Research Methods and Proposal Development

Catalog description

Students in the graduate program not only learn skills, they also learn how to learn, including how to do research. This course covers the process of research: how to survey an area, how to formulate a research question, how to design a study and develop a well-supported solution, and finally, how to communicate, by writing a paper or proposal or by giving a formal talk. The course includes writing, presentations, and also basic statistics (design of experiments). Students are then exposed to problems in the field of computing security, in the form of invited talks from faculty; they are expected to explore the area, specify a problem, and develop a proposal for their Masters’ project or Masters’ thesis. The final deliverable of the course is a formal proposal with a timeline, signed by a faculty member who is willing to serve as the student’s advisor.