in Jason W. Osborne (Editor), Best Advanced Practices in Quantitative Methods, Sage Publishing, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 2008, pages 535-572 - a very nice introduction to how to use R for data analysis with lots of examples (including loading data from a Excel spreadsheet using ODBC); the emphasis in this chapter is on the "Methods for the Behavioral, Educational, and Social Sciences" (MBESS) R package; there is web page for the whole book
• Sharon L. Lohr, Sampling: Design and Analysis, second edition, Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning, 2010, 608 Pages, ISBN-10: 0-495-10527-9, ISBN-13: 9780495105275; Table of contents for first edition
• David Eagle, R Survey Analysis: Weighting Data: Inverse-Probability Weights and Inverse-Variance Weighting, web page, last modified 17 September 2010
• Household Sample Surveys in Developing and Transition Countries, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Economic and Social Development, Statistics Division, Report number ST/ESA/STAT/SER.F/96/WWW, March 2005. See for example James R. Chromy and Savitri Abeyasekera, Chapter 19: Statistical analysis of survey data, 30 pages.
• Nicholas J. Horton and Ken Kleinman, SAS and R: Examples of tasks replicated in SAS and R, blog, for example their posting on their book: Nicholas J. Horton and Ken Kleinman, Using R for Data Management, Statistical Analysis, and Graphics, CRC Press, 28 July 2010, 297 pages, ISBN-10: 1439827559 and ISBN-13: 978-1439827550
• Phil Spector, Data Manipulation with R (Use R), Springerm 19 March 2008, 154 pages, ISBN-10: 0387747303 and ISBN-13: 978-0387747309
• Glenn D. Israel, Analyzing Survey Data, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. See other papers by this author.
• Paul Webb, R and Quantitative Data Analysis, social research UPDATE, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom, ISSN: 1360-7898, Issue 55, Spring 2009
• The United Kingdom's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) sponsored a Research Methods Programme (2002-2007), which in turn sponsored P|E|A|S (Practical Exemplars and Survey Analysis) - this site gives examples (with different types of surveys and using different techniques), theory, and descriptions of software that can be used for surveys. This work in continuing as part of the U.K.'s ESRC National Centre for Research Methods
• To read the literature on surveys and important term to understand is: primary sampling unit (PSU)
• Steven G. Heeringa, Brady T. West, and Patricia A. Berglund, Applied Survey Data Analysis, Chapman & Hall/CRC Statistics in the Social and Behavioral Science, April 5, 2010, 487 pages, ISBN-10: 1420080660 and ISBN-13: 978-1420080667, web site Applied Survey Data Analysis
• Juan Miguel Marín Diazaraque of the Department of Statistics, Universidad Carlos III of Madrid has written a Tutorial for SAMPLING in R
• Christian Boudreau of the Dept. of Statistics & Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, gave a workshop on Analysis of Survey Data to the Milwaukee Chapter of the ASA (MILWASA) of the American Statistical Association (ASA) on September 26, 2008
• The Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life of the University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K. as part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods has made available a webpage of Resources for teachers and supervisors
• CRAN Task View: Official Statistics & Survey Methodology
• Phillip S. Kott, A Model-Based Look at Linear Regression with Survey Data, The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, Vol. 45, No. 2 (May, 1991), pp. 107-112
• Stefan Loehnert, "About Statistical Analysis of Qualitative Survey Data", International Journal of Quality, Statistics, and Reliability, vol. 2010, Article ID 849043, 12 pages, 2010. doi:10.1155/2010/849043
• Michael E. Driscoll, How Google and Facebook are using R, Dataspora Blog: Big Data, open source analytics, and data visualization February 19, 2009 - panel discussion with four R users from industry: Bo Cowgill (Google), Itamar Rosenn (Facebook), David Smith (Revolution Computing), and Jim Porzak (The Generations Network and Co-Chair of Bay Area R Users Group)
• Methodology tutorial - quantitative data analysis, web page, EduTech Wiki, Last modified: 4 August 2009
• David A. Binder and Georgia R. Roberts, Statistical inference in survey data analysis: where does the sample design fit in?, lecture slides, for the conference: Statistics Canada Research Data Centre Network Conference 2003: Transitions in Employment, Income and Wellbeing, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 24 September 2003
• R. L. Chambers, C. J. Skinner (Editors), Analysis of Survey Data, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2003 Print ISBN: 9780471899877, Online ISBN: 9780470867204, Published Online: 30 May 2003, DOI: 10.1002/0470867205
• Probability plots webpage, Quantitative Decisions, page was created 24 January and last updated 18 February 2003.

