1. Introduction

  • Module 1 is very important because it will put you on the right track for completing the course.
  • Begin by reading the “Supervisors and external partners” information in order to be able to choose the right supervisor. 
  • Then, closer to the course start it is advised to spend some time on the course e-book and pay attention to detail. You will need to go back to it throughout the writing process and it is important to have a good idea on how to structure and write your thesis.
  • Also, read plenty of related work. 

Tasks

The main task during Module 1 is to decide what your research is about, specifically:

  • Background to the problem with description of its relevance.
  • What you want to research and why (aims and purpose):
    • E.g., In order to improve search interface of museum X (purpose), the thesis aims to identify key current challenges their end users are facing (aims).
  • Which specific research questions you want to get answers to, e.g.: 
    1. Which search features the museum's search interface provides in comparison to search interface features recommended in the literature?
    2. To what degree are end users finding information they are looking for?
    3. What can be done to improve the findability of information at the level of the search interface for end users?
  • Methodology, e.g.:
    • Extensive literature review to identify search interface features from the literature.
    • Survey through a focus group interview to identify main challenges users face when searching; 6-12 participants.
    • Observation when conducting two controlled and two free search tasks, accompanies with a think-aloud protocol; 8-12 participants.  
  • Contact your supervisor and book an individual Zoom supervision with her/him, ideally in December or early January before the course start.
  • Post your first draft ideally by the course start, the latest by the end of the first week to the right group forum.
    • The draft should be around 500 words long.
  • Read at least two other students' drafts from your forum group and engage in a discussion via the forum: are the aims and purpose clear; are the research questions well defined; is the methodology appropriate?