ICT in Research

Dr. V.BALAMURUGAN, M.Tech., Ph.D

Professor / CSE & Director - IQAC
Manonamanaiam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli - 12

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 Outline
Introduction
Research Fundamentals
ICT in Research
Research Writing Fundamentals

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R & D in India
India is presently ranked 76th among a total of 143
economies, as per the Global Innovation Index (GII).
India will likely get into the list of the top 25 nations in the
Global Innovation Index, in the next 10 years.
R&D OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA IN VARIOUS SUBSECTORS

Establishment of STPIs
National Policy for IT

26 billion dollar to 58 by 2020 by creating new

health policy

Estimated growth 63 % in 2016-17 when

compared with 15-16

Multi Disciplinary approach with Nano Technology and

metallurgical chemistry on the way

Promising alternatives to meet rural energy needs

Treatment, Recycling, Resuse, Recovery and

Efficient Use
 PhD?

Philosophiae Doctor (Doctor of Philosophy)

degree granted by a university to a learned individual who had achieved the approval of
his peers and who had demonstrated a long and productive career in the field of
philosophy

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 Philosophy?
The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions of beliefs.
A set of ideas or beliefs relating to a particular field or activity;
an underlying theory.
General laws or principles under which all the subordinate
phenomena or facts relating to that subject are comprehended.

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 What Research is not
Research isnt information gathering:
Gathering information from resources such books or magazines
isnt research.
No contribution to new knowledge.

Research isnt the transportation of facts:

Merely transporting facts from one resource to another doesnt
constitute research.
No contribution to new knowledge although this might make
existing knowledge more accessible.

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 Research
Systematic process of collecting and analyzing
information (data) in order to increase our understanding
of the phenomenon about which we are concerned or
interested.

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 Keep In Mind That
Always studies have been moving towards perfection. Thats
why research exists.
It is not that easy to get the perfectly relevant data;
research is what you do with the data in our hand
Measurement involves making choices

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 Research Characteristics
Originates with a question or problem.

Requires clear articulation of a goal.

Follows a specific plan or procedure.

Often divides main problem into subproblems.

Guided by specific problem, question, or hypothesis.

Accepts certain critical assumptions .

Requires collection and interpretation of data.

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 Scientific Method

Hypothesis
Sequence of experiments
Randomization
Repetition
Change one parameter/experiment
Prove/Disprove Hypothesis
Document for others to reproduce results

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 Basic steps of a research project
Find a topic
Formulate questions
Define population
Select design & measurement
Gather evidence
Interpret evidence
Report what you did and found out

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 Incorrect Choice - Research Projects
The following kinds of projects usually dont make for good
research:
Comparing data sets.
Comparing Techniques
Correlating data sets.
Problems with yes / no answers.
Outdated Problem.

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 High-Quality Research
Good research requires:
The scope and limitations of the work to be clearly defined.

The process to be clearly explained so that it can be

reproduced and verified by other researchers.
A thoroughly planned design that is as objective as possible.

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 High-Quality Research (cont.)
Good research requires:
Highly ethical standards be applied.

All limitations be documented.

Data be adequately analyzed and explained.

All findings be presented unambiguously and all conclusions

be justified by sufficient evidence.
Vocabulary - definition

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 ICT
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) includes
computers, the Internet, Search engines, cloud and
electronic delivery systems such as radios, televisions, and
projectors among others, and is widely used in todays
education field.
 The Visual Thinking Process

High Quality
Act
better perceive the
world

Research Change Reflect

Exercise
better represent

Graphic Organizer information to the

target audience

A graphic organizer is a visual representation of concepts, knowledge, or

information that can incorporate both text and pictures. Examples
include calendars, maps, Venn diagrams, and flow charts. Graphic
organizers allow the mind 'to see' undiscovered patterns and
relationships.
Do a map of your research
Establish relationships
Use arrows

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 MIND MAP

Mind mapping is a graphing technique that outlines concepts related to a

central idea. The image shows relationships among pieces of the whole, from
outward branches to specific ideas within them.
Creators are likely to make use of their entire space, using colors, images,
and words to get their ideas across.
GRAPHIC ORGANISER ON LINE
 GRAPHIC ORGANISERS - TOOLS

