Practical Project
Brief overview of the sponsoring organisation:
Practical Outcome of the project:[what will be produced and delivered to the sponsor,
Specific requirements within the project: [provide a bullet point list of specific requirements the sponsor has: in terms of the final product, the process of developing it, any interim deliverables, etc]
Please state any specific skills required for the project (and how these go beyond what you have been taught so far in the programme)
Please state how the project relates to your MSc programme
Please state any specific constraints affecting the project.
Please state any specific resources that will be provided by your client/sponsor for the project.
Relevance to the specific MSc programme
Overview of the Sponsoring Organisation.
Practical Outcome of the project
Specific (Client) Requirements
Specific Skills Identified
Appropriate Constraints
Appropriate Resources
Appropriateness to MSc programme
PROJECT MODULE
1. INTRODUCTION
Outline of the Project
The requirements of a major piece of work that demands a critical analysis of the relevant literature, successful achievement of the project objectives and evaluation of these remains the same as in previous versions, as do the requirements to produce a well-written, well-structured dissertation.
Aims of the Project
The project provides a framework within which an individual can apply his/her acquired knowledge and skills to the solution of a problem in the domain of their master's programme. At the same time the student has an opportunity to develop and demonstrate his or her own personal abilities in the computing, engineering or project management environment and to review, critically analyse and apply the recent findings of other researchers.
Project Parameters (what you need to define in your project proposal)
In all cases the Department's main concern will be to ensure that the chosen project is of an appropriate standard to warrant the MSc and of a suitable size for it to be completed in the timescale specified. In particular we will look for the following features:
- Your project must have an explicit, identified, sponsor (with a named individual client for liaison).
- Your project should take approximately 600 working hours to complete (which is the equivalent of 15 weeks of full-time or 30 weeks part-time work).
- The practical aspect of your project must have a clear link with the subject matter of the specific Masters programme you are undertaking.
- The practical work must result in a clearly defined product (e.g. software deliverable, network design, artefact, strategy or model) for your client.
- You must endeavour to ensure that your client carries out a suitable evaluation of your product.
- Your project must be individual in nature: if it is part of a larger project your contribution must be coherent, discrete and well-defined.
- Your project must offer sufficient scope for you to conduct a critical review of current, and relevant, literature in one specific research area.
- This literature must feed into the practical aspect of your project in some defined manner.
Commitment Required from Your Sponsor
- Your sponsor must to be able to identify a product that is needed by them: this may be a software artefact, a strategic study, etc., but it must be appropriate for your programme of study.
- It must be possible for you to produce this within 15 weeks full time study (or part time equivalent) where approximately 50% of the time is devoted to the practical work (i.e. about 300 hours of work).
- Your sponsor must be consulted over the aim, objectives and procedures for the practical work. This must result in an agreement that is "signed off" in your project Terms of Reference and product requirements.
- Your sponsor needs to be able to support you by providing sufficient contact time with you, any specific facilities (e.g. particular software or hardware), access to relevant documents and/or personnel as required for the particular project.
- In terms of contact time with you the requirements will vary from project to project but can be stereotyped as: more time at the start (as the scope is fully defined) less in the middle and then more towards the end during the evaluation period.
- Your sponsor (or his/her organisation) needs to be involved in the evaluation of your product.
PROJECT PARAMETERS
What students need to agree in consultation with a sponsor
You must be careful to scope your project so that it can be completed within the 300 hours for the practical part of the project and to choose an industry/division/company where there is a defined need for a solution to a problem. Work with an SME is ideal but if you choose a larger company it must be in a smaller division and you must have access to real data that they can release or have employees that you can interview/survey. A simple questionnaire based on employees' perceptions is not Master's standard. You are unlikely to pass if you use only one simple data collection technique. As a minimum if you do a survey it should contain plenty of written qualitative answers and preferably interview transcripts as well. Some projects will not use these data collection techniques but will have well-defined methods/techniques for producing the data/artefact for their sponsor. Your methodology chapter is very important in that a reader should be able to follow your methods to arrive at a similar solution.
