Introduction to Research

Credits
3
Types
  • MDS: Elective
  • MIRI: Elective
  • MAI: Elective
  • MEI: Elective
Requirements
This subject has not requirements , but it has got previous capacities
Department
FIB
This course aims to introduce students to research activities. The student will be supervised by a master's professor from the FIB. During this process, the student will engage in typical research tasks: reading and understanding scientific articles, becoming familiar with solutions developed by research groups, developing small variations of these solutions (new hypotheses and their validation/refutation), assisting in the implementation of prototypes for innovative research ideas, and reporting the completed tasks in article format following the standard structure (introduction, state of the art, formalization of the proposed solution, experimentation, and conclusions).

The student is not required to cover all of these aspects but will agree with their supervisor on the specific set of tasks to be carried out and reported accordingly.

Teachers

Person in charge

Objectives

  1. Knowledge and practice of the scientific method
    Related competences:
  2. Knowledge and practice of research methods in Computer Science
    Related competences:
  3. Ability to reason and argue to discuss and validate research methods and results
    Related competences:

Contents

  1. Research planning
    Preparation of the research plan: objectives, review of the state of the art, selection of experimental method, design of experiments, validation criteria
  2. Research: development of the research activity
    Experimentation, development of algorithms and their testing, discussion of results with the tutor and review of hypotheses
  3. Reporting
    Preparation of the research report required for evaluation, which must follow a traditional paper-like structure: introduction, state of the art, formalization of the proposed solution (e.g., as hypotheses), experimentation, and conclusions.

Activities

Activity Evaluation act


Research Plan

Information from the tutor on the context, objective and scope of their participation in the research project. Joint agreement on the milestones and time allocated, as well as the type of final result expected from the student's participation. Presentation and discussion of the research plan, method to be followed, data sources, bibliographic and software sources and, in general, everything you need to know and have at hand to start and follow the research project. Agreement on the frequency and form of review throughout the project. Agreement and definition of internal documentation formats, and publication format and possible participation in scientific conferences. Decision on the type of storage environments for the developed software. Sharing criteria and licenses for the developed software. Criteria for protection and exchange of other research results.
Objectives: 1 2
Theory
0h
Problems
0h
Laboratory
5h
Guided learning
0h
Autonomous learning
8h

Research Development

Development of the research project
Objectives: 2 3
Theory
0h
Problems
0h
Laboratory
15h
Guided learning
0h
Autonomous learning
30h

Reporting

Preparation of internal reports, software and hardware development documentation, information on all types of resources necessary to use and replicate the research results: repositories, specific computing systems, hardware and software configurations, specific hardware devices, datasets used and their storage location and sharing method; bibliographies, written articles, possible conference presentations, etc. Preparation of the final report of the research project.
Objectives: 2 3
Theory
0h
Problems
0h
Laboratory
1h
Guided learning
0h
Autonomous learning
16h

Discussion of the activity report with the tutor


Objectives: 1 2 3
Week: 15 (Outside class hours)
Theory
0h
Problems
0h
Laboratory
0h
Guided learning
0h
Autonomous learning
0h

Teaching methodology

Methodologically, this course follows a research supervision format similar to that used with a PhD student. Practical research activities will need to be carried out, which will be defined when preparing the research plan in collaboration with the supervisor. The student is expected to go through a process guided by the supervisor that includes understanding the research objectives, planning research tasks, evaluating the state of the art, proposing original research, and developing and experimenting with the specific research tasks agreed upon with the supervisor. To guarantee a smooth progress, regular meetings are mandatory.

Evaluation methodology

The evaluation of the students is carried out by the tutor of the activity and validated by the master coordinator.

The evaluation seeks to assess the quality of the work carried out by the student from the point of view of consistency and agreement with the research methods and the objectives and methodological particularities of the specific research carried out.

For this reason, the student must (a) prepare a short report (in the style of a scientific article or presentation at a scientific conference) and (b) make a presentation/discussion to the tutor who will evaluate it.

It is recommended to structure this report and its presentation and discussion as a presentation at a scientific conference. Due to the variety of topics, it is suggested to check the structure of the papers published by the tutor and follow them. Typically, it must have clear sections for a summary ("abstract"), introduction, development, conclusion and discussion of the results obtained and their relationship with the objectives of the research, in addition to a bibliography section.

It is recommended to make the data used in the development of the research available (using an accessible repository such as Gitlab), so that the scientific community can check how any algorithms developed in the research work.

Weight of the written document: 50%. Presentation and supervision by the tutor: 50%.

Bibliography

Basic

Previous capacities

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