GCC603 Scientific Research Methods and Ethics

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Course Description

A brief introduction to characteristics, types and scheduling of research. Research planning and design. Methodologies of research design. Measurement, data analysis. Presenting the results of research.

Prerequisites

-

Course Objectives

• To teach the basic steps of scientific research methods.
• To help students improve their ability to make connections across ideas, read carefully, assess the quality of sources on which they or others rely.
• To develop communication skills that required to suggest and discuss scientific questions in the student field of study both written (informal memos and letters, formal project proposals, reports, thesis and journal papers) and oral (presentations, scientific discussions) communication.
• To reinforce students’ sense of professionalism and ethical behavior.
• To assist students in seeing and being able to take advantage of the possibilities for improving the world via research.

Course Outcomes

At the end of the course the student should be able to

• Define basic principles and steps of the scientific research.
• Understand scientific research ethics.
• Formulate a research plan.
• Evaluate literature, form a variety of sources, pertinent to the research objectives.
• Write a scientific research proposal, report and/or paper.
• Present their research work.

Meetings

• Class meets weekly on Monday 16:00-18:50 (Room: VT 1 D04 / Online)

Grading Policy

The tentative point distribution is as follows.

Homeworks	30%
Project & Presentation	30%
Final Exam	40%

Policies

• Late assignments will not be accepted unless an agreement is reached with the leturer.
• The class grades will be assigned using the Near East University's grading scale.
• Cheating will not be tolerated.
• Attacks performed against University/Lecturer resources are expressly prohibited.

Textbooks

• Dipankar Deb, Rajeeb Dey, Valentina E. Balas, Engineering Research Methodology: A Practical Insight for Researchers, Springer, 2019.
• Caroline Whitbeck, Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research, 2e, Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Peter Pruzan, Research Methodology The Aims, Practices and Ethics of Science, Springer, 2016.
• C.R. Kothari, G. Garg, Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques, New Age Int., 2019.
• Wendy C. Crone, Introduction to Engineering Research, Morgan & Claypool, 2020.

Schedule

Week	Topic	Readings
1	Introduction Online lecture	Deb Ch1, Kothari Ch1, Pruzan Ch1 & 2, Crone Ch1
2	Defining the problem Online lecture	Kothari Ch2
3	Literature Review Online lecture	Deb Ch2, Online Videos: Youtube "Literature Review" , SAGE Research Methods Video
4	Research planning and design Online lecture	Kothari Ch3, Deb Ch8
5	Writing project proposal NEU Research Proposal Guidelines Online lecture	Online Videos: Youtube "Writing research proposal"
6	Data Collection Online lecture	Kothari Ch6
7	Processing and Analysis of Data	Kothari Ch7
8	Technical Writing	Deb Ch6
9	Attributions and Citations	Deb Ch3
10	Building Intellectual Property Rights	Deb Ch4
11 and 12	Ethics in Engineering Research	Deb Ch5, Whitbeck
13	Contributions, Arguments, and Dealing with Criticisms	Deb Ch7
14	Presentation Skills	Deb Ch9
15	Review of the Semester	-
16	Final exam	-

The instructor reserves the right to make changes to the Syllabus as necessary. Students are responsible to be aware of changes announced in class and/or via the internet.