My Research Blog

Project Aim

The main focus of the writer’s research will be to address cyberbullying on social medial
platforms and therefore looking at the impact of harm from messages and or images that
are used to target adolescents with particular reference to girls and to identify any
emerging patterns and make comparisons and or correlations with previous research
studies. To investigate the role of social media platforms and what techniques they are
using to combat online abuse and what measures they are taking to support victims and
whether such actions are enough or making a difference and to look at what other
solutions or steps they can take to be more proactive in this area. The writer will also be
investigating how and if natural language processing techniques and machine learning can
help reduce this activity.

Many studies have already been carried out in this field as well as media coverage
concerning cyberbullying leading to suicide attempts and or deaths. So it will be of
particular interest to see how people are targeting their victims – for example through the
use of fake accounts and other methods and whether these are used in other cyber related
incidents. This will be connected to the writer’s specialised area of cyber security and
therefore to develop a prototype system that will at least in some way contribute to better
safety in the cyber world.

Project deliverables

 A research study on the impact of cyber-bullying amongst adolescents with

reference to young girls.
 A prototype system which will aim to identify harmful text and inappropriate images
that will be extracted into either an existing dataset or one that shall be formulated.

Methods to Assess and Evaluate The Project Outcomes Using Relevant Tools and
Techniques

When managing a project there are different stages that need to be considered and these
include initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and closing. All are important and
depending on which stage of the project you are at you need to incorporate the
appropriate methods or techniques to ensure the project runs effectively. So when the
writer was considering her project she has considered a number of ways to assess and
evaluate the her specific project outcomes to enable a smooth delivery.

Firstly making sure the project scope is feasible and correct so identifying any weak areas
and ensuring these are addressed at an early stage so that the project deliverables are
realistic and achievable. The writer knows the importance of communication and therefore
wants to ensure regular feedback from her supervisor so that she stays on track and does
not deviate from the project. She also wants to make use of a project schedule that will
address key milestones, such as having in place her first draft of the project report and first
version of the developed system, which can be reviewed by her supervisor and or peers to
gain constructive feedback. The writer is considering the use of either a Gantt Chart or
Kanban Board. Using a Gantt chart to work backwards would be an effective way as the
writer has already utilised such a tool to carry out work on the previous module. Due to the
fact that this is a visual tool, it will allow the writer to see exactly where she is with regards
to her time-frame and enable her to deal with different phases of the project such as
finalising scope, drafting versions, development of versions, reviews, proof-reading,
evaluating feedback, testing, finalising. However she also feels that a Kanban Board is
simplistic and can show good progress with all the tasks relating to the different phases
and a good motivator, having used one previously in her work experience

Identifying risks will also be important to the writer and how these will be managed - so
needing to take into consideration that all resources will be available ie all the relevant
software and hardware, backups, breakdown of equipment, managing expectations of
participants in survey, their availability, excessive word count, time availability of supervisor
and or peer for reviews and feedback, work and family constraints. The writer will ensure
that any risks that arise are immediately addressed and or discussed with her supervisor
to ascertain a relevant solution. The writer intends to develop a risks register which will be
ranked Medium, High and Low risk in order to keep track of anything that could affect
performance or jeopardise delivery of the project outcomes.

The writer initially looked at making use of project decomposition so breaking down the
project into smaller portions to make them more manageable, making use of effective time
management and allowing the writer to have a sense of achievement. Also creating a
tasks list for each portion will also assist the writer. When the writer began to breakdown
the project she found that some portions could be ran parallel and others may overlap and
therefore felt that goal orientated decomposition may be a better approach to take.

The writer has opted for a mixed method research approach as she feels a combination of
both data types would provide a more comprehensive piece of research to allow a better
understanding of the subject matter and be used to expand on. Furthermore both types of
data ie the numbers and description will need to be compatible and coherent to
demonstrate a relationship between the two different formats with critical reflection by the
writer. Strategy to be used in relation to these methods is sequential transformative where
both quantitative and qualitative data will be used one after the other to attain the results
which can then be viewed and integrated to bring results at the same time. The writer
feels that having results from both methods to hand will enable her to look at any trends
and patterns as outlined in the project aim.

The writer aims to utilise secondary data that is already out there in relation to this subject
matter as many studies have been carried out, however she needs to further investigate
the relevance of some of this data, its credibility and its significance. One particular aspect
that she is interested in is looking at any existing previous datasets that she can utilise and
using such findings to make comparisons with a newer or current dataset.

In order to measure success, firstly the writer will utilise the project plan that is outlined as
an activity in (L.M. Wingate’s Book 2014) and adapt for her project needs to prioritise
measurements. The next step will be to draft up a set of KPIs that will need to be agreed
with her supervisor and which can be used to measure success throughout the project.
The writer feels from passed work experience that this is a really good tool to help micro
manage the project as well as motivate her.

https://study.online.sunderland.ac.uk/eportfolios/4342/My_Research
References:

Griffiths. C 2022. Lecture: Project Management, Research Project Management PROM05

(NO1 – 2022/3 – Online – R& - 06P02), University of Sunderland, delivered November
2022.
Griffiths. C 2022. Lecture: Project Decomposition, Research Project Management
PROM05 (NO1 – 2022/3 – Online – R& - 06P02), University of Sunderland, delivered
November 2022.

Griffiths. C 2022. Lecture: Visualise It, Research Project Management PROM05 (NO1 –
2022/3 – Online – R& - 06P02), University of Sunderland, delivered November 2022.

Griffiths. C 2022. Lecture: The Method, Research Project Management PROM05 (NO1 –
2022/3 – Online – R& - 06P02), University of Sunderland, delivered November 2022.

Griffiths. C 2022. Lecture: Research Evaluation Secondary Data, Research Project

Management PROM05 (NO1 – 2022/3 – Online – R& - 06P02), University of Sunderland,
delivered November 2022.

Chapter 6: Overcoming Obstacles page 303 Wingate, LM 2014, Project Management for
Research and Development : Guiding Innovation for Positive R&D Outcomes, Auerbach
Publishers, Incorporated, London.

Chapter 1: Project Management Approaches Wingate, Lory Mitchell.Project Management

for Research and Development : Guiding Innovation for Positive R&D Outcomes,
Auerbach Publishers, Incorporated, 2014.

Chapter 28: Elementary Statistics (page 289)Greenfield, T, & Greener, S (eds) 2016,
Research Methods for Postgraduates, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, New York.

Chapter 4: Measuring Success Wingate, LM 2014, Project Management for Research and
Development : Guiding Innovation for Positive R&D Outcomes, Auerbach Publishers,
Incorporated, London.