Research Project of the Research Methodology

Research Project (Part A – Presentation) : 10 Marks

Research Project (Part B – Take Home Exam) : 10 Marks
Research Project (Part C – Case Study) : 15 Marks

According to that, following is the recommended course works marks distribution

Mid-Term Exam & Others 25 Marks

 Mid-Term Exam 20 Marks
 Quizzes & Other Assignments 5 Marks
Research Project 35 Marks
 Part A – Presentation 10 Marks
 Part B – Take Home Exam 10 Marks
 Part C – Case Study 15 Marks
TOTAL of CORSEWORK 60 Marks

Page 1 of 17
a- Research Project (Part A – Presentation) : 10 Marks
There will be 10 presentations as shown in the schedule of Table 1.
 Any student will be absent for any one of the 10 presentations will be reduced (-1) Mark over 10
for each presentation of her colleagues.
 For any reason, any student can’t present his/her presentation on time: She will get ZERO.

Table 1: Schedule of presentation for girls

Date & Time Lectures Slides Presenter
Extra Class on THURSDAY, 23-05-2013 (09:00-10:00) – CIT Campus
THU: 23-05-2013 ( 09:00-09:15) Lect 5 (A) 01-16 1 Eman Abdullah Al-Sanhani
THU: 23-05-2013 ( 09:15-09:30) Lect 5 (B) 17-31 2 Nada Hamood Baidar
THU: 23-05-2013 ( 09:30-09:45) Lect 6 (A) 01-10 3 Hawwa Abdullah Hashim
THU: 23-05-2013 ( 09:45-10:00) Lect 6 (B) 11-23 4 Rukayyah Abdullah Hashim
Extra Class on SATURDAY, 25-05-2013 (08:30-10:30) - Girls Campus
SAT: 25-05-2013 ( 08:30-08:45) Lect 7 (A) 01-14 5 Maha Mohmmed Humdan Al-Ghafri
SAT: 25-05-2013 ( 08:45-09:00) Lect 7 (B) 15-33 6 Manal Mohmmed Humdan Al-Ghafri
SAT: 25-05-2013 ( 09:00-09:15) Lect 7 (C) 33-42 7 Mariam Kayser Mohammed
SAT: 25-05-2013 ( 09:15-09:30) Lect 7 (D) 34-42 8 Elham Ali Nasser Al-Damari

Break for 30 minutes (09:30-10:00)

SAT: 25-05-2013 ( 10:00-10:15) Lect 8 (A) 01-11 9 Fatma Ali Ali Al-attab
SAT: 25-05-2013 ( 10:15-10:30) Lect 8 (B) 12-25 10 Hadeel Salah Abdullah Bashnain

b- Research Project (Part B – Take Home Exam) : 10 Marks

Extra Class on MONDAY, 27-05-2013 (10:00-11:00) - CIT Campus

Date & Time Activity Place
MON: 27-05-2013 (10:00-11:00) Take Home Exam CIT Campus - Hall 3.4
NOTES:
-For any excuse, those students who can’t submit &/ can’t attend the exam on time ZERO will be given for her.
-The time for exam is exactly ONE (1) hour; student who comes late will never extend her time.

c- Research Project (Part C – Case Study) : 15 Marks

Regular & Last Class on WEDNESDAY, 05-06-2013 (08:00-11:00) – Hall 22

-Deadline of submit (Soft & Hard Copies ) of the Research Project Case Study
-Presentation of your case studies’ solutions (as a Workshop to discuss the case studies)
-Evaluation of your Research Project
NOTES:
-For any excuse, those students who can’t submit &/ can’t present on time will be given ZERO
-Any student will not attend the other slots, her marks will be reduced by (-1) for each slot.

Page 2 of 17
 All Students should submit the solution of this case study and also they should make a discussion with for their cases
as follows:

Date & Time Presenter CASE STUDY

WED: 05-06-2013 ( 08:00-08:15) 1 Eman Abdullah Al-Sanhani (A): Research Proposal -2-
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 08:15-08:30) 2 Nada Hamood Baidar (B): Literature Review-2-
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 08:30-08:45) 3 Hawwa Abdullah Hashim (D): Scenario -2-
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 08:45-09:00) 4 Rukayyah Abdullah Hashim (E): Sampling -3-

Break for 30 minutes (09:00-09:30)

