Although I have been and am involved in several field-related projects, never had experience in the research side. Therefore I was looking forward to hearing from Professors about master thesis selection, preparation, and presentation process.
The first lecture was an introductory class presenting the preliminary information for the research. We started with the main objective of the master thesis project which was to introduce new thinking, a new way of solution to a concrete problem, and realizing the selected method for the tangible issue using technical skills gained.
After informed about George Heilmer’s Catechism that unites 9 main questions for research projects to answer, we got acquainted with 7 stages of the technical approach. Defining the problem in a correct way, collecting the needed data appropriately, selecting the most suitable method and tools for the project, building systematic development parsing to tasks and milestones, keeping track of the testing results while developing the system, demonstrate the functionality of the system after each milestone, and most importantly, writing formal technical report - DOCUMENTATION were those phases.
At the end of the lecture, various sources of technical papers and additional reading materials were announced to us by the Professors.
The second lecture was covering Research Methodology. It was noted that the Research project is more likely a new approach to an unresolved problem. We then saw some research questions in many contexts including CV, NLP.
Research types were another topic discussed in the last lecture. We got the difference between creative (development of new theories) and experimental research (whether or not dependent variable - “effect” changes on the base of independent variable - “cause”).
Then Dr.Kaisler talked about one of his projects about NLP as an example of the project development process pointing through all Heilmeier questions. Briefly, we have observed all the crucial points to be touched and questions that should be asked beforehand to implement and organize successful research projects.
The lecture ended with our prior ideas for the thesis and Dr.Pless’s feedbacks on those projects. I noted my interest in Computer Vision and Azerbaijani Sign Language project there and got the commentaries of the Professors.
I am currently working on this project with my classmate Aykhan supervised by Dr.Jamaladdin. After 2 classes, we now can see more broad sights in front of us, also are aware of the steps we should follow to reach the conclusion. And I hope we will continue to learn much more through the semester and finalize our project successfully.
That is all from my side for now. We are impatiently waiting for the next lectures to see the real examples of research problems in different domains.