Inspiration: A full-featured desktop program, compatible with Windows and Mac

computers, Inspiration has many formatting options, built-in templates, and useful tools
like a word guide, spell check, and integrated text-to-speech. It even has a function that
will automatically turn a graphic organizer into a slide show that can be exported to
PowerPoint for further editing.
Inspiration Maps: An iPad companion app to Inspiration, Inspiration Maps retains
most of the functionality of the desktop software. Students can also start a graphic
organizer on the iPad app and finish it later on the desktop.
Draft:Builder: A combination graphic organizing and outlining program for desktop
computers, Draft:Builder has a unique note-taking feature that students can use to
expand their ideas after initial brainstorming. The notes can then be dragged and dropped
into a basic word processor, making the writing process more efficient.
Popplet: A web-based graphic organizing tool, which also has an iPad app, Popplet limits
students to basic formatting and functionality. For students who are easily distracted by
too many options, it is a great choice.
Mindomo: Another web-based tool with a companion iPad app, Mindomo lets students
create graphic organizers that can double as presentations. The presenting function has a
unique zooming tool that allows users to focus on individual elements of the organizer.
 Sources of Research Problems
Observation. (Sensor Observation Service is available in
web)
Literature reviews.
Professional conferences.
Experts (Seminar/Workshop).
Previous experience

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 Arduino
Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and
software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a
button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning
on an LED, publishing something online. You can tell your board what to do by
sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board.
 Matlab
A proprietary programming language developed by
MathWorks, MATLAB allows matrix manipulations,
plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms,
creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs
written in other languages, including C, C++, C#, Java,
Fortran and Python.
IDL
IDL, short for Interactive Data Language, is
a programming language used for data analysis. It is popular
in particular areas of science, such as astronomy, atmospheric
physics and medical imaging
Simulink
Simulink, developed by MathWorks, is a graphical
programming environment for modeling, simulating and
analyzing multidomain dynamic systems. Its primary
interface is a graphical block diagramming tool and a
customizable set of block libraries.
Scilab
Scilab is an open source numerical computational package
and a high-level, numerically oriented programming
language. It can be used for signal processing, statistical
analysis, image enhancement, fluid dynamics simulations,
numerical optimization, and modeling, simulation of explicit
and implicit dynamical systems and symbolic manipulations.
ICT in Literature Review
Shodhganga : An open access reservoir of Indian theses is a
digital repository of theses and dissertations submitted to Indian
universities. It is maintained by INFLIBNET Centre which is an
autonomous Inter-University Centre of the University Grants
Commission (UGC) .
As on 4 October 2016, as many as 293 universities in India have
signed MoUs with the INFLIBNET Centre to participate in the
Shodhganga project. A further 13 centrally funded technical
institutions have also signed MoUs with the Centre to participate
in the Shodhganga project.
The full text of all the documents submitted to Shodhganga are
available to read and to download in open access to the academic
community worldwide. The repository has a collection of
1,05,510 theses and 3485 synopses.
shodhganga
The main objectives of Shodhganga are to:
(i) develop a national repository of theses and dissertations with an
intuitive interface which enables submission of electronic version of
theses and dissertations by Universities in India and facilitates search,
browse and downloading of theses available in the repository;
(ii) avoid unnecessary duplication and repetition that, in effect, is
wastage of huge resources, both human and financial;
(iii) providing access to Indian theses and dissertations in open access
to world-wide academic community and making visibility of Indian
research to other countries;
(iv) extend access to plagiarism detection software to eligible
universities; and
(v) fund eligible Universities (that are under purview of the UGC) for
digitization of back lists of theses submitted to their universities.
Inflibnet
Inflibnet.ac.in
Literature Review Open Access
Literature Review
Yahoo Research
Google Sholar
Directory of open access journals
 PROBLEM DEFINITION
STATE THE PROBLEM
UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM
SURVEY THE LITERATURE
DEVELOP IDEAS THROUGH DISCUSSION
REPHRASE THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

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 Stating the Research Problem
Once youve identified a research problem:
State that problem clearly and completely.
Determine the feasibility of the research.

Identify subproblems:
Completely researchable units.
Small in number.
Add up to the total problem.
Must be clearly tied to the interpretation of the data.

