Essay: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 16:54, 15 November 2022

The essay shall present and discuss selected theory, technology and tools related to big data.

This autumn, we specifically invite essays that are related to your group assignments, for example discussion privacy aspects of your project (if any).

Theme

Your mandatory essay is supposed to be "an individual, theoretical essay on chosen topic". In practice, it is you who propose a theme, and then I either accept it as is or guide you towards a more suitable theme.

I invite essays that are not purely theoretical, but that present and reflect over your work with the group assignment. For example, the essay can discuss privacy-related aspects of your project. But in any case, your essay should demonstrate "thoughtful research and discussion". It should be well backed by scholarly literature.

Finding a theme

It is a good idea to start thinking about possible essay themes early in the semester, at least to get the processes started! Send me your ideas in an email, and I will provide early feedback. All I need is a few keywords or a sentence about one or more ideas your are considering. Later we can talk face to face.

Here is an example of an initial idea on the keyword stage: "Ethics and Privacy in using social media for news production."
A step further: "I want to look into how open and non-sensitive information collected from independent sources about the same individuals can become sensitive when recombined."
Here is an even more developed idea: "How can potentially sensitive information be identified in big-data streams for news production? And how can guards be put in place to ensure that sensitive information is not created as part of the news production stream."

Proposing a theme

Everyone who intends to take the course must send an essay proposal by email to Andreas.Opdahl@uib.no. The subject line must contain the string "INFO319 Essay Proposal".

Proposal deadline: Wednesday October 12th 1500.

Essay presentations

Final essay presentations: Thursday November 24th 1015

10 minutes and around 5-8 slides are an appropriate length for your presentations. Then we will have around 5 minutes for questions and comments.

Examples of things you might want to touch in your presentation are:

your problem and why it is important
the most central theory/literature you have found for your work
the question(s) you want to answer/topic(s) you want to illuminate
your choice of method if you want to do something empirical
what you have done do far
what you hope to achieve
what could be the most important outcomes of your essays (and are there pitfalls?)

The 10 minutes include getting your slides up and running. This means that you need to be really well prepared. A short presentation is much harder than a long one: "Lincoln [... w]hen asked to appear upon some important occasion and deliver a five-minute speech, he said that he had no time to prepare five-minute speeches, but that he could go and speak an hour at any time." (H. H. Markham, Governor of California, 1893)

Essay submission

Final essay submission: December 12th.

Submit your file through Inspera as a single PDF file. The version of your essay that you submit should be anonymous.

Since the essay is graded, this is an official deadline. Submission is through Inspera and if you do not submit on time, you will be not allowed to take the course exam a week later.

