Cis320 - Session 10

Report Writing

Project Consultation 10

Overview Before you begin Description of Report Outline Citation & styles

Before you begin Create an outline in MS Word Title TOC (generate with Word- from styles) Abstract Introduction (Background) Project Statement Theory (Literature Review) Design & Development Usability Testing & Results Conclusions References Appendices

Before you begin

Set styles for your report Headings; body text; caption, table text

Gather all your reference materials; user research & usability test results.

Abstract Give a summary of the project; its results and conclusions. Explain how your results will influence future related work. (200 -250 words)

Do this last

Introduction / background Introduce project area Explain the context in which your project is based on Explain why you are interested in the project Explain your research questions (purpose) State your deliverables Explain associated project areas and why it may interest others in the field. Use literature review to support your

Project Statement What is the project about? What is the context of your project? What are the aims & Objectives? (What are your research questions or what do you intend to find out from the project?)

Literature Review What are the theories and ideas associated with your project? Which are relevant based on the context of your project? Explain your rationale

Design & Development Provide an overview of your methods e.g. UCD approach and project lifecycle. Describe what was done at each stage: Requirements Gathering – user research; profiling; needs analysis leading to requirements specifications; Project specifications – state features of the product based on results of user research and needs analysis; state the scope of the project (what's in / out ). Explain. Design – system architecture; HCI components (include design documents – sitemap, UML diagrams, wireframes, storyboard, etc.) Development – selection of appropriate tools; description of methods; problems / issues that arise and how these were solved. Testing – Describe test design: test sample, settings, test cases; how tests were conducted.

Results Present results Explain findings Any surprises? Why? How could you have done it differently?

Conclusion Give a summary of the expected results Explain its significance Would the results be interesting to others? State future extension of project (related work)

References & Bibliography Generate using a reference tool (MSWord 2007; Zotero; BibMe; etc.)

Citation & Writing Style Use in-text citation to support your views as much as possible: E.g. Recommendation systems vary in sophistication, ranging from simple retrieval or filtering applications to comprehensive recommendation systems (Spiekermann and Paraschiv, 2002) and are often classified into content-based vs collaborative filtering systems (Balabanovic and Shoham, 1997).

Citation & Writing Style Write in reported speech The subjects of this study were students enrolled in an introductory MIS course offered on a synchronous e-learning system in fall semester of 2003. Students of the class were mostly MIS majors or minors. All students had taken an introductory computing course and had reasonable computer skills. Survey forms were collected from 156 subjects who were randomly assigned to 46 groups – 24 using text messaging and 22 using an audio conferencing platform (Table I).