A PROBLEM WELL DEFINED IS A PROBLEM HALF SOLVED

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 Hypotheses
Hypotheses are tentative, intelligent guesses as to the
solution of the problem.
There is often a 1-1 correspondence between a subproblem and
a hypothesis.
Hypotheses can direct later research activities since they can
help determine the nature of the research and methods applied.

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 Delimitations
All research has limitations and thus certain work that
will not be performed.
The work that will not be undertaken is described as the
delimitations of the research.
Scope

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 Assumptions
Assumptions are those things that the researcher is taking
for granted.
For example: a given test instrument accurately and consistently
measures the phenomenon in question.

As a general rule youre better off documenting an

assumption than ignoring it.
Overlooked assumptions provide a prime source of debate
about a research projects results.

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 Importance of the Study
Many research problems have a kind of theoretical feel
about them. Such projects often need to be justified:
What is the research projects practical value?

Without this justification, it will prove difficult to

convince others that the problem in question is worth
study.

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 Literature Review
A literature review is a necessity.
Without this step, you wont know if your problem has been
solved or what related research is already underway.
When performing the review:
Start searching professional journals.
Begin with the most recent articles you can find.
Keep track of relevant articles in a bibliography.
Dont be discouraged if work on the topic is already underway.

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 Literature Review Pitfalls
Be very careful to check your sources when doing your
literature review.
Many trade magazines are not peer reviewed.
Professional conferences and journals often have each article
reviewed by multiple people before it is even recommended for
publication.
The IEEE and ACM digital libraries are good places to start
looking for legitimate research.
ASSESS QUALITY Thompson Scientific Journal Citation
Reports, Scoupus, Publish Or Perish

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 Literature Review Pitfalls (cont.)
The Internet can be a good source of information. It is
also full of pseudo-science and poor research.
Make sure you verify the claims of any documentation
that has not been peer reviewed by other professionals in
the computing industry.

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 Research Process
Research is an extremely cyclic process.
Later stages might necessitate a review of earlier work.

This isnt a weakness of the process but is part of the

built-in error correction machinery.
Because of the cyclic nature of research, it can be
difficult to determine where to start and when to
stop.

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 Step 1: A Question Is Raised
A question occurs to the researcher for which that
researcher has no answer.
This doesnt mean that someone else doesnt already have an
answer.

The question needs to be converted to an appropriate

problem statement like that documented in a
research proposal.

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 Step 2: Suggest Hypotheses
The researcher generates intermediate hypotheses
to describe a solution to the problem.
This is at best a temporary solution since there is as yet no
evidence to support either the acceptance or rejection of these
hypotheses.

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 Step 3: Literature Review
The available literature is reviewed to determine if there
is already a solution to the problem.
Existing solutions do not always explain new observations.
The existing solution might require some revision or even be
discarded.

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The Literature Review is not
A study-by-study, or
article-by-article,
description of studies
previously done
A re-statement of the
studies previously done
A brief overview of
articles
 Step 4: Literature Evaluation
Its possible that the literature review has yielded a
solution to the proposed problem.
This means that you havent really done research.

On the other hand, if the literature review turns up

nothing, then additional research activities are justified.

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 Reviewing the Literature
Begin with a search of the
available literature
Critically analyze each
article (study) you select
Organize the review with
an outline
Write the review
Summarize the review
Using the literature,
present a rationale for your
study
 Step 5: Acquire Data
The researcher now begins to gather data relating to the
research problem.
The means of data acquisition will often change based on the
type of the research problem.
This might entail only data gathering, but it could also require
the creation of new measurement instruments.
UCI Machine Learning Repository.

UCR Wireless data repository.

YRC Data Repository for Genomes

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Data Collection
UCI MACHINE LEARNING REPOSITORY
KD NUGGETS DATA MINING DATA SETS
KEEL DATASET CLASSIFICATION & EVLOUTION
FIMI REPOSITORY FREQUENT ITEM MINING
WADAM DATA SET REPOSITORY MULTI PURPOSE
YASKAWA IMAGE REPOSITORY
NCBI GENOMIC DATASET
Step 6: Data Analysis :Common Methodologies

Methodologies are high-level approaches to conducting

research.
The individual steps within the methodology might vary based
on the research being performed.

Two commonly used research methodologies:

Quantitative.
Qualitative.

