Brainstorming for MSc Dissertation Ideas...

dougal85

I am going to start my MSc dissertation in a few months and I need to get together some ideas and to put together a proposal.

So, I was wondering if anybody had an suggestions, I've got a few (unformed) thoughts of my own but they are not really coming up with something that feasible. I need to have quite a strong critical angle that can be discussed and researched along side some programming.

I've got quite a broad range of interests when it comes to programming... from anything to do with the web to say something like language design (although I don't know much about this yet)

Perhaps there is something that you think could be easier or way better? or something you think PHP is missing.

I keep thinking of 'cool' and 'fun' projects but trying to find something with the right levels of academic worth is tricky.

Thanks in advance

laserlight

What was the topic of your BSc thesis, if you did one?

dougal85

I guess what your talking about we call our "BSc Honours Project." I done work with Ajax and phpMyAdmin, some of you may remember me posting about it on here about a year ago. The aim was to create a graphic query builder for phpMyAdmin comparable to say MS Access.

One of the interesting things I found with this was building onto and extending an existing application. I would be interested in doing something similar. Also in that project I included quite a large section on JavaScript as it was the first time I'd moved away from the Java style object model - that was a great learning experience.

The Title for my MSc is "Advanced Software Engineering" (how advanced it actually is, is debatable) so I've got a fairly open scope in what I can do.

laserlight

One of the interesting things I found with this was building onto and extending an existing application. I would be interested in doing something similar. Also in that project I included quite a large section on JavaScript as it was the first time I'd moved away from the Java style object model - that was a great learning experience.

Have you considered extending your own application?

dougal85

I had actually thought about it and I would really enjoy that...

The only problem is I can't really think of a critical angle to take on the subject, I can't see any additions I can make to the research part to justify a whole new project. In terms of development there is quite a bit I can do, however not much of it will be technically more complicated or harder than the work I have already completed.

dougal85

When I spoke to a lecturer about idea's I was strongly encouraged not to do something similar to my undergrad project.