Courses and their Focus Areas
MSc Engineering Management
Students here generally come from an engineering background but focus in the course on the management of engineering. Project areas include (but are not limited to): -
- Reviews of projects/processes in the engineering/manufacturing industry: from the perspective of risk assessment, HR management, adherence to standards, etc. -
- Development of strategies for processes in the engineering/manufacturing industry. -
- Investigations of the use/relevance of engineering techniques in organisations, such as TQM, lean manufacture, etc.
MSc Project Management
Students here come from a wide range of disciplines as this popular course focuses on generic project management skills. The key issue for suitable projects here is that they must be examining project management, or management techniques within an (external) project - not general business management. Project areas include (but are not limited to):
- Reviews of projects from industry from the perspective of risk assessment, HR management, adherence to standards, etc.
- Development of strategies for projects e.g. in the construction industry to deal with risk management, opportunity assessment, HR management, adherence to standards, etc.
- Similarly for many other fields including: tourism, marketing, health sector, education, local and national government initiatives, etc.
MSc Information Technology Management
Students here have a computing background, but focus on management and strategy areas of IT in organisations. They tend to develop strategies, framework, or analyse some IT aspects in an organisation and make recommendations for business improvement. Practical project areas include (but are not limited to):
- Defining an appropriate IT acquisitions strategy for an organisation
- Evaluating how system change projects are carried out - providing recommendations for future cases, providing reflections "lessons learned" from past cases.
- Issues/strategies related to effective recruitment/retention/motivation of IT staff in organisations.
- Use of intelligent systems techniques or decision support techniques to model/evaluate/simulate impact of pursuing different business goals.
- Use of intelligent systems techniques to identify what data can be mined (and how) in order to increase organisational knowledge/understanding to inform business goals.
- Development of organisation-specific IT risk management or IT disaster recovery approaches.
MSc Computing
These students have NO previous degree in computing. They can investigate and develop software applications, and can bring with them a range of skills from their previous discipline. Practical project areas include (but are not limited to):
- Developing software or network systems
- Investigating the usability of existing systems (or building usability into applications)
MSc Network Systems
Students here have a can focus on a wider range of projects: form software development across networks, to the physical side of network installations, to strategies for network infrastructures. Practical project areas include (but are not limited to):
- Developing software applications that run across networks in a secure manner.
- Developing strategies and simulations for evaluating appropriate networks in an organisation
- Investigating opportunities for using networked technologies, such as VOIP, within an organisation.
- Investigating aspects opportunities and risks of wireless infrastructures.
- Investigating aspects opportunities and risks of adopting mobile technologies within the business context
MSc Telecommunications Engineering
These projects are broadly similar to Network Systems but they must have a telecommunications focus.
MSc. Health Information Management
These projects are in general similar in scope to Information Technology Management but within a health information system context (e.g. in the NHS).
Research
This assessment focuses on the scope of the project and the extent to which the methodical investigation of relevant and contemporary research material has been incorporated into its development. This must be passed in order for the project to be a pass overall.
In particular markers assess the extent to which the completed project demonstrates the student's ability to:
- assimilate and disseminate research relevant to the specific project area
- critically assess and present this research in a written form
- relate this review to the practical elements of the project
- apply this review to the practical elements of the project
It is important that students and supervisors ensure that the project is defined such that it provides sufficient opportunity for the student to demonstrate that it truly is at Masters level. For instance, for a software engineering project it is not sufficient to undertake a project which merely seeks to design and implement a system to perform some function. Such a project should also address contemporary issues in software engineering (the "software engineering theme") which are relevant to the project, and have additional objectives linked to these, such as: "to evaluate the 'abc CASE tool" or "to compare two system implementations using sql and XML". The resulting comparison, evaluation, etc. must be treated in depth if the project is to score highly.
Attachment:- GUIDE.rar