ENGG7811 Research Methods (Semester 1, 2024) Assignment 1

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ENGG7811 Research Methods (Semester 1, 2024)

Assignment 1

Aim: The aim of this assignment is for you to research sources, work effectively with a range of reference formats and metrics relating to researchers and publications. This assignment builds on the databases and practices you have learned in lectures and tutorials. However, you will need to search bibliometrics beyond those given in class. Use complete sentences with clear descriptions and justifications. For all quality measures, state the source, date of access, and provide a correctly formatted reference.

Submission: Submission is via Turnitin on Blackboard.

Ensure your submissions are text-based using a standard font (e.g. Times Roman, Ar-ial, Calibri). Your report should be in .pdf format and named according to the format a1-ENGG7811-[SID].pdf, where SID is your student ID.

Referencing: Use IEEE format except where stated. Further notes on referencing and plagiarism are provided at the end of this Assignment.

Marking: You are required to answer all 5 questions in this assignment with a total worth of 40 marks. Assignment 1 contributes 20% to your final grade.

Due Date: 1pm, Monday 25 March 2024 [AEST]

Question 1. Conflicts of Interest (11 marks)

(a) Define the term  “conflict of interest” and provide examples of situations where conflicts of interest might arise in a research context.               (<200 words, 2 marks)

(b) Describe the role of transparency in managing conflicts of interest.  How can researchers and research institutions communicate and address potential conflicts to maintain trust with stakeholders?            (<200 words, 2 marks)

(c) Provide  an example conflict of interest that might arise in financial transactions with respect to research.  How can researchers ensure fair and transparent practices in these situations?                                    (<150 words, 2 marks)

(d) Describe  a  context  not  covered  by  your  above  answers,  where  a  conflict  of  interest should be declared or avoided in research, how it may influence decision making, and how the conflict of interest can be managed or mitigated.         (<150 words, 3 marks)

(e) Explain the  difference between an actual conflict of interest and the appearance of a conflict.  Why is it important for researchers and research institutions to address both aspects?                                  (<200 words, 2 marks)

Question 2. Quality metrics for journals and journal articles                     (10 marks)

Question 2 and Question 3 refer to the two articles cited below. When answering questions, remember to include the databases you used and the dates of access, e.g., h-index = 42 from [database] accessed on [date].

Article 1

[1] Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, and G. Hinton, “Deep learning,” Nature, vol. 521, no. 7553, pp. 436–444, May 2015, doi: 10.1038/nature14539.

Article 2

Selvaraju, R. R., Cogswell, M., Das, A., Vedantam, R., Parikh, D., & Batra, D. (2020). Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-Based Localization. In-ternational Journal of Computer Vision, 128(2), 336–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11263-019-01228-7

(a) The two citations above are in different formats, IEEE and APA style respectively.  What are key differences between these two formats? Show an example of an in-text citation for Article 1 using IEEE style and APA style formatting.              (3 marks)

(b) Determine  and  report the  h5-Index of the last author for Article 2 based on Scopus, Google Scholar and WoS.  Is the  h5-Index of the author the same or different across these three databases?  Give a suitable explanation for your answer.      (5  marks)

(c) Choose one metric suitable for assessing the quality or impact of Article 2.  Justify your choice and report its value.                      (2 marks)

Question 3. Teams of authors (3 marks)

Describe what the authorship reveals about the research team of Article 2 in Question 2 above. You may consider factors such as the size of the team, whether it is multidisciplinary, who is the corresponding author, the academic positions of the authors – were they students, or faculty, the affiliations of the authors (which university or industry organisation they worked for) or any other relevant factors.

Question 4.  Research Ethics (10 marks)

(a) Imagine you are collaborating with a team on a machine learning project using medical records to develop  predictive  models.   Discuss  the  ethical  considerations surrounding data collection, ownership, confidentiality, and sharing that must be addressed, as well as potential measures to mitigate any potential risks or negative consequences.   (6 marks)

(b) When evaluating the developed predictive model, you find that some of the data points don’t fit the expected trend, and you get significantly better performance by removing those data points.  Can these data points be removed for publication, and why or why not? What are appropriate steps to do in this situation?       (2 marks)

(c) Why do you think getting research ethics is important?                    (2 marks)