PLANNING REVIEW

Faculty of Technology
Department of Computer Science

PLANNING REVIEW

PROM02
MSc Dissertation
Academic Year: 2022/23

Student Name: [name]

Student ID [ID]
Email: [email address]
Programme: [Name of programme]
Mode: [Full Time/Part Time]

Supervisor: [Name]

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1 Terms of Reference (50%)

1.1 Project Title

Guidance: Provide a title that reflects your aims, research questions and expected outcomes

1.2 Project Overview

Guidance: provide the aim, objectives, research question and practical outcomes of your project:

Aim: < 50 words

Clearly state the overall aim of your project – this should be overarching
and should incorporate both research and the practical element.

Objectives: 5-8 bullets <50 words each

Your objectives should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic, Time-bound identifying what you intend to achieve and the related
major activities, deliverables, and outcomes. Ensure that your aims can be
met and that your research question can be answered by your objectives and
that they result in your expected outcomes. N.B. You must evaluate your
project against your objectives.

Research Question: < 50 words

Your research question must be a question. The underpinning research and
practical outcomes should relate to how you will answer this question. Your
research question is answered through your proposed literature focus,
practical work and exploration as provided in the objectives.

Practical outcomes: Up to 5 bullets (< 50 words each)

Briefly detail the expected practical outcomes from your project, identifying
up to 5 key deliverables or outputs you expect to generate during the project
e.g. if you are creating software, you may have practical outcomes such as
requirements analysis or design specs as well as prototypes and products.

1.3 Underpinning research with Literature Review

Guidance: Complete the following table for at least 10 references from research journals and
conferences that will contribute to your work.
Citation Brief Relevanc Relevance to
summary e to your practical
of paper research outcome of
question project
Smith, J., Jones, X. and Bloggs, P., (2019) Yet (4 bullets <50 <50 words
another research paper, Journal of Academic of 20 words
Research, 2 (3), pp. 191-207. words
maximum
)

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2 Project Schedule (20%)

Guidance: the project schedule should be provided as a series of tables as detailed below.

2.1 Table 1: Effort

Guidance: Decompose each of the major tasks in your project into sub-tasks, identifying deliverables and
deadlines
Task Id Task Name Start Deadline Hours Deliverable
1.0 Major Task Name (mapped to objectives / method)
1.1
1.2
1.3
Etc.
2.0 Major Task Name (mapped to objectives / method)
2.1
Etc.

2.2 Table 2: Deliverables

Guidance: Add project deliverables in chronological. Deliverable numbers needed to be included.
Del. No. Name Deadline
D1 Requirements Specification 10/10/2055
D2 Data Cleansing Protocol
D3 Clustering Results
D4 Data Evaluation

2.3 Table 3: Milestones

Guidance: Add milestones in chronological order and how you will know these have been achieved.
Milestone Name Deadline Evidence
M1 Specify what deliverable or event used to
identify that the milestone has been met

2.4 Table 4: Outline Schedule / Gantt chart

Guidance: Identify the timeline for each major Task / Objective (as in the effort table above) with related
deliverables / milestones – as in the example below.
June July August September
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Major
Task 1
Sub
Task 1
Etc.

October November December January

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Major MS1 D1.1 D1.2

Task 1
Major MS2 D2.1 D2.2

Task 2
Etc.

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3 Evaluation Plan (10%)

Guidance: Complete the following table - one page maximum.

Objective Evaluation Approach Evidence

List each For each objective, specify how Identify the evidence that you will collect and
objective you will evaluate achievement create. This can include deliverables and outputs
specified in identifying how you will including design documentation,
your terms of generate and use evidence to questionnaires, literature review, testing
reference reports, presentations, sign-off documentation,
demonstrate that objectives have
been met. approved meeting minutes, etc.

4 Social, Ethical, Legal and Professional issues (20%)

4.1 Social, Ethical, Legal and Professional Issues Table
Guidance: reflect on your project considering the context, sector, users, potential stakeholders, etc.
Consider how your project sits with legislation, such as GDPR, are your users under 18 or vulnerable? How
does it relate to current government strategy and focus? Why is it needed – is your project responding to a
social or professional need? What impact might it have on that profession? Are there ethical issues for your
project – is the data sensitive, could your results have implications for work or life? Not every project will
have issues across all 4 categories but do critically consider this so you can be certain your project does
not. The whole table should be no longer than a page.

Social issues Provide up to 100 words on Social issues related to your

project if any.
Ethical issues Provide up to 100 words on Ethical issues related to your
project if any.

Professional issues Provide up to 100 words on Professional issues related to

your project if any.

Legal Issues Provide up to 100 words on Legal issues related to your

project if any.

4.2 Ethics Approval

Guidance: If your proposal requires ethical approval attach approval (or submission if not yet
approved) from the Research Ethics Committee as an appendix.

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5 Appendices

For example…
Ethics Approval Application.
Other information you feel is relevant.