On-line survey tools

• SnapSurveys.com
• SurveyGizmo.com (They have a special free student account.)
• SurveyMokey.com
• SurveyShare.com (lots of templates)
• Zoomerang.com
• web-online-surveys.com
• freeonlinesurveys.com
• www.kwiksurveys.com/

Some tips on writing a questionnaire

• David O'Brien, Questionnaire Design A report for the course CS 6751, Human-Computer Interface, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, Winter 1997
• Bob Kaden, Guidelines for Writing an Effective Questionnaire, CustomerThink Corporation, 20 November 2007
• Steve Gould, 1.05 How to write a questionnaire, Part of Study Guides: Writing, Learner Development Unit, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK, Last updated: 20 February 2007
• Office of Educational Assessment, Tips for Writing Questionnaire Items, Catalyst Tools Workshops, Learning & Scholarly Technologies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA, Last Updated: October 2006
• How To Write A Good Survey, InfoPoll: Software for Surveys & Polls, Softlogic Inc. Dartmouth, NS, Canada, September 19, 1998
• Wai-Ching Leung, How to design a questionnaire, StudentBMJ, BMJ Publishing Group Limited, U.K., volume 9, May 2001, pages 143-145
• Statistical Computing Seminars Introduction to Survey Data Analysis, University of California at Los Angles (UCLA): Academic Technology Services, Statistical Consulting Group, accessed on 2010.09.28 - the focus is on Stata, SUDAAN, WesVar, and SAS - but includes some useful definitions and examples
• Hossein Arsham, Questionnaire Design and Surveys Sampling, 9th Edition, University of Baltimore Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
• Willem E. Saris and Irmtraud N. Gallhofer, Design, Evaluation, and Analysis of Questionnaires for Survey Research, Wiley Series in Survey Methodology, Wiley-Interscience, 3 August 2007, 392 pages, ISBN-10: 0470114959 and ISBN-13: 978-0470114957.
• Katja Lozar Manfreda, Zenel Batagelj, and Vasja Vehovar, "Design of Web Survey Questionnaires: Three Basic Experiments", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC), 7(3), April 2002.
• Jezz Fox, Craig Murray, and Anna Warm, "Conducting research using web-based questionnaires: practical, methodological, and ethical considerations", Internation Journal on Social Research Metholdology, ISSN 1364-5579 print, ISSN 1464-5300 online, Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2003, Volume 6, number 2, pages 167-180, DOI: 10.1080/1364557021042883
• Stephen J. Sills and Chunyan Song, Innovations in Survey Research: An Application of Web-Based Surveys", Social Science Computer Review. SAGE Publications (UK and US), eISSN: 1552-8286, ISSN: 0894-4393, 2002, Volume 20, number 1, pages 22-30

Some useful tools

• Zotero extention to FireFox for helping you manage references, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
• BibTeX web page, last accessed 19 September 2010 - note that there is a BibTeX mode in emacs
• Bevan S. Weir, Step-by-step guide to using EndNote with LaTeX and BibTeX, web page, Last modified 25 March 2010
• James, How to use JabRef (BibTeX) with Microsoft Word 2003, web page, medicalnerds.com, "technology, stats and IT for medics", 25 March 2007
• JabRef - an open source reference manager written in Java
• ispell - use with the "-t" option for LaTeX files
• OpenOffice.org - open source word processing, with grammer checking via the LanguageTool extention or After the Deadline
• Using dynamic abbreviations (dabbrev) in Emacs - can greatly increase your typing speed
• Two GNU programs style and diction. For more information see Michael Stutz, " Explore powerful UNIX writer's tools: Using new, open source equivalents of the classic UNIX Writer's Workbench", a tutorial from IBM's developerWorks web site, 22 May 2007
• gnuplot - basic plotting in 2D and 3D with lots of output formats
• See also Micah Altman, The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources, web page, Last Updated: December 18, 2008

Previous versions of the course

• 2009

Page History

© Copyright 2010, 2011 Anne Håkansson and G.Q.Maguire Jr. (maguire@kth.se)
All Rights Reserved.
Tue Feb 8 15:54:09 MET 2011