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TDDD89 Scientific Method

Seminar 4


Seminar 4

Purpose

  • To understand how to formulate and discuss results, and critically review results and methods employed in a thesis.
  • To understand how to put a thesis in a wider context.

IT systems in a wider context

As engineers, we have a great responsibility in designing IT systems as they will have far greater effects than we often imagine. During your master's thesis work you will get to analyze, develop and evaluate the effects of IT systems. Some of you will conduct studies on the design and requirements of software, others on the maintainability of software, and yet others will study the technical feasibility of certain technical platforms. Depending on the type of work that you do, you will need to place your work in a proper wider context and reason about the implications of your work. For this purpose, you will need to prepare by understanding some of the general effects of IT systems (see the links below), and by selecting one of the publications in the reading list.

IT systems have profound effects on users, organizations and society. IT systems have enabled us as a society to transform how we find partners, how we find work and learn, how we communicate and make our purchases. However, the promises of the digital economy to reduce energy demands [1] have not materialized [2]. Although digitalization efforts are promoted by the highest levels of government [3] in part to promote a more efficient economy, waste from constant upgrade cycles [4] and the business processes in both software and hardware industries to leave functional hardware platforms behind in upgrade processes known as "planned obsolescence" [5] which can be caused by software as well as hardware [6].

As for the electronics themselves, IT systems are built using minerals from the conflict-ridden regions and cause tensions and violence [7], use critical raw materials [8] that grow ever more scarce in supply and are hard to replace [9], they may be constructed in such a way as to consume enormous amounts of power [10a] and water [10b], [10c]. Electronic waste is becoming the fastest growing waste stream in the world fueled mainly by "higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short life cycles, and few options for repair" [11].

Among the effects on people, we know that social-media use may lead to social ills [12]. Also, more interconnected systems present us with more vexing security problems as we no longer have full control over where sensitive data is stored in the cloud [13], and we must be much more cautious about how we provide access to information [14]. The prospects for misuse of AI-technologies for surveillance have prompted scientists to post open letters calling for restriction of use [15]. Machine Learning algorithms are intended to harness trends in data, which can be prone to bias (e.g., ethnic bias) [16] and thus can have severe consequences if used e.g. in criminality prediction [17], and may be used to increase social inequalities and prey on vulnerable user groups [18]. When using algorithmic trading of financial instruments, we may hide the fact that financial markets are social meeting grounds where people find agreements based on their subjective appreciation of assets being traded and ultimately one another [19], or tilt the balance of power in favor of big institutions [20].

A good summary of such aspects of IT impact on society and the corresponding ethical issues can also be found in Section 2.6 (The Societal Dimension, pp. 110-134) of the HiPEAC Vision 2019 roadmap document [21a-g] (select any of the subsections 2.6.1-2.6.7).

Preparations

Read the chapters* covering Method, Results, Discussion and Conclusion of the sample Master's thesis pertaining to your team.
* Note that the chapter structure in a master thesis needs not be formally structured in a generic and breadth-first way like this; depending on the topic there can be good reasons for a problem-specific chapter structure, e.g. with a more depth-first presentation of some results directly followed by their discussion before other results are presented, which is often easier to read and matches the usual flow in technical research articles.

Each individual should read at least one text from the references [1]-[21] from the above section on the wider effects of IT systems in society, or a similar text obtained from another resource on the wider implications of the kind of systems that you plan to contribute to. (In case the references above contain many entries, or are excessively long, select a section of text of approximately the length of a newspaper article to read.)

Each individual will read also one of the scientific papers from below that you find most relevant; where there is a choice, try not to choose the same as the paper read by your team mate, and try to avoid that all in your group read the same paper. Hence, discuss and agree in your group before the seminar (e.g., at the end of Seminar 3) who reads which papers.

If no suggested paper seems appropriate for understanding the wider implications of the type of thesis that you intend to write, you can choose another (peer-reviewed) paper, if it is intended to provide guidance on understanding the wider implications of the work you intend to do in your final thesis.

Take notes while reading the paper, and make sure that you can present the main contents of the paper to the peers in your team.

Finally, read the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct and the IEEE Code of Ethics.


In sum, each individual should read:

Questions

For the newspaper text/online resource that you read (A), answer the following questions:

1. What were the main arguments made? Present the argument and how they are supported in the text.

2. Do you agree with the author? Justify why or why not.

3. Should you as an engineer consider what is presented in the article? If so, how?

For the scientific paper that you read (B), answer the following questions:

4. What are the main arguments made in the paper? Present the arguments and supporting evidence from the text.

5. How can you make use of the material in the scientific paper when framing your own thesis work in a wider context?

6. How would you define the context and possible wider consequences of your thesis? Justify given the literature.

For the sample thesis that you read, each individual should answer the following questions. Justify your answer by referring to the course literature including the papers that you had read before Seminar 2.

7. How can you explain the results, and how they have been obtained through the method described? Do they seem to address the research questions properly?

8. How is the replicability, validity and reliability of the results discussed?
For definitions of validity and reliability, see for example the Instructions for final thesis reports ( Swedish/ English) and Section 5.2.3 of Runeson and Höst (2009).

9. Overall, how would you assess the sample thesis chapter(s)/section(s) about Method of the thesis based on the grading rubric?

10. Are any ethical and societal considerations considered in the sample thesis? If yes, where and how? If not, do you have any suggestion of such aspects that could have been considered?
Refer to Section 3.3 in Runeson and Höst (2009) for descriptions of some ethical considerations that are of importance during case-study research, as well as the papers in the reading list above. If ethical and societal considerations are not considered appropriately, explain which considerations seem relevant for the thesis at hand and how you would have liked them to be taken into account.

Finally, consider the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct and the IEEE Code of Ethics (D).

11. Which of the two documents would you, in principle, be ready to sign with your name? Why or why not?
Based on these documents, do you see any potential ethical conflicts with respect to your chosen thesis topic in a wider context?

Submissions

Your answers need to be available in the Seminar4 folder in LISAM at the seminar start.
Note that all answers in this seminar are individual, not per team.

The seminar

During the seminar, you will discuss your answers to Questions 1-11 within the seminar group.

After the seminar

Individually, send a 4-5 lines informal reflection about the seminar discussion from your own point of view to your seminar leader by email, by the end of the seminar day. Focus on one insight that is important for you. (Your seminar participation will not be fully approved in webreg before also this reflection has been received.)


Page responsible: Christoph Kessler
Last updated: 2024-12-02