IS6000 – Seminar 3

1. IS6000 – Seminar 3 Identifying Research Problems & Undertaking Literature Reviews

2. Finding a Research Problem • We do research both so as to understand the world, and so as to make a discovery • Your research problem and discovery must be related to IS6000 • If there’s no IS, it’s not related to IS6000 • An IS must involve technology, data, people and processes • This is scholarly research • Not simply an informed summary of a topic or a review of what others did • We want to gain a new empirically-based analytical understanding • Your research should make a contribution to society.

3. Project: Questions to keep in mind • Feasibility: Can you • Do this in the time available? • Do this within the word count (6,000 – 10,000 words)? • Get access to the resourcesyou need? • Acquire the skillsyou need within the specified time? • Novelty • Is it interesting? Does anyone care? • Is it too obvious or just common sense?

4. Project: Questions to keep in mind • Does our topic allow us to demonstrate extensive/relevant reading? • Does our topic allow us to demonstrate our understanding of theories? • Does our topic allow us to demonstrate our understanding & engagement with methodology?

5. Problems and Discoveries • Open your eyes to the world around you • Observe unusual behavior • Reflect on a counterintuitive situation • Is there • A great plan … that failed? • A great idea … that needs to be tested? • A new technology-application context?

6. Problems and Discoveries • Generate problems through creative thinking, through brainstorming • Look at the real world • What works? What doesn’t work? Why? • Are there missed opportunities? • Is some task performed ineffectively or inefficiently?

7. Problems and Discoveries • Poor design • Ineffectiveness/inefficiency • Redundancies • Repetition • Poor integration • Dissatisfaction

8. Framing the Research Question • What exactly is going on? • Which issues are involved? • Can you identify relationships between concepts? • What affects what? • What depends on what? • For whom is the situation relevant? (stakeholders) • So, from whom should we collect data? (research subjects)

9. Writing Research Questions • Identify topic • Preliminary literature review • Narrow topic: How/why questions • Focus the question some more • It needs to be finishable within one semester.

10. Stakeholders • Who cares about this? • Who can benefit from the research? • Who will support the research? • It is much easier to get data when people are interested in what you are doing and can support you. • For your IS6000 project, you must collect data.

11. Types of Research • Describing how things are • A new area that is poorly understood • Explaining how things are • We are interested in cause and effect relationships • Predicting future events • Guiding business decisions

12. Too narrow! • What is the degree of childhood computer literacy in Hong Kong?

13. Lessnarrow • How does parents’ education level influence the degree of childhood computer literacy in Hong Kong?

14. Unfocused and Too broad! • What are the effects of childhood computer literacy in Asia?

15. More focused • How does childhood computer literacy influence performance in undergraduate education?

16. Too objective! • How much time do children in Hong Kong spend using computers?

17. More subjective • What is the relationship between children’s computer usage and childhood computer literacy?

18. Too simple! • How do schools in Hong Kong address low childhood computer literacy?

19. More complex • What are the effects of primary school computer literacy programs on computer literacy of 8-11 year old children?

20. Good research questions • Focus on one main issue • Require analysis (how, why) • Are specific & focused • Are precise, not vague • Look at interactions of two issues: How does A influence B

21. For Example 1 • It seems common now for Weibo and Wechat to be used as marketing tools • I am not sure if these are effective communication channels • Can followers be converted into customers? • If e-coupons are offered, can these translate into profit in the medium-long term?

22. Wechat Use that I Have Seen • Corporate wechat accounts • To promote the company as a whole • Brand-specific wechat accounts • To promote brands/products • Thousands of followers • But who are they? • Few strategic plans to leverage wechat to create value

23. What are the Research Questions? • Exactly how could companies (try to) leverage wechat? • What are they trying to achieve? • More followers? Valuable followers? Profit? • Can they measure those achievements? • If you can’t measure, how do you know if it makes a difference?

24. Research Activities • Could we interview people? • Whom would we (want to) interview? • CIO? CEO? CMO? • IT Manager? Functional Managers? • Junior employees? • What could we measure? • Use? Productivity? Satisfaction? • How to measure…?

25. For Example 2 • Let’s imagine that you never use email at all – it is boring and old-fashioned, suitable for old people, dinosaurs • However, in an organisation you find that email is widespread and remarkably effective (even for young people). • This does not match your personal view (it is counterintuitive), so … is this worth investigating? • Is this a good research topic? Is anyone interested?

26. Could You? • Find out why email is so useful, but not other tools? • Discover anything about the interpersonal dynamics between people? • Investigate the organisational culture and values?

27. You Might Need to … • Do a careful literature search • What do we already know? What can you add? • Interview people • Conversations, questions, reflections • Junior and senior • Observe people • How do they work? What do they do? Why? • Technology culture? • Study corporate documents • Any policies about technology use?