WED: 05-06-2013 ( 09:30-09:45)
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 09:45-10:00)
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 10:00-10:15)
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 10:15-10:30)
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 10:30-10:45)
WED: 05-06-2013 ( 10:45-11:00)
5 Maha Mohmmed Humdan Al-Ghafri
6 Manal Mohmmed Humdan Al-Ghafri
7 Mariam Kayser Mohammed
8 Elham Ali Nasser Al-Damari
7 Fatma Ali Ali Al-attab
8 Hadeel Salah Abdullah Bashnain
(D): Scenario -3-
(H):contribution…& hypothesis
(B): Literature Review-4-
(E): Sampling -2-
(C): Abstract -2-
(B): Literature Review-3-

Page 3 of 17
 CASE STUDY (A): A Research Proposal -2-
Case Study: Research Proposal
You are asked to write a research proposal on how information and communication technology (lCT) can be
used to address the problems of shoplifting (stealing) in supermarkets. Management has reported discrepancies
in inventory record and movement of goods against items on the shelves. Physical stock counts show items are
unaccounted (ie missing on the shelves). Random checks on customers by security did found evidence of
shoplifting. Management wants to know what were the popular items missing, any trends or particular time,
day, week or month the shoplifting occur, and factors that contribute to shoplifting. Write an outline of each
section in a research proposal. Start with a suitable title followed by the appropriate sections and ends with the
references section.

Research Proposal: Leveraging ICT for Shoplifting Prevention and Analysis in Supermarkets
1. Introduction:
Background: Shoplifting incidents causing inventory discrepancies and unaccounted items on shelves.
Objectives: Investigate popular missing items, identify shoplifting trends, and explore
contributing factors.
Research questions: What items are commonly targeted? Are there specific time patterns?
What factors contribute to shoplifting?
1. Literature Review:
Existing research on shoplifting and ICT applications in retail security.
Shoplifting patterns and contributing factors.
1. Methodology:
Research design: Quantitative or qualitative approach.
Data collection methods: Surveys, observations, interviews, and data mining.
Sample selection: Supermarkets, customers, and staff.
Data analysis: Statistical or qualitative techniques.
1. Implementation and ICT Solutions:
Proposed ICT tools for prevention, detection, and analysis.
Integration of surveillance systems and data analytics for improved security and
inventory management.
1. Ethical Considerations:
Participant privacy, informed consent, and data handling guidelines.
1. Expected Outcomes and Implications:
Findings on missing items, temporal patterns, and contributing factors.
Benefits: Enhanced prevention strategies, inventory management, and security measures.
Practical recommendations for supermarket management.
1. Timeline and Budget:
Proposed research timeline and estimated budget for necessary resources.
1. Conclusion:
Summary of the research proposal's potential impact on addressing shoplifting issues.
References:
Include a list of cited references following a suitable citation style.

Page 4 of 17
CASE STUDY (B): Literature Review -2-
Read the literature review below.
Although thus far we have concentrated on using Cloud Computing for interactive Software as a Service (5aa5),
Cloud Computing presents a unique opportunity for batchprocessing and analytics jobs that analyze terabytes of
data and can take hours to finish. If there is enough data parallelism in the application, users can take advantage
of the cloud's new "cost associativity": using hundreds of computers for a short time costs the same as using a
few computers for a long time. For example, Peter Harkins, a Senior Engineer at The Washington Post, used
200 EC2 instances (1,407 server hours) to convert 17,481 pages of Hillary Clinton's travel documents into a
form more friendly to use on the WWW within nine hours after they were released [3]. Programming
abstractions such as Google's MapReduce [16] and its open-source counterpart Hadoop [11] allow programmers
to express such tasks while hiding the operational complexity of choreographing parallel execution across
hundreds of Cloud Computing servers. Indeed, Cloudera [1] is pursuing commercial opportunities in this space.
Again, using Gray's insight, the cost/benefit analysis must weigh the cost of moving large datasets into the
cloud against the benefit of potential speedup in the data analysis. When we return to economic models later, we
speculate that part of Amazon's motivation to host large public datasets for free [8] may be to mitigate the cost
side of this analYSis and thereby attract users to purchase Cloud Computing cycles near this data.

