New vision

In the meeting with Adrian this afternoon, we discovered that there was no actual issue to the project I was planning to do. Also, if I continued to pursue it, I would most likely end up writing a thesis instead of conducting a project. I’ve already done a thesis and it didnt seem like very much came out of it. I really feel the need to do a project in order to make this honours year feel worthwhile. Also, I’m pretty sure doing really hands-on activities that’ll be assessed would help prepare me for the work place next year.

Feeling my drive to a research project instead, Adrian suggested one for me that is a Parks Victoria project which requires me to use social media to connect people with information so that if anyone is looking for an expert in a certain region, they’d be able to find one with a click of a button (well thats what it is a very small nutshell). He asked me to read Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations by Clay Shirky.

Upon reading half the book, I found that everything that I’ve done in the lead up to honours is essentially social media. This is actually what I wanted to do, just framed differently. I’m glad I had the discussion this afternoon eventhough my head wasnt really in the meeting.

Still thinking about my previous idea I suppose it would’ve been fun to conduct experiments in the online virtual world. However, Adrian did make a good point that if I assumed that the virtual world was similar to the real world, there wouldnt be a point conducting the project because there wouldn’t be a difference to reflect on.  He also mentioned that it would’ve been too big a project for an honours thesis. I suppose I can always recycle this idea and use it for my documentary project in Transient Spaces later on.

I came out of the meeting this afternoon wondering if the project that he suggested for me would be a good fit. Upon reading the book on social media, I think it just might be. In any case, I’ll most likely have to amend my four sentence abstract.

Week 2 slides

Looking through the ethics approval issue, I remember having to worry about this when doing past projects. People really take this seriously. The whole ethics issue will narrow down what you can/cannot ask or do in an interview. I used to avoid doing interviews for mini projects because you have to fill up a form and prepare questions that are to be asked months ahead of time. I’ve previously gone through the ethics approval process and fount that by the time it was approved, my research project had changed direction and I had to go through the whole process all over again. This process can take a long time to get approved and this can hold back progress on a project.

I’ve known from the beginning what conducting an honours research project entails but hearing Adrian reiterate that nothing new has to be discovered really takes pressure off me (especially seeing as we dont have a long time to conduct extensive experiments). I am planning on doing further research eventually (that would require me to discover new things) but probably not in the direct future.

As for having a supervisor, I know I’ll definitely be needing one, I just dont know who to look to for advice in Computer Mediated Communications in RMIT. I wouldnt be able to use my initial choices as I am only allowed to ask for help from RMIT supervisors.

I already have the bare bones of my research project figured out, but I’ll probably still just run it by the supervisor and see if he/she has any suggestions that would improve the idea.

I plan on working next year back in Brunei in the government sector. This research would contribute to my work next year because contrary to what people think, communication within different departments in the same ministry OR WORSE among various ministries is notoriously bad! Im not looking to uproot the whole system, I just hope to be able to improve it piece by piece.

Library Session

I found the library session quite informative, not having used RMIT’s  database system before. We learned how to use the search engines properly so we could get the best possible result in our research. Finding the right keyword is really important and so there has to be a lot of trial and error. Using these search engines would really scrape a lot of time off traditional researching.

I learnt how to use EndNote (which I didnt even know existed). I’m very sure I’ll be using this program from now on, considering I dont have to worry about my referencing style being consistent and correct anymore when using the program. I’ll still check though. I found it pretty awesome that the search could cross reference with up to 10 other databases, and also that the subject guides could be used to see which databases would be more appropriate for my field of research.

I’ve already downloaded EndNote on my home computer, and I was quite impressed that the download information was available for free from the library website. I’ll just have to get familiar with the program now. As for the other databases on the library website, now that I’ve seen how to use it properly, all I’ll have to do is practice. When I find links and sources that are useful, I’ll most likely be bookmarking them for later use.  It is really useful to know that all these references can be exported to EndNote and then to Word with a few clicks of a button.

 What steps or things do you need to do next to take advantage of these things? How do you think you will find that place from which to start from for your research?

Four Sentence Abstract

1st attempt at a four sentence abstract. Here goes:

The workplace is an ever changing environment with new technologies being introduced to it on a day to day basis. Like a workplace, online games have a diverse population where there is a wide age range of people. I propose to conduct a survey/experiment to find out if the online game environment reflects the real life working environment and if these technologies used in online games make the work environment more progressive. This will make a difference because whether the results are positive or negative, we will know what is being done correctly/wrongly and be able to make improvements to the workplace environment.

I had to sit and think for a little while when trying to approach this task. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do for my research project but when I had to put it into words on a page, it seemed a lot more obscure. Upon writing these ideas, a structure was created and it made the research project more real.

Doing this task over and over again really helps me refine my question – certain aspects of the research question may change but hopefully the bones of the project will remain the same.

I feel doing this four sentence abstract really helped me get started with the whole research process. Without having done this, I wouldn’t have known where to start.