28. Is this Organisation Special, or Normal? • To answer this question, you have to compare with other organisations • Same or different industry • Same size, larger or smaller • Same culture or country; or different • Language? • Values?

29. And all the time… • You have to put your own personal preference (or prejudice) to one side • Maybe you like wechat and hate email • OK, but put that to one side. • Be impartial, objective, unbiased • Focus on the research • Who knows, you might learn something! • You might even change your attitude!!!

30. For Example 3 • You have a great idea for a new way of reducing queuing time. • Many different places have queues • Theme Parks: Disneyland, Ocean Park • Restaurants, Hospitals • Repair Centres, Banks • No one likes queues – so an IS-based solution that worked could save a lot of people a lot of time

31. Find out • Which context you want to apply your great new ideas to? Can you persuade key stakeholders to let you try? • Who will benefit? • The customers? • The operator? • Interview the beneficiaries – you need to explain how your new model works and then see if they like it

32. Then, … • At some stage, you have to take your great new idea away from the planning stage and actually build the software • You can try a prototype – do a pilot test, do an experiment with sample queuers – see if it works. • You need the cooperation of the venue manager • You must be sure to measure variables so as to be able to demonstrate if the situation has improved or not

33. Research Contexts • Do not have to be inside formal (and large) organisations • They can be on the web. They can be informal. • But you want the data to be accessible and reliable • They may involve consumers, not employees. • Or citizens, but not government. • They can be in one culture or across many. • They often involve ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ questions • So it helps if you are curious and not easily satisfied.

34. Stakeholders • Research needs to be relevant to someone or something • Someone has to care about the outcomes. • Being ‘relevant’ implies that the research has value, is useful. • So, the research problem will be better if it is relevant to other people, not just you.

35. Problems and Solutions • Is it easier to find a solution, then work backwards and apply it to a problem? • What can facebook, twitter, qq or wechat be solutions for? • Or to think of a tool or method and then consider which problems it might be more suitable for? • Individual people may find some methods easier to use than others • But if you limit your choice of methods, you may also limit your choice of problems.

36. Alternatively • Can you generate problems through creative thinking, through brainstorming • Look at the real world. • What works? What doesn’t? Why? • Are there missed opportunities? • Is some task performed ineffectively or inefficiently?

37. Look at CityU • How does the university manage its processes/resources/people? • Library • Computer Centre • Rooms • Labs • Look at AIMS. Does it work effectively? • Any room for improvement? Is anything really inconvenient? Could it be done better?

38. Look at… • The MTR • Banks • Airlines (booking systems, scheduling systems) • Cinemas • Restaurants • Disneyland/Ocean Park

39. Look for… • Poor design • Ineffectiveness/inefficiency • Redundancies • Repetition • Poor integration • Dissatisfaction

40. When you find something • Brainstorm it! • Discuss, get feedback. • Try to be precise about the real problem and possible solutions • Focus on just one problem • Control the scope: focus on the real problem • Talk to people outside the project group: get external opinions

41. Framing the Research Question • What exactly is going on? • Which issues are involved? • Can you identify relationships between concepts? • What affects what? • What depends on what? • Does culture play a role? • Does theory help to explain the situation or not?

42. Filling in the Details • All research problems exist in a context • The societal context • The organisational context • The context of previous work • It is usually the case that there is a lot of previous research done by others • To reveal this, we have to do a literature review

43. Literature Reviews

44. The context • All research problems exist in a context • The societal context • The organizational context • The professional context • The context of previous work • Typically, you’re not the first one to study a topic • Lot of previous research done by others • To reveal this, we have to do a literature review

45. Literature review • Keywords • The key items that you really want to search for • If you are not focused, then you will find thousands of articles, and you can’t read them all • Comprehensive? • Representative? • Outstanding? • Seminal?

46. Literature review • Relevant & recent • What does recent mean? • Why recent? • Technology changes quickly  innovations become out of date quickly • Much research has a relatively short lifetime • After a few years, it becomes less useful • Recent may be 10 years old, 5 years old, 1 year old • Many technologies we have today did not exist 10 or even 5 years ago!

47. Literature search • How to find? • Internet searching • E.g. http://scholar.google.com • E.g. https://scholar.google.com.hk/citations?user=662SA1EAAAAJ&hl=en • Library Catalogue • http://www.cityu.edu.hk/lib/ • Web of Science • Scopus

48. Key words • Search operators • AND, OR, *, “”

49. Backward search

50. Forward search • https://scholar.google.com.hk/citations?user=662SA1EAAAAJ&hl=en • And then look at the articles that cite an article