DSG-SEM-M-2017:

- Guidelines -

Dr. Andreas Schönberger

16.06.2017

Lehrstuhl für Praktische Informatik

Fakultät WIAI
Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg
Organizational Matters I
π Seminar is centered around Literature Research and/or practical
evaluation
ƒ Seminar thesis is obligatory (about 15-25 content pages)
ƒ Some practical work if applicable
ƒ 30 minutes presentation
π Timeline
ƒ June 16th: Handout of the bootstrap material / pointers
ƒ July 21st: Delivery of rough TOC (by you in PDF format), then feedback and
adjustment
ƒ Sep 8th: Delivery of the final seminar work (by you in PDF format), then
feedback and adjustment if need be
ƒ Week of Sep 18th to Sep 22nd: Presentation of the seminar work by you.
Concrete date will be fixed later
π You are free to submit your deliverables earlier!
π It is your responsibility to ask for feedback!
16.06.2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
 Research is about generating new knowledge
Seminars cover the first step of this process
World Knowledge A research report answers
questions!:

Personal • What is the topic‘s area?

Knowledge (Scope, a bit of history)
• What is the question / problem?
(Prove the topic‘s relevance)
• Why is the topic relevant?
Seminar (Who is interested and why?)
• What are approaches so far?
Master (Related Work)
Dissertation • What are the existing approaches
limitations?
(Related Work)
• Is your approach new? Show it!
Research (the report‘s main content!)
Report • Is it valid?
Personal new (What is your proof?)
knowledge
(research)
16.06.2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Research process
(Seppo Törmä, Helsinki University of Tech.)
Phase Content and methods
(Preliminary study) Exploratory research
Problem identification - literature review
Problem definition and research - exploratory case studies Seminar
planning - pilot studies scope
- interviews and observation
Building a construct Methods for solving domain
problems
- developing software
- specifying a model
Data collection Research methodology
Data processing and analysis - empirical methods
(controlled experiments)
Drawing conclusions - statistical methods
- computational methods
(e.g., simulation)
- surveys (e.g., questionnaires)
- case studies
Writing a report Research writing
Publishing - organized presentation of research
- citation styles
16.06.2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Literature Research – General Guidelines
π „The Google is not Enough!“
ƒ Google Scholar
ƒ Citeseer
ƒ Thomson Web of Science
π „Search Another Way!“
ƒ Also look for the author‘s institute and co-researcher‘s work
ƒ Personal publication lists of authors
ƒ Most importantly, references between papers
π „Library Royale!“
ƒ Get digital access to restricted papers (ACM, LNCS, EBSCO…)
ƒ Check secondary literature
π „Quantum of Diligence!“
ƒ Screening of relevant journals
ƒ Screening of relevant proceedings

16.06.2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Literature Research – Top-Down Principle
π From mature to current publications
ƒ Standard books (e.g. “Distributed Systems”, “Transaction Processing”)
ƒ Lectures and lecture companion material
ƒ "State-of-the-Art" papers (frequently included in EU project reports)
ƒ Scientific Journals (“Journals”; e.g. “[IEEE/ACM] Transactions on...”)
ƒ Conference and Workshop proceedings (“Proceedings”)
ƒ Technical Reports – frequently detailed version of conference / journal papers
ƒ PhD / Master thesis
ƒ “Gray” literature (website, wikipedia)
π Primary literature beats secondary literature!
While books, websites etc. are great for getting an overview, you should
stick to validated (i.e. reviewed) work for your references in the thesis

Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

16.06.2017 nach Happel, H.-J., Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe,,Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten“
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Literature Research – Quality Principle
π Try to judge the quality of the documents you read and be
aware that even journal publications may have flaws
π Quality Indicators
ƒ Scientific association (e.g. ACM, IEEE, LNCS beat Worldcomp) and.
publisher (Springer beats Data Becker)
ƒ Age/maturity of conferences ("27th Annual Conference....")
⇓ however, this also depends on the topic
ƒ Conference / Journal rankings
ƒ Author’s research record
π Attention:
An indicator is just an indicator. Check yourself if you are
persuaded by the claims and proofs of the author!

Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

6/16/2017 nach Happel, H.-J., Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe,,Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten“
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Literature Research –
Connected Content Principle
π Author homepages
π Research institute / project homepages
π Papers cited in the paper your read
(X cites Y)
⇓ Path from current work to seminal work
π Papers citing the paper you read
(X cited by Y)
⇓ Path from seminal work to current work
⇓ More special work
⇓ More recent and improved work
⇓ Judgements of others
π Social Bookmarking

Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

6/16/2017 nach Happel, H.-J., Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe,,Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten“
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Literature Research – Focus Principle
π Today‘s search facilities and connected contents will you
give tons of material.
ƒ Keep focus in order not to get lost!
ƒ Best practice:
Give yourself a research question and check whether a publication
helps you in answering the question or not!

Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

6/16/2017 nach Happel, H.-J., Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe,,Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten“
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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Frequent Gotchas
π Access to some scientific portals only work as long as you access from within
the university network
π Literature databases give a good coverage of publications and BibTex entries
ƒ DBLP (http://dblp.org/)
ƒ Collection of CS Bibs (http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/index.html)
π Unprecise references in student‘s thesis
It is absolutely necessary to give:
ƒ Author
ƒ Publication Title
ƒ Conference or Journal name
ƒ Location of conference or publisher of journal
ƒ Year
ƒ In case of journal also the issue of the journal!

6/16/2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
4 Principles for Seminar / Master Theses
π Principle of Honesty
ƒ Mark everything you copy over or take over from others. Your own findings /
contributions must seperated from the work of others in a crystal clear way
π Principle of Objectiveness
ƒ Your work must be compared to the work of others
π Principle of Current Content
ƒ You need to identify the state of the art
π Principle of Relevance
ƒ Distinguish relevant from irrelevant content
ƒ Give reasonable structure to your text

6/16/2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg
Seminar as a test run for a master thesis
π Get used to
ƒ literature research
ƒ scientific work
ƒ time management
ƒ a topic of your interest
ƒ using LaTex for your written work
π Check personal compatibility with supervisor

16.06.2017 Andreas Schönberger, DSG-SEM-M-2017

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Distributed Systems Group - Universität Bamberg