By: Michael Armbrust et. AI, UC Berkelev Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory,
February 10, 2009
References:
1. Cloudera, Hadoop training and support. http://www.cloudera.com/.
2. TC3 Health Case Study: Amazon Web Services. http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/tc3-healthI.
3. Washington Post Case Study: Amazon Web Services. http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-
studies/washington-post!.
4. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos on Animoto. http://blog.animoto.com/2008/04/21/ am azon-ceo-jeff -bezos-on-
a ni motol.
5. Black Friday traffic takes down Sears.com. Associated Press (November 2008).
6. Abramson, D., Buyya, R., And Giddy, J. A computational economy for grid computing and its
implementation in the Nimrod-G resource broker. Future Generation Computer Systems 18,8 (2002),1061-1074
7. Administration, E. I. State Electricity Prices, 2006.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/stateelectricityprice.htm.
8. Amazon AWS. Public Data Sets on AWS. 2008. http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/.
9. Barroso, L A., And Holzle, U. The Case for Energy-Proportional Computing. IEEE Computer 40, 12 (Dec.
2007).
10. Bechtolsheim, A. Cloud Computing and Cloud Networking. talk at UC Berkeley, December 2008.
11. Bialecki, A., Cafarella, M., Cutting, D., And O'malley, O. Hadoop: a framework for running applications on
large clusters built of commodity hardware.
http://lucene. apache. org/hadoop.
12. Brodkin, J. Loss of customer data spurs closure of online storage service 'The Linkup'. Network World
(Aug. 2008).
13. Carr, N. Rough Type/ 2008. http://www.roughtype.com.
14. Chang, F., Dean, J., Ghemawat, 5., Hsieh, W., Wallach, D., Burrows, M., Chandra, T., Fikes, A., And
Gruber, R. Bigtable: A distributed storage system for structured data. In Proceedings of the 7th USENIX
Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI'06) (2006).
15. Cheng, D. PaaS-onomics: A CIO's Guide to using Platform-as-a-Service to Lower Costs of Application
Initiatives While Improving the Business Value of IT. Tech. rep., LongJump, 2008.
16. Dean, J., And Ghemawat, S. Mapreduce: simplified data processing on large clusters.

Page 5 of 17
In OSDI'04: Proceedings of the 6th conference on Symposium on Opearting Systems Design & Implementation
(Berkeley, CA, USA, 2004), USENIX Association, pp. 10-10.
Based on the literature review, answer the following questions:
a) Suggest a suitable title for the literature review.
b) Give FIVE (5) reasons why it is a good literature review.
c) Suggest TWO (2) ways to improve the literature review.

a) Title: "Cloud Computing for Batch Processing and Analytics: Opportunities and Cost Benefits"
b) Reasons:
1. Includes a real-world case study for practical relevance.
2. Mentions relevant programming abstractions like MapReduce and Hadoop.
3. Discusses the cost associativity advantage of using Cloud Computing.
4. Highlights commercial opportunities pursued by Cloudera.
5. Speculates on motivations behind hosting free public datasets.
c) Improvement suggestions:
1. Include recent research to reflect the current state of Cloud Computing.
2. Structure the review with clear subheadings for better organization.

Page 6 of 17
CASE STUDY (B): Literature Review -3-
The literature review below is considered as a poor literature review. Give FIVE (5) reasons why it is not
considered as a good literature review.
Topic: Application of ICT for 5S System in SME
Rapid changes in IT create numerous threats and challenges for businesses. Convergence between Information
Technology and Communication technology which also popularly known as Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) not just as a tool to ease processes which was done manually before but those changes drove
businesses into a new business battlefield. New business models emerge since ICT create new ways for
companies to do business. ICT also makes running a successful business more difficult than ever before. To
achieve a successful business and competitiveness, middle to top level management must use technology to
improve information flow, reduce costs, streamline business processes, offer product variety, establish linkage
with suppliers, and to reduce response time to customer.

SMEs are often the main driver for a country's economic growth. However, as the number of SMEs increases,
competition increases, which then results in a decrease in prices, customer base, or both. This in turn will erode
existing profits, creating less incentive for people to start SMEs. This dynamic is captured by balancing
feedback loops where the greater the number of SMEs, the greater the competition, resulting in a slower rate of
growth for SMEs. To counter the increasing competition, firms can lower prices, increase promotion of their
product, improve their product, add new distribution channels, and/or improve their internal processes. The
challenge is to counter competition when the firm still has the financial resources to do so. Otherwise, once the
pressure of competition sufficiently erodes .the SME's profits, it will no longer have resources to counter the
competition and will have to exit the market. ICT can thus play a very important role because it can help SMEs
both create business opportunities and combat pressures from competition. Appropriate leT can help SMEs cut
costs by improving their internal processes, improving their product through faster communication with their
customers, and better promoting and distributing their products through online presence. In fact, ICT has the
potential to improve the core business of SMEs in every step of the business process thereby able to gain
competitive advantage.

