Research Methods and Project Planning

Topic - Internet Relay Chat and SPARK Approach

The research background report has 3 main elements:

1. Literature review
2. Requirements analysis of software or experiments to be attempted
3. Project plan

Title Page . Abstract: A summary of the dissertation highlighting major points and describing the dissertation`s scope and conclusions. . Acknowledgements: Anyone you wish to thank.

Table of Contents: Detailed breakdown with chapter headings, section headings, and maybe subsection headings, each with page numbers. Table of Figures: Location, number and legend of all figures in document (optional)

Chapters of Content

References

Bibliography

Appendices

Abstract, Introduction, Motivation - These sections are suitably informative and well structured although in the objectives there is some confusion on what work is to be done and what has been done.

2) Literature Review - The background section is quite extensive, and the language used can be quite informal in some parts but overall it is an in-depth review of the work done.

3) Requirements and/or Proposed Methodology (incl. Evaluation) - The project requirements are given as well as the details of the way the work will be evaluated. Although some of this is hard to extract from the text and should be made clearer the exact metric which will be used and how the experiments might be run.

4) Project Plan (incl. Professional, Legal, Ethical, and Social Issues) - The PLES section is quite detailed although I would have liked to see it split up into its component parts ie Professional, Legal, Ethical, and Social Issues. The project plan is for the correct length of time but the date are all for the wrong semester. There is minimal to no risk analysis. A suitable conclusion has been added which ties the work together well.

5) General - The report is well written, with few typos, a good set of tables and correct citations. More distinctive section/chapter titles should be used as it would break up the text better and make the work easier to read.