Your literature synthesis should include the following key parts: • Cover page with unit number and name, project title, names and student IDs of the team members, and your supervisor(s) • Abstract summarizing your findings • Introduction to your literature review and brief background to your topic area • Key research areas reviewed including key research work read and their strengths and weaknesses • Current outstanding research challenges / questions • Methodologies and methods being used to answer these challenges / questions • Conclusions, including summary of major research questions, agreement and disagreement, progress to date and key future research directions
SIT792 Minor Thesis Assignment 3 – Literature Synthesis Introduction Why am I doing this? Literature review is a critical part of any research project – we “stand on the shoulders of giants” when we carry out research and build on the knowledge created in earlier research in our discipline. As a key part of your Minor Thesis work you need to develop a Literature Synthesis that overviews and critiques key related work to your own research project. This will be an extension of the short summary of related work you did in your proposal. Literature synthesis Brief description of assessment task This assessment task requires the students to embark on a literature review and clarify research question(s)/hypotheses from an evidence perspective. Students are required to collect and record self-determined information/data from self- selected sources, evaluate information/data and the research process comprehensively using self-determined criteria developed within structured guidelines. Detail of student output This is a team task. Each team is required to submit a synthesis of the reviewed literature (maximum 2500 words, including references, but excluding figures and graphs) by locating, collecting and analyzing information and gaps. Students must use Harvard style for appropriately referencing their research ideas. They are required to justify the need and rationale for further research in the field in relation to the identified research question(s)/hypotheses and explain how the research thesis will address identified gap(s). Grading and weighting (% total mark for unit) 20% marked and graded This task assesses your achievement of these Unit Learning Outcome(s) ULO2 – Apply critical analysis and reflection to ethically research, synthesize and evaluate complex information, problems, concepts, interpretations and theories to demonstrate cognitive and technical skills in a body of knowledge or practice. This task assesses your achievement of these Graduate Learning Outcome(s) GLO1 – through student demonstration of an advanced and integrated understanding of a complex body of knowledge in one or more discipline areas of IT. GLO3 – through student capacity to extract relevant information from a set of self- selected sources. GLO4 – through student competence in evaluating the need for research by applying critical analysis and reflection to published scholarly work, derive research ideas, methodological concepts, interpretations and theories. How and when you will receive feedback on your work Students are expected to participate in regular weekly or fortnightly meetings as agreed with their thesis supervisor. During these meetings / consultation sessions, thesis supervisors will usually provide students with verbal feedback and support for setting goals and research tasks. Supervisor will mark the submission. When and how to submit your work 5:00pm AEST, Monday 29 April 2019 (Week 8). Submission via CloudDeakin Assignment Dropbox. Content Your literature synthesis should include the following key parts: • Cover page with unit number and name, project title, names and student IDs of the team members, and your supervisor(s) • Abstract summarizing your findings • Introduction to your literature review and brief background to your topic area • Key research areas reviewed including key research work read and their strengths and weaknesses • Current outstanding research challenges / questions • Methodologies and methods being used to answer these challenges / questions • Conclusions, including summary of major research questions, agreement and disagreement, progress to date and key future research directions Some guidelines for conducting a literature synthesis are given below (adapted from those in SIT740 which are prepared by Dr Guangyan Huang). Other guidelines are available on CloudDeakin. What is a literature synthesis? A literature synthesis is a description of the literature relevant to a particular field or topic, with some analysis of key research areas relevant to the topic, key related work summaries including their strengths and weaknesses, and discussion of key outstanding research challenges, questions, and future research questions. This is usually the starting point of a research project. A critical literature survey is a critical assessment of the relevant literature (its strengths, weaknesses, gaps etc). You will only be able to conduct your research effectively if you complete a good quality literature survey. How does a literature synthesis differ from other assignments? The literature synthesis, like other forms of academic writing, has an introduction, body and conclusion, well-formed paragraphs, and a logical structure. However, in other kinds of academic writing, you use relevant literature to support the discussion of your research; in a literature synthesis, the literature itself is the subject of discussion. What counts as 'literature'? ‘Literature’ covers everything relevant that is written on a topic: books, journal articles, technical reports, theses and dissertations, etc. The important word is 'relevant'. Informal reference from website such as Wikipedia is normally not recognised as literature in academic writing. Check with your Unit Chair and project supervisor when in doubt. Why do a literature synthesis? A literature synthesis gives an overview of the research field: what has already been said on the topic, who the key writers are, what the prevailing theories and hypotheses are, what questions are being asked, and what methodologies and methods are appropriate and useful. How many references to look for? This depends on what the literature synthesis is for, and what stage you are at in your studies. The minimum number of references for this assignment is 20 titles. How long should I write? The length of your literature synthesis for SIT 790 should be around 3000-5000 words. How to write a literature synthesis? Firstly you must have agreed a project proposal with your supervisor and the Unit Chair. From this you will need to identify a set of keywords that relate to your research project topic. Discuss these with your project supervisor. The literature search Literature search is to find out what has been written on your topic. Using as many bibliographical sources as you can to find relevant titles will be good but for this unit, IEEE and ACM journals, conferences and magazines are usually adequate. You can access these via the Deakin library homepage. You will use the keywords that you have identified to start your search. As mentioned above, the minimum number of references for this assignment is 20 titles. Your supervisor may also suggest some key related work that they think you should review. Record the bibliographical details Write down the full bibliographical details as soon as you find a reference to it. You can use tools like EndNote to manage your bibliographies; the Deakin library link to EndNote is at http://deakin.libguides.com/endnote IEEE and Harvard are preferred. Please prepare your references according to the guidance at http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/study-support/referencing Carefully read the literature Before you begin to read a book or article, make sure you written down the full details (see above). Take notes as you read the literature. You are reading to find out how each piece of writing approaches the subject of your research, what it has to say about it, and (especially for research students) how it relates to your own thesis. Consider the following questions: • Is it a general textbook or does it deal with a specific issue(s)? • What is its theoretical basis? • What definitions does it use? • What is its general methodological approach? What methods are used? • What are the evaluation methods? • What kinds of evaluation results does it use to back up its argument? • What conclusions does it come to? http://deakin.libguides.com/endnote http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/study-support/referencing Write the literature synthesis Having gathered the relevant details about the literature, you are now ready to write the literature synthesis report. Like all academic writing, a literature synthesis report must have an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should include: • the nature of the topic under discussion • the scope of the topic • the significance of the topic The body paragraphs could include relevant paragraphs on: • historical background, including classic texts • current research studies including summary of the research done, what you think are key strengths or contributions of the work and what you perceive to be weaknesses or limitations with the work • current discoveries about the topic • principal questions that are being asked • methodologies and methods in use • general conclusions that are being drawn The conclusion could include: • A summary of major agreements and disagreements in the literature • A summary of general conclusions that are being drawn • A summary of future research directions Samples You may find example literature review papers from: • ACM Computing Surveys (http://csur.acm.org/) • IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (http://www.comsoc.org/cst/) The papers from those journals can be just used as samples. They give you the ideas about the structure of a literature survey. You are not expected to write a literature survey with same technical details as those papers. Read the following page for details of the marking rubric. http://csur.acm.org/ http://www.comsoc.org/cst/ Marking Rubric – SIT792 Literature Synthesis Number Fail Weak Satisfactory Excellent 1. Communication The team/student did not communicate with the supervisor during the research. The team/student had few meetings with the supervisor during the research. The team/student had regular meetings with the supervisor during the research. The team/student had regular and well prepared meetings with the supervisor during the research. 2. Submission, Cover page and Abstract Did not submit literature synthesis. No Cover page, key information missing, no Abstract. 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