Many companies are struggling with their competitiveness in the marketplace (ljungstrom, 2005). The global
market has decreased the number of mergers and produced many large companies working on an international
basis. These companies are all striving to produce the best product at the lowest cost, hoping that this will
provide them with the competitive edge. In order to be more competitive, a company must involve all of its
employees at all levels. There are many different concepts and philosophies available for a company to do this.
A quality oriented approach, often called Total Quality Management (TQM), has become one of the main ways
for developing a company and its competitiveness (Hendricks and Singhla, 2001). In the frame of
implementation of the TQM at the operations level, the idea of so called 5S is becoming more and more popular
(Michalska and Szewieczek, 2007).

The philosophy of the "55" has its roots in Japan and stands for five (5) Japanese words that start with the letter
liS": Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuke. An equivalent set of five "5" words in English have likewise
been adopted by many, to preserve the "55" acronym inEnglish usage. These are: Sort, Set (in place), Shine,
Standardize, and Sustain. Some purists do not agree with these English words they argue that these words have
lost the essence of the originalS Japanese words (Karkoszka and Szewieczek, 2007).

Understanding 55 is detailed and engrained in Japan, as it stems from an approach that sees it as life wisdom,
practiced everyday (Osada, 1991). Because of this foundation 55 is easily included in management practice and
contributes to cost-effectiveness by maximizing both efficiency and effectiveness. When understood and
developed within the context regardless of the organizations size or type, 55 can be used to engage
improvement activities within many environments including: homes, schools, communities and workplaces (De
Mente, 1994). The 55 method begins each program of improvement. It is the tool for helping the analysis of
Page 7 of 17
processes running on the workplace (Michalsak and Szewieczek, 2007). The 55 is the methodology of creation
and maintaining well organized, clean, high effective and high quality workplace. Its result is the effective
organization of the workplace, reduction of work environment, elimination of losses connected with failures and
breaks, improvement of the quality and safety of work (Karkoszka and Szewieczek, 2007).

This literature review is considered poor due to the following reasons:

1. Lack of structure and organization.
2. Insufficient background information provided.
3. Inadequate citation and lack of supporting evidence.
4. Failure to integrate and analyze concepts.
5. Limited scope and depth in addressing the topic.

Page 8 of 17
CASE STUDY (B): Literature Review -4-
Over the past decade, information technology (IT) has progressed simultaneously with the rapid global
development, and emerged as a very important part of most business firms. Most organizations in all sectors of
industry are dependent on IT (Earl, 1992; Ward and Peppard, 2002; Peppard and Ward, 2004). For
organizations to stay competitive in a dynamic business environment, they have to understand how to manage
IT strategically. A key success factor for a successful industry in such a dynamic business environment is an
effective and efficient IT strategy that supports business strategies and processes (Henderson and Venkatraman,
1993a). The importance of how the strategic use of IT for effective business performance which then makes a
contribution to the creation of business value has been a proven subject of study and well recognized
(Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993b; Luftman et aL, 1993). The alignment between the business strategy and
the strategic choices of IT deployment are therefore the most important areas of concern that remain high on the
priority list of business IT issues as well as management endeavour to remain competitive (Silvius, 2009; Kefi
and Kalika, 2005; Ward and Peppard, 2002, Johnson and lederer, 2010). A substantial body of literature
emphasizes the importance of IT to the organization and of aligning IT with the business objectives of the
organization. Boar (1994), for example, states: "In response to ever growing worldwide competition, the
business needs to use IT to build, sustain and extend competitive advantage ... most major strategic thrusts
require the crafted use of IT to succeed (p1G)".

a) Describe the domain (subject) area of the literature.

b) Give FIVE (5) reasons why it is a good literature review.
c) Identify THREE (3) flaws in the literature that can be improved.
d) Identify ONE (1) sentence in the literature that strongly relates to the theme of the research. Give your reason
for the choice.
e) Explain the reason why there are two references of the same authors (Henderson and Venkatraman) using
1993a and 1993b in the review.
f) What is the minimum number of authors in the article published by Luftman et aI., 1993?