Suggested length is 3000-4000 words. But effort and quality is much more important than length.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-The essay shall present and discuss selected theory, technology and tools related to the big data and emergency management, backed by scholarly and other references.
+The essay shall present and discuss selected theory, technology and tools related to big data.
-This autumn, we specifically invite essays that are preferably related to either big data, social media and emergency management.
+This autumn, we specifically invite essays that are related to your group assignments, for example discussion privacy aspects of your project (if any).
 == Theme ==
 Your mandatory essay is supposed to be "an individual, theoretical essay on chosen topic". In practice, it is you who propose a theme, and then I either accept it as is or guide you towards a more suitable theme.
-I am open for essays that are not theoretical, but based on your own investigation and data collection, for example through interviews and/or archival analyses. But in any case, your essay should demonstrate "thoughtful research and discussion". It should be well backed by scholarly literature. More literature backing is needed if you have not done any investigation/data collection of your own beyond your literature search.
+I invite essays that are not purely theoretical, but that present and reflect over your work with the group assignment. For example, the essay can discuss privacy-related aspects of your project. But in any case, your essay should demonstrate "thoughtful research and discussion". It should be well backed by scholarly literature.
 == Finding a theme ==
-It is a good idea to start thinking about possible essay themes already now. At least to get the processes started! Send me your ideas in an email, and I will provide early feedback. All I need is a few keywords or a sentence about one or more ideas your are considering. Later we can talk face to face.
+It is a good idea to start thinking about possible essay themes early in the semester, at least to get the processes started! Send me your ideas in an email, and I will provide early feedback. All I need is a few keywords or a sentence about one or more ideas your are considering. Later we can talk face to face.
-'''Optional deadline:''' Thursday September 11th 1400. Submitting ideas is not mandatory at this stage.
+* Here is an example of an initial idea on the keyword stage: "Ethics and Privacy in using social media for news production."
+* A step further: "I want to look into how open and non-sensitive information collected from independent sources about the same individuals can become sensitive when recombined."
-* Here is an example of an initial idea on the keyword stage: "Ethics and Privacy in using social media for emergency management."
+* Here is an even more developed idea: "How can potentially sensitive information be identified in big-data streams for news production? And how can guards be put in place to ensure that sensitive information is not created as part of the news production stream."
-* A step further: "I want to look into interoperability of different freely available emergency data sources using big data technologies. What information is needed? who needed?"
-* Here is an even more developed idea: "Something about how realistic it is to analyse lots of Twitter messages using sentiment analysers. Analysing messages takes computing resources, and there are so many Twitter messages posted after an emergency occurrance. I want to write something about the accuracy of the twitter data analysis."
 == Proposing a theme ==
-Everyone who intends to take the course must send an essay proposal by email to [mailto:vimala.nunavath@uia.no vimala.nunavath@uia.no].
+Everyone who intends to take the course must send an essay proposal by email to [mailto:Andreas.Opdahl@uib.no Andreas.Opdahl@uib.no]. The subject line must contain the string "INFO319 Essay Proposal".
-'''Deadline:''' Thursday October 3rd 1400
+'''Proposal deadline:''' Wednesday October 12th 1500.
-The proposal does not have to be long, but the following points must be made clear:
+== Essay presentations ==
-*    Which problem or opportunity you are planning to address.
+'''Final essay presentations:''' Thursday November 24th 1015
-*    Why this problem or opportunity is real.
-*    How you are going to investigate the problem or opportunity.
-*    Which relevant literature or other information sources you know already.
-*    How your are going to find more suitable literature.
-*    Whether you plan to collect your own data and, if so, from where and how.
-*    And, if so, how you are going to present and use them in your essay.
-*    How you plan to structure the essay (coarsely).
-*    Whether you plan to publish the essay on some kind of social media.
-== Length ==
+minutes and around 5-8 slides are an appropriate length for your presentations. Then we will have around 5 minutes for questions and comments.
-Suggested length is 4000-6000 words. A theoretical essay should normally be a little longer than an essay based on own data collection. But effort quality is much more important than length. I encourage submitting the essay wholly or partially as one or several Wikipedia pages, or as clear extensions to existing pages.
-== Form ==
+Examples of things you might want to touch in your presentation are:
-We encourage social media contributions. If you submit one or more social media contributions, you should also submit a short PDF document  through the portal (see below - maybe just a title, a student number and a URI). You can also use the short document to list additional references or other stuff that did not fit as social media contributions, such as explaining your part of the contribution (which must be verifiable) if you have built on contributions by others.
+* your problem and why it is important
+* the most central theory/literature you have found for your work
+* the question(s) you want to answer/topic(s) you want to illuminate
+* your choice of method if you want to do something empirical
+* what you have done do far
+* what you hope to achieve
+* what could be the most important outcomes of your essays (and are there pitfalls?)
-You can also write a longer essay that includes one or more smaller social media contributions.
+The 10 minutes include getting your slides up and running. This means that you need to be really well prepared. A short presentation is much harder than a long one: "Lincoln [... w]hen asked to appear upon some important occasion and deliver a five-minute speech, he said that he had no time to prepare five-minute speeches, but that he could go and speak an hour at any time." (H. H. Markham, Governor of California, 1893)
 == Essay submission ==
-'''Hard deadline:''' Wednesday November 7th 1400
+'''Final essay submission:''' December 12th.
-Essays are submitted through Inspera in PDF format. The file name and title page should clearly indicate who the group members are.
-== Evaluation criteria ==
-These are the main evaluation criteria we will use:
-*    Clear, good and well-motived problem.
-*    Extent and coverage of your literature, in particular of the academic research literature.
-*    Depth of literature is more important than breadth.
-*    Originality, in particular of your independent/own contribution.
-*    How well argued and/or empirically backed the contribution is.
-*    Extent: how hard you have worked and how much you have done.
-*    Quality of presentation.
-*    Social media contributions will weigh positively.
-== Essay presentations ==
-The session on Thursday November 8th will focus on essay presentations. 15-20 minutes and around 10 slides is an appropriate length.
-Depending on the number of people who take the course, we may not have much time per essay. This includes: getting your slides up and running, presenting the actual essay, presenting critique, and posing/answering questions. In addition to presenting your own essay. you are supposed to offer comments to at least one other essay.
-This means that you need to be really well prepared. A short presentation is much harder than a long one: "Lincoln [... w]hen asked to appear upon some important occasion and deliver a five-minute speech, he said that he had no time to prepare five-minute speeches, but that he could go and speak an hour at any time." (H. H. Markham, Governor of California, 1893)
-== Presentation outline ==
+Submit your file through Inspera as a single PDF file. The version of your essay that you submit should be anonymous.
-The presentation form is up to you, but you should probably touch most of these points:
-* What is the problem you have addressed?
-* Why is this problem important?
-* Which existing area(s) of research and/or practice are you building on?
-** explain the ones we have not yet touched in the course!
-** spend some time on this: for the listeners it may be the most interesting part
-* What is your independent/own contribution?
-** examples: how your field(s) has evolved over time; missing knowledge/research; own data collection, e.g., through interviews; comparing different approaches - in practice or theory; designing a new solution for something; suggesting a framework of how different contributions fit together and are different; ...
-* What has been your strategy to make that contribution?
-** how did you convince the reader that your contribution was sound?
-* Which academic research literature did you use (in addition to the curriculum in INFO310)?
-** show your literature list, but don't try to explain the papers :-)
-'''Important:''' Upload your draft presentations to the portal in advance on Wednesday November 7th. Upload them to the SharedPresentations group (https://mitt.uib.no/groups/13857) in the folder EssayPresentations.
+Since the essay is graded, this is an official deadline. Submission is through Inspera and if you do not submit on time, you will be not allowed to take the course exam a week later.
-== Essay oppositions ==
+Suggested length is 3000-4000 words. But effort and quality is much more important than length.
-These are very brief and even more free form. You could address two or more of the issues below, or perhaps other ones. Do not try to address them all:
-* Have you got reasons to think this problem unclear - if so how?
-* Have you got reasons to think this problem is less relevant?
-* Are there other areas of research and/or practice that are relevant here?
-* Do you think the plan for an independent/own contribution are realistic? Is it the right type of contribution?
-* Do you think this contribution is likely to be convincing? If no, which problems do you see?
-* Have you got concrete ideas for finding more literature (but not just: maybe you can search in the library/on the internet...)?