IS5102 Practical 3: Research in Groups

Summary

This is a group assignment.

You will be assigned to groups, and your group will be assigned a topic. Your task is to research the topic as a group, and present your findings in a report.

You are expected to have read and understood all the information in this specification at least ten days before the deadline. You must contact the lecturer regarding any queries well in advance of the deadline.

Arrange to meet with your group members early and often. A key part of working in information systems is to harmonise different perspectives through team work, and this practical will help to build your skills in this area.


Purpose

The aims of this practical are to get experience in:

    • database related issues, related to the module but not covered extensively in lectures;

    • researching a topic to some detail;

    • working as a small group;

    • writing a report to present research findings at appropriate levels of detail.



Group membership

This assignment is to be done in groups. If you have any serious reasons as to why you should NOT be in the same group as someone else please contact the Student Welfare Officers by email at student-welfare-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk as soon as possible, and in any event before Friday 12th November, by which time the groups are expected to start working together. If you are unable or un-willing to raise a concern before that date, you can still contact the Student Welfare Officer(s) within one week of the groups having been announced. Note that in this case it may be much harder to make group changes.






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Project allocation

Topic 1: Before Databases

Databases were first described by E.F. Codd in 1970, but people needed to organise data for cen-turies before that, for example in libraries and record offices, largely using paper records manipulated by hand. How did some of these pre-digital data management systems work, and what were the simi-larities and differences compared to modern database management systems?

Topic 2: SQL Databases

Compare SQLite with several other common SQL implementations. Provide a brief comparison of their functionality, and summarise your findings in a list of factors to consider when choosing a partic-ular SQL implementation for a project.

Topic 3: Database Security

Database management systems are often accessed through a network, and requests may come from anyone anywhere in the world. What security features do modern databases have to ensure data can only be read and written by the right sources, and how do they work in practice?

Topic 4: Data Ethics

In recent decades, databases have made it much easier for corporations, governments and individ-uals to collect and store large amounts of information. What are the ethical concerns associated with this data gathering, and what attempts have been made to enforce responsible data policies? How do modern SQL databases support more ethical handling of personal data?

Topic 5: Tools for Data Analytics

Databases accumulate valuable information, which can be retrieved and processed by various tools for different aspects of data analytics: data mining, visualisation, reproducibility, high-throughput com-puting, etc. Identify and compare some popular and useful tools and systems for key aspects of data analytics, including their strengths and benefits.

Topic 6: Jobs in the Data Industry

The advent of Big Data has led to many professions starting with the word “Data”, such as e.g.“data analyst”, “data scientist”, “data steward”, “data engineer”, “data architect”, etc. What do these roles involve, how do they differ, and how they can help organisations large and small?



Submission

Submit a zip archive with two reports, as described more below, both of which should be in PDF format. The first report is the group report and it should be the same for all members of a particular group. The second report is an individual report (that is, different for every group member).

Group Report

Please present the findings of your group research as a research report. It should be properly formatted and structured, and should go into deeper details on the material you discovered, with the context, background and findings. As a general guide, you might want to consider using a structure addressing the following points:

    • Context; the problem being solved

    • Background on alternative approaches

    • Current open questions and/or key issues to consider

    • Recommendations and/or conclusions

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Feel free to illustrate your arguments with examples, tables, diagrams, or plots. You should assume that the report is intended for the audience consisting of the students currently taking IS5102 module.

The report should have a title page stating the module code, the group number, the title of the reported topic, matriculation numbers of all participants of the group.

Each section or subsection of the report should have a named individual lead author (indicated by the matriculation number in the title of the section/subsection), who takes responsibility for coordinating contributions from other group members to its content, editing the final version of the text, and ensuring that it complies with Good Academic Practice. It is expected that each member of the group stands behind the report, and is capable of answering high or medium level questions on any part of the report.

The report should be written in a formal third person style, and be carefully proofread to ensure that it uses correct grammar and spelling. It should contain properly formatted bibliography (for example, using IEEE1 or APA2 styles), listing the sources of information on which your report draws (including software citations, where applicable).

The advisory word limit for the group report is 6000 words, excluding the title page and the bibli-ography.

Again, you are expected to work on this task as a group, and all members of the group should submit the same PDF file for the group report.

Individual Report

Each student must also submit an individual report, describing their contributions to the group work and reflecting on their experience. The individual report should cover the following questions:

    • which (sub-)topic did you research?

    • to which parts of the group report did you contribute, and how?

    • how did you organise your own work?

    • how the collaborative work was organised?

    • what did you feel went well, in your own work, as well as in the group work?

    • what did you find challenging?

    • what problems did you encounter, if any, and how did you try to resolve those?

    • what would you do differently, if anything?

and should contain any other relevant information. The advisory word limit for the individual report is 1000 words.

Marking

The marking of this assignment will be based on the quality of research done; on the quality of present-ing your research in the report; and on its suitability for the intended audience, assumed to comprise of students taking IS5102 module.

It is expected that all students in the same group will receive the same grade for their group report. Individual grades will be determined based on the individual report. If there are unresolved problems with teamwork within a group, these should be identified in the individual reports. After careful con-sideration, individual grades may be further amended to take such problems into account. Of course, it is in everybody’s interests to flag up issues or problems early with the lecturer.

The final grade for this assignment will be determined as follows:

    • 75% for the group report;

    • 25% for the individual report.


    • http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf

    • https://libguides.st-andrews.ac.uk/Referencing_styles/APA/7th

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Policies and Guidelines

Marking

See also the standard mark descriptors in the School Student Handbook, which apply as usual: https://info.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/student-handbook/learning-teaching/feedback. html#Mark_Descriptors


Lateness

The standard penalty for late submission applies (Scheme B: 1 mark per 8 hour period, or part thereof): https://info.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/student-handbook/learning-teaching/assessment. html#Lateness_Penalties


Good Academic Practice

The University policy on Good Academic Practice applies:

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/students/rules/academicpractice/















































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