a) The literature review focuses on the strategic use of information technology (IT) for
business performance and value creation.
b) Five reasons why it is a good literature review:
1. Emphasizes the importance of managing IT strategically for competitiveness.
2. Highlights the alignment between business strategy and IT deployment.
3. References a substantial body of literature supporting the topic.
4. Recognizes the role of IT in building and sustaining competitive advantage.
5. Demonstrates a comprehensive review through multiple citations.
c) Three flaws that can be improved:
1. Limited inclusion of recent references.
2. Lack of practical examples or case studies.
3. Absence of critical analysis or evaluation.
d) "In response to ever growing worldwide competition, the business needs to use IT to build,
sustain and extend competitive advantage... most major strategic thrusts require the crafted use of IT
to succeed." This sentence strongly relates to the research theme by emphasizing the importance of IT
in achieving competitive advantage.
e) The use of "1993a" and "1993b" differentiates between multiple works published by Henderson and
Venkatraman in the same year.
f) The minimum number of authors in the article published by Luftman et al., 1993 is not specified.

Page 9 of 17
CASE STUDY (C): Abstract -2-

Read the following abstract and answer the questions that follow:
Abstract
This report is based on a research effort investigating the implementation and adoption of Enterprise Architecture
(EA) in Malaysia. The rationale for this effort is based on the fact that currently limited studies have been carried
out resulting in limited knowledge of EA among Malaysian practitioners. Studies have shown that organizations
in Malaysia, both public and private, do practice EA but the EA activities were found to be incomplete or not
adequately addressed. This research intents to discover the trends in EA adoption and implementation in Malaysia.
To achieve this, this study embarks on the following: (a) To assess EA activities in Malaysian organizations, both
public and private; (b) To investigate the importance of EA in addressing business issues; (c) To investigate the
EA environment in terms of location, business area, people, governance, types of architecture, methods, tools and
frameworks; and (d) To make recommendation based on trends in the adoption and implementation of EA in
Malaysia. A survey study method using questionnaire was used to collect empirical evidences. The questionnaire
was adopted from the Institute for Enterprise Architecture Development (lFEAD) country report 2005 that
surveyed trends in EA in organizations across the world. The questionnaire was pre-tested in a pilot study to test
for reliability and content validity. Thereafter a survey ensued involving one hundred managers and executives
of organizations chosen at random from UUM's University-Industry link database as well as lists of organizations
from the Malaysia Computer Industry Association (PIKOM) directory, and the Malaysia National Computer
Confederation (MNCC) directory. Descriptive and exploratory methods were used for data analysis including
frequency counts and percentages, cross-tabulation, and correlation analysis. Understanding Enterprise
Architecture activities and importance of EA in Malaysia is observed through the following issues: (1) EA
business issues; (2) EA environment; (3) EA governance; and (4) EA methods, tools and frameworks. The
findings presented here gave us a general outlook of the EA activities in Malaysian organizations and its future
directions. Overall, the study found Business and IT Alignment as the most important business issue in which EA
is required. Next important and significant issues are Business Change, followed closely by Application Renewal.
The private organizations indicated business and IT alignment as the most important reason for EA. This is
consistent with prior studies. The public organizations however, suggested that Better Work Environment is the
most important reason for EA. In terms of the EA environment that relates to the EA methods, findings of this
study indicate the trend is shifting from traditional or waterfall approach to Rapid Application Development and
the Rational Unified Approach. A model of EA adoption and implementation was constructed to represent the
findings. Future studies should consider devising an instrument to measure the level of EA adoption. This would
enable an organization to identify the extent of EA presence and practice in supporting the alignment between
business strategy and IT adoption.

a. Write a possible problem statement for the research.

b. Specify two objectives of the research
c. What is/are the unit of analysis?
d. What is the sampling frame?
e. What is the sample size used for data analysis?
f. Describe the research methods used (6)
g. What would the research suggest in order to solve the problem?
h. Write the most suitable topic for the research.
a. Possible problem statement: "Limited knowledge and incomplete implementation of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in Malaysian organizations necessitate a comprehensive
investigation into EA adoption
and implementation trends to address business issues effectively."
b. Two objectives of the research:
Assess current EA activities in Malaysian organizations, both public and private.
Investigate the importance of EA in addressing business issues and its impact on organizational
performance.
c. Unit of analysis: Malaysian organizations, both public and private.
d. Sampling frame: Organizations chosen at random from UUM's University-Industry link database,
Malaysia Computer Industry Association (PIKOM) directory, and Malaysia National Computer Confederation
(MNCC) directory.
e. Sample size used for data analysis: Not specified.
f. Research methods used: Survey study method with a questionnaire, adoption of a pre-tested questionnaire,
pilot study for reliability and content validity, and data analysis methods including frequency counts,
cross-tabulation, and correlation analysis.
g. Research suggests developing an instrument to measure the level of EA adoption to support alignment
between business strategy and IT adoption.
h. Suitable topic: "Investigating Enterprise Architecture Adoption and Implementation in Malaysian
Organizations."
CASE STUDY (D): Scenario -2-

Describe the (a) problem statement, (b) data collection methods (including population, sample, sampling frame
and unit of analysis) and (c) data analysis (including independent and dependent variables) for a research that
involves the study of the application of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)
Model on User Acceptance of Telecentre. Consider the following scenario of the research.

