Graduate Independent Study - Topics
Grad IS HomeIt is your responsibility to arrange for an advisor and a topic for your Independent Study project. Determining your Independent Study topic is an interactive process. You narrow in on a topic by discussing various options with potential advisors. See the list of advisors for names, subject areas, and contact information for all active IS advisors. Feel free to contact any of them to discuss their availability and potential topics. Often email is the best vehicle for discussing potential topics.
Most instructors of Villanova CSC graduate courses may serve as an Independent Study advisor. Both full-time and adjunct instructors may serve as advisors. If someone you'd like to serve as your advisor is not on the advisor list, it may be because that person chooses not to participate in our IS program, or it may be that they would be willing but simply never have in the past. It never hurts to ask. Potential advisors should contact the Independent Study Coordinator.
When you contact a potential advisor, have a couple of topics in mind. Try to be as specific as possible. What question do you want to answer? What problem do you want to solve? Don't hesitate to "shop around" for the right advisor/topic combination. Sometimes an advisor will have projects they are willing to present as options, but you should always have some ideas of your own. Please act professionally during your search for an advisor. If you contact more than one potential advisor at a time with the same proposal, be sure to make that clear to each of them at that time.
Keep in mind that sometimes a particular advisor may not be available to work with you. Some advisors get swamped with students and have a limit on the number of new students they can handle per semester. Sometimes an advisor is on sabbatical leave, and some advisors do not take on new Independent Study students during the summer semesters. Furthermore an advisor may simply decide that they are unwilling to work in a particular topic area if they feel you would be better served with someone else. You therefore must not delay the process of arranging for your advisor and topic. You may have to talk to several potential advisors. If you have trouble finding an advisor and topic, contact the Independent Study Coordinator for help.
There is no such thing as a typical Independent Study project, though there are three general categories:
- Research Synthesis: The project's goal is to investigate a particular topic in-depth. It involves a large amount of literature review. The final report is the main focus of the project and is essentially a large research paper. The report should not just repeat what was found in the literature. It should integrate the information found there in new ways to provide original insights. It can, and probably should, include personal conjectures, opinions, and predictions.
- Proof-of-Concept: The project revolves around the hands-on application of particular technologies to specific problem domains. The development of prototype software to demonstrate the underlying premise of the project is often a secondary deliverable on these types of projects. The final report is a comprehensive explanation and evaluation of the technologies involved, the problem areas addressed, and the results of the prototype development.
- Experimentation: The project is based on a classic experimentation structure in which hypotheses are asserted, data is collected, statistics are computed, and conclusions are drawn. The final report is a discussion of all phases of the process.
An Independent Study project does not have to be novel; that is, it doesn't have to be work that no one has ever done before. But it must be state-of-the-art and it must be your own effort. Make sure you read the section of this document on academic integrity.
Your advisor will try to make sure your topic has the right scope. An Independent Study project should be roughly equivalent to the work load of a three credit graduate course, but that is a very general guideline and is very difficult to gauge, especially at the beginning of the process.
The student/advisor interaction throughout the project varies by advisor and even from project to project. Some advisors will insist on having regular meetings with you, or that you deliver status reports on a regular basis. Some require you to maintain a project web site that they can check when they want to. Other advisors are content to let the project be truly independent, and have you contact them as needed when you have questions. In fact, some advisors will treat some projects one way and other projects another, based on the particular topics, the needs of the student, and the advisor's interests. Make sure you clearly understand your advisor's expectations.