MUST
IT Program
Technical
report series
General information
One
of the primary objectives of the MUST M.Sc
program is to produce graduates who are highly proficient in conducting
research. An important aspect of this is that students should also be
capable
of presenting the results of their research in a way that is clear,
concisue and
most importantly, at a level that is suitable for publication. Towards
this end, all students will be required to submit at
least one
technical report detailing the research carried out for their thesis
projects.
The benefits of this are many: 1. Writing
the technical reports will encourage students (and their supervisors)
to review
the progress of their respective projects and to identify potential
shortcomings and the work required to remedy these. 2. Technical
reports will be archived in a searchable database, in many cases
forming the
basis for future research projects. The database could also be
accessible
externally, which would help to publicise the research conducted at
MUST (and
MUST itself). 3. Technical
reports will form the nucleus of future publications. Provided that
suitable
quality control is exercised, summarized versions of technical reports
could be
submitted directly to journals and conferences. Types of reports
Depending
on the aims and requirements of the
author, a paper submitted for publication as a technical report can
fall into
one of a number of categories: Journal
and Conference submissions – this is expected
to be the most common class
of submission. As stated previously, all students
projects should aim towards publication in at least one journal or
major
conference. However, publication in a journal is generally a lengthy
process
while conference and to a lesser extent journal articles are often too
short to
describe the research satisfactorily. Hence, in both cases it is
advisable for
students to publish their research findings as a technical report first, then later to cite the technical
report in their journal or conference paper. Students who select this
mode of
publication will be strongly encouraged to submit a (possible reduced)
version
of the paper to a journal. This will also help to set a benchmark for
the
quality that the paper should aim for. Review – A major
part of the research process involves reading about
the work
of others to gain familiarity with the field of research. The process
of
formulating the conceptual framework linking together relevant fields
of
research centred around
the
actual thesis project is likely to be unique and if properly done can
provide a
useful and novel perspective on the field in question. However, it is
difficult
for publications describing such efforts to be accepted as review
papers often
need to be extremely comprehensive and may be required to cover all
areas
relevant to the scope of the journal (but which are not necessarily
relevant to
the thesis project). However, such work
is certainly worth preserving and will be of great use to students
pursuing
similar projects. The technical reports series provides an ideal forum
for
this. Documentation – If
you have written software that may be of use to other
students, it
is advisable to produce clear documentation in the form of a technical
report
for the sake of future prospective users. Submission
The
MUST IT technical reports series will only
consider submissions from staff and students of MUST. However, all
members of
the MUST academic community are welcome to submit articles though
submissions
from other programs are expected to demonstrate a clear relevance to
IT. The
submission process will be as follows: 1. In the
first instance, papers should be submitted to the IT technical reports
coordinator, who will determine the relevance of the paper (only
non-IT program
submissions will be checked for this. Submissions from within the IT
program
will automatically be deemed relevant). Submission can be via email or using the online submission
form. 2. A suitable
member of the IT faculty will then be identified as the reviewer for
the paper.
The only requirement is that it should not be the supervisor of the
student (if
it is a student who is submitting the paper). 3. The
article will then be either approved or rejected, and if approved, the
reviewer
will be permitted to specify modifications or corrections which might
be needed. 4. Once the
corrections have been completed and checked, a technical
report series number will then be issued, which should be
included in the final camera-ready version of the report, which should
now be
prepared. To facilitate this, use either the Microsoft
Word template, or the LaTeX style file (to be provided later). 5. The report
will be published in the database as well as publicised
to the academic community through the relevant mailing lists, forums,
etc. Review mechanism
Each
technical report submitted will be
reviewed by one independent reviewer from within the IT faculty. This
must not
be the supervisor of the student submitting the report (if a faculty
member
submits the report, the reviewer will of course be a separate faculty
member). Notification mechanism
Once a technical report has been published it
is important that it be publicised to the
academic
community via postings to appropriate mailing lists and technical
forums. Authors are encouraged to suggest suitable forums where
the
work may be successfully publicised, as
well as to cite their reports where possible, and to
make copies
available on their personal webpages. |
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