Scenario:
Currently, there are over 2500 telecentres (TCs) throughout the country, which mostly .He located in the rural
areas. The aim is to bring access to ICT within reach of the rural population, thereby addressing the digital gap
between rural and urban communities. However, whilst broadband penetration per household nationwide has
increased tremendously from 22.5% in the previous two years to over 55.6% this year, there has been a small
increase in broadband penetration in the rural areas, particularly in underserved areas where TCs are not
available. A study by Zulkhairi et aL (2009) among rural communities in the northern region found less than
one percent broadband penetration. The government, through the Universal Service Provision fund, a public
fund under the Communication and Multimedia Act (1998) makes it mandatory for telecommunication
companies to contribute. The fund is managed by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission
(MCMC), being utilized to roll out telecommunication infrastructures including broadband technologies
throughout the nation to ensure that all citizens have equal access to ICT, irrespective of socio-economic status
and locality. However, the main issue is the extend the technology push has benefitted the rural people, as it has
benefitted the urban community. Previous studies on technology acceptance have been much focussed on the
organizational context and based on a modern, knowledge-based and urban society. This study therefore aimed
to apply the UTAUT model into the rural community to study whether there are significant difference with
respect to the rural community acceptance and use of the ICT made available through the TCs. Among the
factors to be analyzed include Gender, Age, Experience, Voluntariness, Facilitating Conditions, Social
Influence and Behavioral Intention. Since actual usage behavior is difficult to study, past studies have resort to
Behavioral Intention as respondents' perception to acceptance and use of the ICT facilities.
a) Problem statement:
b) Data collection:
c) Data analysis:

a) Problem statement: Limited broadband penetration in rural areas despite the presence of
telecentres raises concerns about technology adoption and usage among the rural population. This
study applies the UTAUT model to examine acceptance and usage of ICT facilities in rural communities.
b) Data collection: The study collects data from a representative sample of rural individuals with access
to telecentres, using questionnaires or surveys.
c) Data analysis: The analysis involves examining factors such as gender, age, experience, voluntariness,
facilitating conditions, and social influence in relation to behavioral intention, which serves as a proxy for
acceptance and use of ICT facilities. Statistical techniques like regression analysis or structural equation
modeling may be used.

Page 11 of 17
CASE STUDY (D): Scenario -3-

Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.
This paper reports on a case study of the verification and validation process at Ericsson Microwave Systems
AB. The twofold purpose is to establish a baseline for process improvement and to empirically evaluate the
inspection and testing activities at the organization. Since the study was performed at one software organization,
the external validity is small. However, the methodological results from the case study are general. If there are
more conducted case studies using the goodness measure and the orthogonal defect classification, the results
could be compared and generalized to a broader population of software organizations. The research addresses
the methodological question of how a case study can be performed in order to investigate the verification and
validation process. The paper uses a goodness measure to evaluate whether the faults found could be found in
an earlier phase or not. The measure was successfully used to illustrate the effect of a process change, the effect
of a project decision, and the effect of extensions and modifications of developed test cases when faults are
found. In addition, found faults were classified according to an orthogonal defect classification (ODC). The
goodness measure together with ODC identifies which phases are in most need of improvements. The analysis
of these measures show that unit test and low level design are appropriate for process improvement. This fact
was validated by interviews with the programmers and observations of the project
Tomas Berling et. al, Ericsson, Sweden
Proceedings of the Ninth IntemationalSoftware Metrics Symposium (METRICS'03), 2003

a) Determine the research objectives of the case study.

b) Evaluate whether the research described is academic research or industrial research. Justify your answer.
c) Evaluate whether the research described is basic research or applied research. Justify your answer.
d) For the case study described, identify the research phase in which interviews with programmers and
observations of the project took place.

a) Research objectives: Establish a baseline for process improvement, evaluate inspection and
testing activities, address methodological questions, and identify areas for improvement in the
verification and validation process.
b) The research is industrial because it focuses on evaluating and improving the activities within Ericsson
Microwave Systems AB, an industrial organization.
c) The research is applied as it aims to apply specific methods (goodness measure and orthogonal defect
classification) to improve the verification and validation process in a practical context.
d) The interviews with programmers and project observations likely occurred during the data collection
phase.

