Doing Research
Talk to master students at the department of computer science,
Kasetsart university.
30 June 2005
I shall give you an overview of the research process in the context of
doing a research towards master degree thesis.
Research
Definition
- Careful or diligent search
- Studious inquiry or examination; especially : investigation or
experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts,
revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or
practical application of such new or revised theories or laws
- The collecting of information about a particular subject
Motivation
It is very important to appreciate the value of research. If you
value it you will motivation yourself to do it.
I view research along the time axis:
short term 1 year
medium term 2-5 years
long term > 5 years
There is no doubt about the correlation between scientific development
and wealth of a nation. Scientific development is mostly driven
by research. Most everyday products are the result of some
fundamental discovery in science. Technology is the fruit of
scientific discovery.
- The value of short term research is the immediate application of
knowledge to real-world problems.
- The value of medium term research is the development and
improvement of new methods.
- The value of long term research is the discovery of new knowledge.
Let us do some excercise in "valuating" research work.
What is the value of theses done in Thailand. In most library,
there are a lot of theses in the shelves. How can we say these
theses are useful? Who use it?
During postgraduate study, we are reading a lot of other people
work. What is the value of the material we are reading? Why
are we reading it?
Method
What should be the topic of research?
In the context of master degree in computer science, how can we
"create" a suitable topic?
I will say, almost anything to do with computers can be suitable as a
topic of research. The important things are
1 the "newness" of the subject.
2 the "value" of the subject.
There are many ways to create a topic:
1 from the real-world problems
2 from the boundary of current knowledge
3 from imagination
Excercise:
Imagine how can you add "value" to your favourite subject, such as, "I
like programming". How can you make that valuable in term of
academic.
- You may ask "what is the smallest program that can solve the problem?"
- You may ask "Is this first program to do this job?"
- You may ask "Can I write a program to solve the problem with the
least energy?" etc.
Imagination is the most important skill for research.
To do your research
1 Post a problem statement
2 Design a method to solve the problem
3 Negotiate the expectation of the result
4 Do it
A supervised research, which is the type you will do in master degree
with your thesis advisor, needs good communication between you and your
advisor. Expectation is the most important element in successful
collaboration. Work out what will be the result of your
reseach. Discuss it with your advisor. You must convince
yourself of the "value" of your proposed research. Then you must
also convince your advisor. The duty of your advisor is the guide
you through the jungle of difficulty. (and not to tell you really
how to do it, I believe!)
You will:
read a lot, to know what is the current
state of the art
talk a lot, to synthesis your idea
write a lot, to make your idea concrete and to communicate your idea
formally.
Evaluation
In research, we control the quality by "peer review". That is, we
believe that the best person to "valuate" our work is the person who is
knowledgable in the field, our "peer". The impact of a research
work and its indicator are as follows:
- academic -- publications, to make the knowledge available
- profession -- acceptance, authority
- society -- development, policy, public debate
Conclusion
It is very important to appreciate the value of research work.
Your imagination can create a good research topic. To make it
acceptable, the discussion with "authority", i.e. the thesis committee,
must be done to find the common expectation. The usefulness of
research work for the industry in three categories are:
- short term research -- to improve the process
- medium term research -- to enhance competitiveness
- long term research -- to create new market
Avoid pit falls in
doing a master thesis
- Don't choose the topic that requires new skill. For
example, if you are proficient C programmer, use C. Don't try to
learn a new language for your thesis. The time is too short.
- Get the scope of your work right. Most oftenly, you
underestimate the amount of work required and overestimate your
ability. The time is too short.
- The time is always too short. Don't postpone any work, do
it now.
Enjoy doing research!
END
last update 1 July 2005