The fifty-four day thesis proposal: first experiences with a research course

  • Authors:

  • Karen Ward

  • Affiliations:

  • The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Research traditionally is taught one-on-one as a student works with a faculty member to define, test, and defend a thesis. While guiding and supervising a publishable research project must require the specialized depth of a researcher current in the field, there are many aspects of research that are common across Computer Science and can be taught in a classroom setting. Such a course can be a precursor to the regular thesis process for those students committed to doing research, and it can be an aid in the decision process for those students still unsure as to whether or not to attend graduate school to tackle a thesis once there.This paper describes and discusses the first iteration of a research course presented to a mixed class of undergraduate and graduate Computer Science students. The course took place during in an eight-week compressed format and had the goal that every student would produce and defend a ten-to-twenty page thesis proposal.All students succeeded in producing and defending a plausible thesis. The small class size (ten students) allowed for a discussion format that revealed several unexpected misconceptions about various details of the research process. Students benefitted greatly from the opportunity to see others at the same stage in the process, and the instructor was able to provide a level of feedback that would not be possible with a larger class. Although the course would suffer from a larger class size, the experience shows that some economics of scale are possible in the early stages of learning to do research.