Page 12 of 17
 CASE STUDY (E): Sampling -2

Study the questionnaire sample provided based on a study on factors influencing ethical behaviours of users in
cybercafes. Behaviour can be measured as the attitude of users towards ethical use of digital content over the
internet. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) identifies Individual Perception and Perceived Behavioural
Control as two main factors that influence a person's behaviour intention towards doing or not doing a particular
act. This can be represented by the following diagram:

Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991)

Using the Questionnaire Sample as a guide, answer the following questions.

a) Name the type of scale used in the questionnaire.
b) Explain how the researcher operationalizes Behavioural Intention.
c) Based on the TPB diagram, explain how Discriminant Validity can be achieved.
d) What data analysis technique would you use to test whether Individual Perception and
Perceived Behavioural Control are significantly related to Behaviour Intention?
e) Name the Independent and dependent variables.
f) What data analysis technique would you use to test whether Individual Perception and
Perceived Behavioural Control are determinants of Behaviour Intention?
g) -Describe the most appropriate data collection method used for the questionnaire.
Include the unit of analysis, sampling frame, and sampling technique.

QUESTIONNAIRE SAMPLE
Factors Influencing Ethical Behavior of Users in Cyber Cafe
Answer the following questions by circling the number that best represent your choice.

Attitude TOTALLY DISAGREE DoN'T AGREE TOTALL

CARE

1. Viewing pornographic materials over the web gives a new experience 1 2 3 4 5

and is entertaining.
2. I dislike to see my friends viewing pornographic web sites. 1 2 3 4 5
3. Online gambling in cybercafe is my right. 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
4. I have the right to access and change the content of any websites. 1 2 3 4 5
5. It is okay for me to disguise my identity as someone else on the
Internet.

Individual Perception
6. My friends will agree to my actions if I were to send a chain letter 1 2 3 4 5
through the e-mail.
7. My parents will not mind if I were to loiter around and spend time 1 2 3 4 5
chatting at the cybercafe.
8. My close friends will agree and encourage me to access pornographic 1 2 3 4 5
web sites.
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9. My teachers will not mind if I were to send a sensational stories to the 1 2 3 4 5
Internet using the cybercafe.

Perceived Behavioral Control

10. I will not dare to disguise as someone else if there is a CCTV in the 1 2 3 4 5
cybercafe.
11. If the cyber cafe has strict regulations on copyright, I will not 1 2 3 4 5
download any software without obtaining permission.
12. I will not play computer games if the cybercafe operator is watching 1 2 3 4 5
over me.
13. Remembering the advice from my religious teacher will avoid me 1 2 3 4 5
from loitering around unnecessarily at the cybercafe.

a) Likert scale used.

b) Attitudes assess Behavioral Intention.
c) Ensure distinct measures for Individual Perception and Perceived Behavioral Control.
d) Use correlation or regression analysis.
e) -Independent variables: Individual Perception and Perceived Behavioral Control.
-Dependent variable: Behavioral Intention.
f) Regression analysis determines determinants.
g) Self-administered survey, convenience sampling.

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CASE STUDY (E): Sampling -3-
Consider the following case of a "Shoplifting in a supermarket".
A supermarket has reported a high incidence of shoplifting involving losses of goods and consumer items in its
shop floor. Management decided to conduct a study to find out the causes of the thefts. Through interviews and
observations, management found 4 causes (elements of research) of frequent shoplifting in the supermarket:
1. It is human nature to steal - particularly among young male shoppers, the poor, and less educated.
2. There are too few guards to monitor shoplifting.
3. There are no visible signage to remind shoppers that theft is an offence punishable by law.
4. Salespersons did not bother to check on customers.

