On My Final Project

I think the blog entries are going to get a little sparse in the forthcoming weeks as it is the stretch of a project where there is an effort to maximise the time available. Fortunately, I appear to have improved during my time at University on matters relating to keeping people informed on my progress. Over the last week I had two meetings with “disinterested” parties in my project.

The first meeting was with my second examiner. Whilst a supervisor can – if they so choose – heavily involve themselves with a project, a second examiner is much more distant. However it is expected that the student keep a second examiner up-to-date on the project. This was the first meeting with a “disinterested” party in the week just gone. In that meeting, I felt I was able to express the project aims, its progress and direction with justifications in a concise manner which was clearly understood. It’s not sufficient enough to be genius, it is necessary to explain why(!).

The second meeting was a much more impromptu affair as I needed a signature for an ethics request and both my supervisor and tutor were away. Essentially, I went searching for a suitably responsible academic to sign. Fortunately, Dr Mark Weal – whom many on the Computer Science course will know from Human-Computer Interaction module in the second year – was at his desk and was good enough to provide a signature (and for which I was very grateful). Naturally, it was necessary to explain the user evaluation and the project behind it to obtain said signature. In the process, I also received feedback on some changes that may need to be made in order to smooth the progress through Ethics review. Fortunately, although academics here at ECS are usually very busy, they are usually willing to make the time available to help if they can.