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 Methodology Comparison
Quantitative Qualitative
Explanation, prediction Explanation, description
Test theories Build theories
Known variables Unknown variables
Large sample Small sample
Standardized instruments Observations, interviews
Deductive Inductive

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Survey on Use of ICT Tools in Research by Australian Universities
ICT FOR DATA ANALYSIS
Data Kleenr
Data Ladder
Data Cleaner
Winpure
Excel / Spreadsheet
Trifacta. ...
Rapid Miner. ...
Rattle GUI. ...
Qlikview. ...
Weka. ...
KNIME. ...
Orange.
 Data Analysis/Research Design
The data that were gathered in the previous step are
analyzed as a first step in ascertaining their meaning.
As before, the analysis of the data does not constitute
research.
DESIGN Exploratory, descriptive, testing, experimental,
mathematical modeling, simulation modeling.
Mathematical model describes a system by a set of variable and set
of equations that establish relationships between variables.

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 Step 7: Data Interpretation
The researcher interprets the newly analyzed data and
suggests a conclusion.
This can be difficult.
Keep in mind that data analysis that suggests a correlation
between two variables cant automatically be interpreted as
suggesting causality between those variables.

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 ICT for Data Visualisation
Plotly.
DataHero.
Chart.js.
Tableau.
Raw.
Dygraphs.
ZingChart.
InstantAtlas.
 Step 8: Hypothesis Support
The data will either support the hypotheses or they
wont.
This may lead the researcher to cycle back to an earlier step
in the process and begin again with a new hypothesis.
This is one of the self-correcting mechanisms associated
with the scientific method.

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Statistical Tools
SPSS
Strata
S Plus
R Studio
Min Tab
Mathematica
Research Paper
The final step
Research is not finished until the results are published!
 Organization of a Research Paper

Main sections
Title Introduction
Method
Participants
Apparatus
Abstract Procedure
Design
Results and Discussion
Conclusions
Body

Formatted according to submission requirements of conference or journal

Example Publication
 Title, Author(s), Affiliation(s)

Title
Every word tells
 Abstract

Abstract
Write last
Not an introduction!
State what you did
and what you found!
Give the most salient
finding(s).
Keywords

Keywords
Used for database indexing and
searching.
Use ACM classification scheme (for ACM
publications)..
Introduction

Introduction
Give the context for the research, stating why it is interesting and
relevant.
Identify a UI problem or challenge as it currently exists.
Give an overview of the contents of the entire paper.
Identify, describe, cite related work.
Describe and justify your approach to the problem.
Follow the formatting requirements of conference or journal.
Its your story to tell!
Method

Method
Tell the reader what you did and how
you did it.
The research must be reproducible!
Use the following subsections
Method - Participants

Participants
State the number of participants and how they were
selected.
Give demographic information, such as age, gender,
relevant experience.
Note: The term Subjects is now obsolete.
Method - Apparatus

Apparatus
Describe the hardware and software.
Use screen snaps or photos, if helpful
Method - Procedure

Procedure
Specify exactly what happened with each participant.
State the instructions given, and indicate if demonstration
or practice was used, etc.
Method - Design

Design
Give the independent variables (factors and levels) and
dependent variables (measures and units).
State the order of administering conditions, etc.
Be thorough and clear! Its important that your research is
reproducible.
 Results and Discussion
Results and Discussion
Use subsections as appropriate
If there were outliers or problems in the data collection, state this up-front.
Organize results by the dependent measures, moving from overall means to finer details
across conditions.
Use statistical tests, charts, tables, as appropriate
 Results and Discussion (2)
Dont overdo it! Giving too many charts or too much data means you cant distinguish
what is important from what is not important.
Discuss the results. State what is interesting
Explain the differences across conditions.
Compare with results from other studies.
Provide additional analysis, as appropriate, such as fine grain analyses on types of errors or
linear regression or correlation analyses for models of interaction (such as Fitts law).
Conclusion
Conclusion
Summarize what you did.
Restate the important findings.
State (or restate) the contribution.
Identify topics for future work.
Do not develop any new ideas in the conclusion.
Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment
Optional
Thank people who helped with the
research
Thank funding agencies
References

References
Include a list of references, formatted as per the
submission requirements of the conference or
journal
Only include items cited in the body of the
paper..
 So tired ???? Any more Questions?

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