School of Computer Science and dream plan achieve

Mathematics

Lecture 03
Preparing Your Project Specification

6100COMP
Project
Dr Sud Sudirman
Room 7.27 James Parsons Building
[email protected]
0151 231 2632
Ok first thing first
• If you did not attend the last three sessions please watch the video
recording on Canvas.
• If you have not agreed a supervision with an academic member of
staff, you will be assigned to one.
• You will be notified who your supervisor will be via Email by this
Friday at the latest.
• If you already have agreed a supervision with an academic member
of staff, you should make an appointment with them to discuss your
project scope and plan.
• The next item you need to prepare is the Project Specification.
• But before that, I want to talk to you about defining the scope for
your project
Project Scope
• So, you have chosen your project topic - now you need to define your
project scope:
– How wide and deep the project will be
– What needs to be included and what does not

• The scope of your project indirectly affects your mark

– A good and comprehensive coverage of the topic will help you write your
dissertation.
– If you have a shallow project scope you will struggle to find meaningful things
to write.
Project Scope
• Ideally, your project scope covers the four main parts of artefact
development
– Research and analysis of background information
– Design of solution
– Implementation of solution
– Evaluation of effectiveness of solution

• What if my project is of ‘research’ type?

– A research type project is often used to represent project with heavy emphasis
on information gathering and little software development.
– A research type project too needs all of the above
– Note that Googling for Information only does not count as a research project.
– If you just do this for your project, you are limiting yourself greatly.
What if I am bad at programming?
• You should have a reasonable programming skill otherwise you will
not be in the final year.
– So, don’t undersell yourself.
– You can do more but you should be prepared to work harder than the others.

• Your project does not necessarily involve a lot of programming

– Your artefact does not necessarily need to be a software
– You can compensate any lack of certain skill with others that you are strong at.
– But not having artefact development whatsoever would deprive you from a
significant mark component.
Project Scope
• In the Project Specification you define your scope by defining the
problems to be addressed.
– The more wide ranging the problems the wider the scope.
– The more detailed and technical the problems the deeper the scope.

• Will completing every problems you included in the specification

guarantee to give you a high mark?
– The short answer is No.
– Just because you and your supervisor have agreed on the scope of the project,
completing it does not mean you have achieved something worthy of a First
Class.
– Why? It is because some students can set a very limited scope for their project.

• If you want a good mark, ask your supervisor if the scope of your
project is sufficiently wide and deep to potentially give you the mark
you want.
What is Project Specification?
• In short, it is a document that describes the
– Problem that you are tackling
– Aims of the project
– The scope of your project
– Plan on how you are going to complete your project
What is in the Project Specification?
• This document needs to have five distinct sections:
• Background
• Problem
• Aims and Objectives
• Hardware and Software Requirements
• Plan
Background Section
• You are telling the reader where the idea for the project has came
from. This should also include any experience and motivation you
have in the area.
• You are helping the reader understand the context for the work – do
not assume the reader already knows
• You are trying to persuade the reader it is interesting, challenging,
relevant etc.
• Imagine surveying a landscape; what do you see? What is
interesting? Why is it as it is? What’s wrong?
Problem Section
• Describe the problem(s) you are trying to solve
– How it relates to what you have learnt so far in your course
– Are there any existing solutions?
– What you are trying to research, develop and implement
– How are you going to solve the problem?

• Describe the scope of your project

• Describe the artefact that you are going to develop
– What form is the artefact going to be? Software? Experiment? User study?
– How will this artefact going to solve the problem

• Be realistic:
– Do you have the skills to achieve what you intend to do?
– Can they be easily learnt?
– Have you factored this into your timetable?
Aims Section
• This section should provide two main things
– The general targets (called aims) and
– The specific targets (called objectives) of your project.

• Generally, your aims should be to solve the problem that you

mentioned previously.
• The objectives are targets which success criteria can be quantifiably
measured.
• You need to show that if you have met all your objectives, you will
meet your project aims.
Hardware and Software Req. Section
• Do you need specialist software or kit?
• Is it available in LJMU?
• Will you have access to the software/hardware outside of university?
• You should mention what software you are expecting to need, beyond
the standard LJMU PC and Internet access
• If your project has any non-standard requirements, i.e. not just a
standard LJMU PC/Internet, then these should be outlined here.
• If LJMU cannot provide the required support you should mention
how you plan to acquire the hardware and software.
• We are trying to help you complete your project as easily as possible
and creating access problems is not advisable!
Plan Section
• When planning your project consider the following
– Coursework deadlines
– Holidays and break
• You can only plan your project after you decide your project scope,
not vice versa.
• You can plan by working from the final report deadline backward
• Draw a Gantt Chart
• I recommend adopting the Agile method for your project
– Break down the problems into smaller problems
– Think of one thing that you can produce after solving each smaller problem,
and treat this as a milestone.
– Assign time to each smaller problem in weekly unit.
– Add milestone to dissertation writing too.
Agile Method
• I recommend adopting the Agile method for your project
• By breaking down big problems into small problems and solving
them individually, you are following the Agile Method of Software
Development/Problem Solving
Agile Method

Start
Finish
Agile Method
• This is very good, because:
– You have better measures of your achievement
– You cover the four important steps in solving the problems
– If for any reasons you run out of time, you have done some research and
analysis, design, implementation and evaluation. And you have something
concrete to show it off too.

• The worse alternative in my opinion is the Waterfall Method

– Many students in the past like this method
– They allocate many weeks at the start for “research”
– By Christmas they still stuck in their research
– By January they completed their research but still have no idea what to do.
– By March they are bogged down with other coursework
– By April they only have their research to write and nothing else.
– Don’t be like them.
What is Project Specification?
• Please use the 6100COMP Project Specification Form.docx template
provided on Canvas when preparing your document.
• You will need to send the first draft to your supervisor for review by
14th October 2022.
• Your supervisor will then check your first draft and ensure that:
– The title is consistent with the proposed work
– The problems & ideas are appropriate for a Level 6 project in computer science
– You have a plan to complete the project timely
• Expect to see some back-and-forth on this depending on the quality
of your first draft.
• You and your supervisor are to agree on the final version and have
the document uploaded to Canvas by 28th October 2022.