Assessment Type                          Individual Assignment

Assessment Title                          Research Proposal

Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)

Students will be expected to write a research proposal on a specific topic in Information Technology. A student will be required to conduct research in regards to their assigned topic and present his/her idea or question and expected outcomes with clarity and definition.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Critically evaluate how technology can enable an organisation’s core business processes and support the strategic goals.
               2. Analyse and comprehend the issues that arise with the acquisition and adoption of technology and recommend possible solutions.
               3. Critically evaluate the ways in which information technology can contribute to organisational innovation, efficiency and overall corporate performance.
               4. Critically analyse and evaluate the key issues, challenges and opportunities associated with the latest developments in Information Systems.

Weight                                          50% of the total assessments (3 components)

Word limit                                2500 words

Due Date

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Outline of the paper (5%): Week 4 Friday 5pm
               2. Draft version of the paper (15%): Week 8 Friday 5pm
               3. Final version of the paper (30%): Week 12 Friday 5pm

Submission Guidelines

• • • • • • All work must be submitted on Blackboard by the due date along with a completed Assignment Cover Page.
          • The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 line spacing, 12-pt Times New Roman font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings.
          • Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using Harvard style.

Assignment 1 Research Proposal

Objective(s)

This assessment item relates to the unit learning outcomes as in the unit descriptor. This assessment is designed to improve student learning skills and to give students experience in researching the literature on a topic relevant to the Unit of Study subject matter, critically analysing current academic papers then presenting idea or question and expected outcomes with clarity and definition in a referenced written report.

Instructions

For this component you will write a research proposal on a particular topic. The topic you select must be directly relevant to IT in Business. Your topic must include a specific information technology and a specific business application, e.g., AI For fraud detection.

All students must have a different topic. Students can choose to write about the same technology, but the approach and the thrust of each paper must be different. For instance, you could look at cloud computing from a security viewpoint, or from an environment impact viewpoint, or from the perspective of a manager trying to reduce their hardware costs. There will be many perspectives to look at each technology and its relation to Business IT.

To ensure this uniqueness, each student must email their topic and title to their tutor within the first two weeks. Your tutor will respond with an approval or with a message that you will either need to choose a different technology or to change the thrust of your paper. Once it has been approved you should begin by working towards the first deliverable.

Note: It is important to realize, that you must have prior approval for a topic before you can submit. If you submit something for assessment without approval for the specific topic, it will not be graded. Once you have a topic approved, you cannot change it without consent from your subject lecturer.

The Key elements of the research proposal

The following elements must be included in your research proposal:

1. Introduction or background to the research problem or issue, including an identification of the gap in the current research
2. Research question and, if possible, a thesis statement answering the question
3. Justification for the proposal research, i.e., why the research is needed
4. Preliminary literature review covering what others have already done in the area
5. Theoretical framework to be used in the proposed research
6. Statement of the contribution of the research to the general area
7. Proposed research methodology
8. Research plan and outline
9. Timetable of proposed research
10. List of references used in preparing the proposal

Submissions

The first deliverable is in week 10, and is the outline of the paper they intend to write so it is important that students receive topic approval in time to fully consider the structure of what they intend to do. This assessment is worth 50% and there are 3 deliverables which must be submitted

1. Outline of the paper (5%): Week 4 Friday 5pm
2. Draft version of the paper (15%): Week 8 Friday 5pm
3. Final version of the paper (30%): Week 12 Friday 5pm

The outline will include the title and a description of the sections in your paper and the key topics in each, along with at least five preliminary references and a note as to in which section they will be included.
• You are required to address Elements 1,2,3,4,10 in your outline (200 words).

The draft version is just that, a draft. The first draft can be messy, rough and amenable to change, allowing you to re-mould your structure with successive drafts. You can avoid trying to write perfect sentences and paragraphs (polishing). Additionally, you can include bullet points, sentence fragments, and temporary section headings, but I would expect approximately half of the paper to be near complete at this stage. Don’t worry about being repetitive or boring. Avoid making your writing eloquent, stylistic or succinct in the first draft: you can revise and improve your writing as your rework later drafts. The idea of the draft is to get down initial ideas and develop an overall structure of the paper.
• You are required to address Elements 1-10 in your draft (≥ 1250 words).

The final version of your paper is the polished version, the approach should follow the same plan as your draft, but obviously some change may have occurred from the draft. You should not use a lot of small sections and bullet points in the final version. Your research proposal should be presenting the state of current knowledge in a specific area and as such, should have a narrative that flows from one paragraph to another. You cannot achieve this with bullet points and small disjoint sections. All references included with your paper must be cited within the paper and be appropriate to the context of the citation.
• You are required to address Elements 1-10 in your final proposal (2500 words).

Some Notes:

• All references must use the Harvard referencing style.
• The length of the paper is to be 2500 words (excluding the references, contents etc.)
• The font of the body text should be 12pt Times New Roman font, 1.5 line spaced
• Section Heading should be in Arial Bold 12-point font
• At NO time should you use Wikipedia as a reference