Joseph KK Ho's work diary

Some students ask: "Is  my dissertation proposal topic too narrow?". First of all, I am not a tailor so I am not sure what width (or scope) of proposal is suitable for you. What I know is this: you keep doing literature review with a mindset of intellectual curiorsity and then refine your dissertation proposal... ultimately, you get an appropriate dissertation proposal scope that suits you. If you want a better proposal, you study more and reflect more on what you have learned from your literature review. A simple response to your concern about narrow proposal scope is: expand your propsoal scope and increase its theoretical depth; increase the number of your proposal objectives and research questions. However, you still need to ensure that the quality of your formulated objectives and questions is good. How to do that? There is no short-cut: do more study to build up your intellectual capability and make yourself more informed about your topic areas. This streng...

Some students expresses difficulties to find "relevant" academic articles from elibrary and feel that searching for articles in e-library is very time-consuming. I think the difficulty is mainly caused by some improper steps in doing literature review. My advices are as follows: you browse through elibrary journals in elibrary and come up with proposal ideas; not to specify a few concrete hypothesis and then search for relevant articles in elibrary. When you browse through some academic journals, you gather some "interesting" academic articles; browse through them and then come up with a proposal idea based on your reading of these articles. In this case, you will not have problems of finding "relevant" articles, because your proposal ideas are formulated from the articles you have collected from the e-library. The idea of doing e-library search is to enable you to develop skill to do e-library search as a professional skill. Such professional skill is...

Some students ask me how to do literature review. I think I have written something about literature review in my e-resource blog. Anyway, I want to make some comments as follows: Read the academic sources to find definitions of key terms used in your report Read the academic sources to find relevant theories and methodologies on your topic area Read the academic sources to find what specific questions academics are investigating and what issues they are debating; you try to relate your report topics to these academic concerns Read Research Methods textbooks, watch youtube videos on Literature Revew; do google search to find information on Literature review. Read academic articles to learn how academicians write literature review. Finally, refer to my Business Research forum to find information on Literature Review. At the end of the day, you need to do elibrary search and read the relevant literature before you can write literature review for your independent study/ dissertati...

While teaching Contemporary Information Systems Development in class, a student took a photo of me and posted to my facebook wall. I noticed it during the lecture break. While I have been teaching in this centre for more than 15 years, it is the first time a photo was taken and published in this way. Such is the advancement of technology. The projector was very glaring so I needed  to wear a cap; the computer is connected to the Internet...

Contemporary ISD lecture agenda: Introduction to Systems Analysis and Design Introduction to OO Systems Analysis and Design with UML Contemporary ISD class notes (ES) for study: Miscellaneous terms: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150586460867819 Testing: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150586416782819 Structuring data entry: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150586391572819 Classic development mistakes: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150586196662819 RAD: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150586187457819 CASE tools: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150585220212819 key terms: https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150584184022819   Blog article with info on decision table, structured english and pre- post- conditions: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2012/02/structuring-systems-requiremens-in-cisd.html Contemporary ISD diagrams: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1...

The following topic areas of Strategic Financial Management are to be taught by me: Business-level Strategy (Johnson et al (2008, Chapter 6).) Directions and Corporate-level Strategy (Johnson et al (2008, Chapter 7).) International Strategy (Johnson et al (2008, Chapter 8).) Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Johnson et al (2008, Chapter 9).) Strategy Methods and Evaluation (Johnson et al (2008, Chapter 10).) Also note following article as related to assignment/ presentation tasks: http://josephkkhoworkdiary.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-key-concepts-in-strategic.html References Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy , Prentice Hall On competitiveness from Michael Porter (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5I_cnpP99U&feature=g-vrec Strategic mgt forum (fb): https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/274828358631/ On critical success factors: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2012/05/critical-success-factors-in-strategi...

Every time I get a subject syllabus, I study it carefully and admire the intellectual skills exhibited in the document. There are subject objectives, concepts to be covered and the a comprehensive list of references. Based on the information, I compile my reading materials to my students and, inevitably, they complain about the bulky study materials and express deep worries on studying the subject. They feel that I am not considerate or  do not "understand their standpoint".  Subsequently, much efforts have been made to coach them so that they can exert "reasonable" effort so as to pass the subject that I teach. In the current situation, the profile of "some" students is just not good enough for them to study the subjects designed for them. The best hope is that they develop a genuine interest in the subjects and will pursue the study on a continuous basis.. once in a while, miracles do happen... and I am able to inspire some students.. From teachi...