Using the example above, describe how the research should be designed to verify the findings using a) Stratified
sampling and b) Quota sampling. The research design should identify the type of investigation by describing the
research elements, describe the purpose of study, study setting, unit of analysis, population and sample
including how respondents are selected, sampling frame, and category of sampling.

a) Stratified sampling:
Research elements: Causes of shoplifting in the supermarket.
Purpose: Verify identified causes.
Setting: Supermarket.
Unit of analysis: Individual shoppers.
Population: All shoppers.
Sampling: Divide population into strata based on characteristics, randomly select proportionate samples
from each stratum.
b) Quota sampling:
Research elements: Causes of shoplifting in the supermarket.
Purpose: Verify identified causes.
Setting: Supermarket.
Unit of analysis: Individual shoppers.
Population: All shoppers.
Sampling: Set quotas for shopper categories, select individuals to meet quotas without random selection.

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CASE STUDY (H): contribution, relationship on the criterion & Meaning of hypothesis

Consider the following case study scenario.

Case: Poverty Alleviation. The State of Kedah is one of the poorest states in Malaysia with 80% of her
population of 2 million people live under the poverty line. Efforts have been made by federal and state
governments, including NGOs and private corporations to address the problems of poverty in the state. The
federal government created rural development programs such as infrastructural and relocation schemes and
provides subsidies and incentives to the poorest of the poor. Whilst the state government manages the tithes
(Zakat) and provides land for agriculture, NGOs and private corporations establish foundations and micro credit
facilities to help the poor into business. These numerous aids and programs to eradicate poverty are handled at
the district level, where agencies are established representing the ministries, departments and organizations at
the federal and state level. Altogether 12 agencies are involved with each agency having their own profile of the
poor people living in the district. The agencies are: Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (MRRD),
Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (MWFCD), Muda
Agriculture Development Authority (MADA), Kedah Regional Development Authority (KEDA), Federal land
Development Authority (FElDA), Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (RISDAL Federal
Agriculture Marketing Authority (FAMA), Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM), TEKUN, Department of Zakat,
and Farmers'

Association Board. Managing and implementing aids to the poor have been a major problem to all the agencies
concerned. There is a lack of coordination among the agencies, even with the establishment of a registration
system, e-Sinar, has not solved the problem. Among the problems and issues identified were:

Problems and issues:

 Each agency keeps its own list of poor people, with its own format and selection criteria. This results in
duplications where the same recipient gets more than one aids (some managed to become rich from getting
numerous aids from different agencies).
 There were no mechanism to tract previous aids given to recipients, and how those aids have benefitted
them. As a result the same recipients will apply for the same aids using the same tactics year after year, even
though a person may no longer qualify for such aids . ., Fraud reporting was rampant as applicants for aids
did not disclose their true income. Most knew that the poverty line to qualify for aids was below RM677 for
normal poverty and below RM466 for hardcore poverty. So they use these as a benchmark to calculate their
household income. If one were to calculate a person's with 5 dependent monthly expenditure: an average
person will spend RM2.50 for breakfast, RM3.50 for lunch, RM1.50 for afternoon tea, and RM3.00 for
dinner. That totals to RMlO.50 per day per person. For 5 persons, RM52.50 per day. For 1 month, the
family will have to spend RM1575! (and that was only for food). That is far off from what the applicant
stated in his/her application form.
 E-Sinar is a portal system for the poor, developed by the Kedah State government with the aim to keep
records of poor household living in Kedah. It is an electronic registration system, where poor families need
to submit their particulars endorsed by the village headman in order to receive aids from the state. The
system may solve the problem of duplication at the state agency level, but its lack of integration with other
federal agencies and NGOs has not made the system foolproof. Moreover, fraud is still penetrable as village
headmen find it difficult to verify the validity and reliability of the applicant's data.

Answer the following five questions:

a) What would be a suitable IT-based research to propose to address the problem of duplication across state and
federal agencies? Your answer should highlight on the research contribution as opposed to system/database
development.

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b) If you were to carry out a research to detect fraud, describe what process and/or technology would you use to
address this problem?
c) Assume that a system is well in place to eliminate duplicates and frauds. If the government decides to give
one PC to a poor family, a criterion to be considered would be the possibility that the PC would not be sold for
cash. What would be a causal relationship that would have an influence on the criterion?
d) Describe the possible meaning of this hypothesis: "A strong positive correlation exists between the existence
of duplicate records and attempted frauds."
e) Describe the possible meaning of this hypothesis: "A negative correlation exists between knowledgeable
person and aids recipients".

a) Develop a data integration system to address duplication across state and federal agencies.
b) Use data analytics and machine learning for fraud detection.
c) Financial literacy influences the criterion of PCs not being sold for cash.
d) Strong positive correlation between duplicate records and attempted frauds.
e) Negative correlation between knowledgeable individuals and aid recipients.

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