Assignment 1 Specification
Assignment 1 requires you to read and critically analyse a research article sourced from the Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS) held in Wollongong in early December 2016: or the most recent one held in Tasmania in 2017: Your research article will be emailed to you during the second week.
As part of the critical review and analysis of your allocated research article, you are required to investigate at least three (3) relevant research articles referenced from the allocated article, and to find out more about the associated research topic.
Your critical review work must be related to the research article assigned to you. Failure to do so will result in your assignments being rejected and no marks will be allocated.
| Critical Literature Review Report | 80 marks |
| Report Structure and Presentation | 5 |
Your report should include a title page and Table of Contents.
Note: Make sure to state your name and student number in the report on the title page. State the word count of the report (from Introduction to Conclusion)
| Report: Introduction (approx. 250 words) | 5 | |
Your report should include an introduction to the report.
- Give some background information to provide a context for the report
- State the purpose of the report
- Clarify key terms and indicate the scope of the report (i.e. what the report will cover)
| Report Section 1 – Critical Review (approx. 750 words) | 25 | |
After several rounds of thorough reading of your allocated research article, write a critical review of the article. This is similar to the writing of Uncles (1998) who presented a commentary of Perry (1998) paper – see Week 1 Readings.
Your critical review can follow the guidance provided by Professor Allen Lee in his article, which you should have already obtained during Week 3 or can obtain now:
Lee, AS 1995, ‘Reviewing a manuscript for publication’, Journal of Operations Management, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 87-92.
Professor Lee’s article includes fifteen (15) actionable activities that you may address in your review. This article provides guidance about addressing the actions and illustrates the actions with sample comments. In particular, the following three suggestions must be followed in your critical review:
| Professor Lee’s Suggestion | Relevant Action |
| 1.1 (pg. 3) | developing your own summary of the research article |
| 1.5 (pg. 7) | general overall review and a list of specific, numbered |
| point-by-point comments | |
| 1.6 (pg. 8) | article’s strengths |
These questions are only a guide. You will NOT need to address ALL of these questions in your critical literature review.
- What is the research area/ focus/ scope of the article?
- What is the dependent variable or topic of interest? How has it been conceptualized and studied (hypothesis or research question)?
- What are the theories (dominant paradigms) used to explain the research topic?
- What populations/ case studies/ artefacts/ environments have been studied?
- What are the results and how are they measured?
- What is novel or interesting in this research?
| Report Section 2– Additional References (approx. 750 words) | 15 | |
After your critical review, investigate three (3) relevant research articles that are referenced by the article allocated to you. Since you are scanning associated literature from your allocated article, the best place to get additional references is the “Literature Review” section of your allocated article.
In a table, determine the three research articles and provide the following details: • Full Article Reference
- A short summary of the article
- Short account of how this article is relevant to your allocated paper
| Report Section 3 – Literature Gap (approx. 500 words) | 15 | |
Identifying gaps in the literature is an important part of a critical literature review. In this section, you are required to identify the gap from your literature review exercise and formulate a research question that you think needs further research in the relevant area of the allocated research article.
An ability to find literature gaps demonstrates that you have a critical understanding of the research topic. You need to identify gaps in the research where you can suggest ways forward or possible theories of your own. You can also highlight areas where the research appears to be incomplete. You should write this section with some compelling arguments to identify literature gaps backed up by your critical literature review.
Once you have pointed the gaps in the literature, you may identify some significant issues for future study. The identified literature gap from your study should clearly highlight a research problem that then leads to a research question for further investigation. Finding the research question based on your literature review is a rigorous process of identifying a valid research problem that has not been addressed from past research. You may also suggest how to progress the research forward demonstrating you have the potential for further study and independent research.
| Report: Conclusions (approx. 250 words) | 5 | |
Your report should include a separate conclusions section.
- Sum up the main points and key findings from the body of the report
- Should clearly relate to the objectives of your report
You should not include new information in your conclusion section.
| Report: Referencing and Appropriateness of Sources | 10 | |
Ensure that your reports are fully referenced, including any reference to the research article. Your report should include in-text references and a List of References.
Do not repeat verbatim large slabs of information from other sources such as the text – you must put the ideas/information in your own words.
You must use at least three (3) academically sound sources other than the research article in completing your assignment.
You are required to use EndNote (reference management software tool) that can be used with Microsoft Word to write and present your research writing with references.
Note: the word count does not include references or appendices.
| Appendix 1: Critical Review Journal and Reflection Report | 20 | |
A reflective report allows you to learn from your critical review experience. It is intended to make connections between what you did in your assignment and what you need to learn/ practice to become a competent researcher.
Prepare a journal that records your activities and reflection of your research work related to completing the assignment. In date order, clearly list the following:
- Date of research activity o Full description of activity/ discussion o Time duration of the activity o References/ resources visited
- Reflection related to the activity (reflective writing)
- Description: Making sense of what did you do?
- Self-Evaluation: How well did you do? You can perhaps do it better next time
- Action Plan: Why and how this activity could be important for you in future?
Submit this part as Appendix 1 of the Assignment Report.
Submission Guidelines
Attach the Assignment report in Microsoft Word or PDF file format using the naming convention below, to your online assignment submission in the Assignment 1 area on the CIS8500 StudyDesk before midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on the day the assignment is due.
Upon completion of the submission process, check your UMail email account for an automatically generated confirmation email (if you do not have an email account, print out the Submission Complete screen before exiting the Submission System). You must check that the file name and file size are listed correctly - if there is a problem with either, please email the course leader immediately.
If you have difficulties submitting through the StudyDesk Assignments submission tool, email the course leader immediately for instructions on an alternative course of action. Any submissions after the due date is considered Late Submission and will be dealt accordingly.
Please note that:
- The following is the USQ Assessment – Assignment (Late Submission) and Compassionate and Compelling Circumstances procedure that relate to Extensions and Late Assignments. They can be found under the following links:
- Assessment – Assignment (Late Submission) Procedure:
- Assessment of Compassionate and Compelling Circumstances Procedures:
- Students seeking extensions for any Assignment work must provide appropriate documentation to support their request before the due date of the assignment (see points 4.3 and 4.4 in the Assessment of Compassionate and Compelling Circumstances Procedures above to see what is considered as Compassionate and Compelling reason for an extension and the level of documentation that will be needed).
- An Assignment submitted after the due date without an approved extension of time will be penalised. The penalty for late submission is a reduction by five percent (5%) of the maximum Mark applicable for the Assignment, for each University Business Day or part Business Day that the Assignment is late. An Assignment submitted more than ten (10) University Business Days after the due date will have a Mark of zero recorded for that Assignment.
- The StudyDesk Assignments submission tool will accept late assignments up until 23:55pm on the 10th University Business Day after the due date.
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