For students studying the subject of Business IT Implementation Project , you should study the syllabus of the subject well and be prepared to do some reading on the relevant academic literature. This is important though the subject is a Diplom-level of subject. First of all, a recap of its syllabus as follows: ********* Module 10: Business IT Implementation Project Unit value: 1.0 Content 1.       Plan an appropriate project Project selection : research and review areas of interest, select and appraise the feasibility of the chosen project. Project specification : identify and document a list of user requirements relevant to the chosen project. Project plan : produce an appropriate computer-based plan for the project including timescales, deliverables, milestones, etc. 2.       Develop the project Design/structure : consider alternative design methods/techniques and environment, which could include the use of data anal...

From the dissertation meetings with Building Service Engineering students, I think they need to do more literature review with e-library search. The following 4 blog articles are relevant: http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/12/major-websites-of-academic-publishers.html http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2012/01/using-university-e-library-athens-log.html http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/12/built-environment-literature-brief-note.html http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-research-design-evaluation.html Besides, you still need to learn harvard referencing and Research Methods to improve your research skill. And you need to pay attention to your English writing skill.

As a teacher, I would like students to learn well in their subjects. There are many reasons why students have difficulties in their study and it sometimes has nothing with their commitment to learn. A few years ago, an accounting student asked me what to do as she had invested all her savings in an air-line stock but its share price dropped 30%... My understanding is that effective learning requires a favourable learning environment. There are things we cannot control in the short run, e.g. having a horrible boss. There are things we can do to improve the environment for learning: e.g attempting to adopt an appropriate work-life balance. Teachers very often do not give adice on this topic to students, but mentors do..  Here, I got some good advice from Buffet to share with you:

Some students have difficulties to come up with proper independent study/ dissertation report titles. In my view, there is no simple way to formulate a report title because report titles reflect the views of the students on the nature of the dissertation/ independent reports. Thus, there is a requirement to have good understanding of Research Methods and a clear idea of what you intend to do for your dissertation/ independent study works. Having addressed alll these concerns, you could learn how to formulate report titles by reading academic articles. I provide some examples of refereed journal articles' titles for your reference: An analysis of factors affecting cross docking operations Managing logistics outsourcing relationships: an empirical investigation in China Measuring the consequences of using diverse supplier evaluation teams: a performance frontier perspective Factors impacting on accounting lag: an exploratory study of responding to TQM Trends in ethical sanction...

Quite a number of Independent Study students do not know what is a research objective. Research Methods textbooks have explained this topic and academic articles provide you with examples on research objectives. I would like to make some clarification here: Research objectives start with the following verbs: To find out... To explain... To evaluate... To predict.. To measure... To create.... To recommend... when formulating your proposal objectives, try to also specify who your targeted readers are and what are the expected benefits to these readers so as to establish the practical and academic values of your proposal study. You may use a few of the academic jargons to formulate your proposal objective, e.g. to assess the intensity of competition of XXX business sector using Porter's 5-Force Model, etc. Once you specify your proposal objectives, you need to specify your research design, e.g. set up a hypothesis test or design an online opinion survey, etc. In short, a...

My student recently suggested to me that, oftentimes, theory development in Research work is based on the the technique of "+, -, x, ÷". That is, we add, minus, multiply and divide some attributes or ideas from some existing theories to develop new ideas (or theories); often, we reconfigure the relationship among the various variables in an existing theoretical framework to develop a new theoretical framework. I want to illustrate with the following diagrams to show how this technique is applied to develop new ideas: New idea 1: Beana Lisa New idea  2: Mellow Lisa New idea 3: Mona Lisa and Mina Lisa All the new ideas are not totally new; they are the products of the application of the formula of "+, -, x, ÷" in theory building .

Well, deadline is coming and, if you still do not know what to do with your IS proposal, you probably need some advice. My suggestion is as follows: you need to quickly choose an academic article and do some kind of speedy article re-engineering of it to make it an acceptable proposal. This is described in the following diagram: The basic idea is to adapt the chosen academic article content to make it more local to your setting [ie localization of content ] (e.g. if the chosen article studied a company in USA, then you study a company in Hong Kong), to adopt subject of investigation (e.g. business sector and company) that you have more access to its data [ modification of investigation object profile ] (e.g. the academic article could be about a study of the manufacturing sector; you could study the retail sector), and to "downgrade" the research methods to use (in case you do not know what the academic article's research design is all about in your chosen academic ...

The university has informed me of the deadline to set an re-exam paper. This is a case about 1 student failing in my examination out of 60s. As a result, I need to draft a re-sit exam paper for 1 student and, subsequently, I have to invigilate in examination for this very student. To do examin invigilation, I have to wake up at 6:15am in the morning to ensure I arrive at the exam centre on time. This is very harsh as I usually go to bed very late at night. As most students did quite well in examination for this subject, I am sure that all these efforts are avoidable. Thus, when the student fails in the examination, the lecturer suffers... as to whether the student suffers a lot in this case, I just have no mood to find out..