Note that you can choose your own topic, but also you need a supervisor , so they have to be interested in the topic. The list below are the topics each supervisor is definitely interested in, though generally each supervisor will take only two projects.
Dave Wilton
1. Project: Uptake of biometric identification and authentication information security techniques in NZ
Proposed by: Dave Wilton (d.r.wilton@massey.ac.nz)
Description: One of the most commonly-implemented information security mechanisms is user identification (UID) and authorization, and traditional techniques rely on what the user knows (e.g. alphanumeric UID and password). Biometric techniques rely on what the user is: e.g. retina scan, fingerprint. These have often been touted as the “new wave” of UID and authentication, but have tended not to have lived up to their promise. This project will investigate the adoption of biometric techniques in NZ organizations, and, where possible, compare the NZ situation with other countries.
2. Project: A study of wireless network security vulnerabilities in NZ organizations
Proposed by: Dave Wilton (d.r.wilton@massey.ac.nz)
Description: There are significant security risks associated with the use of wireless networks: in particular, the potential loss of confidentiality arising from transmission of information “in clear” on a radio frequency (RF) channel. The propagation characteristics of RF mean that unencrypted, or inadequately encrypted, network traffic can be intercepted and read well outside an organisation’s business premises. This project will examine the vulnerability of typical NZ organizations, and the extent to which they apply appropriate counter-measures. A set of data that was obtained by “war driving” (i.e. interception of wireless network traffic by driving around the streets) in two NZ cities around 2003 is available as a basis of comparison of trends over time in NZ.
Dr Tony Norris
1. Project: The Technology and Potential for High-end Computer Audio
Proposed by: Tony Norris (T.Norris@massey.ac.nz)
Description: The Compact Disc (CD) is now over 25 years old. When is first appeared in the early 1980s we were promised ‘Perfect sound forever’ but only in the last two or three years have designers begun to realise the full potential of the medium and overcome the digital artifacts such as glassy, hard treble, Jitter that smears transients, and other distortions that rob music of its soul and make its reproduction sound so artificial. These deficiencies are often lost on the public at large who prefer convenience to quality.
However, with the advent of computer audio in which the digitised music is streamed to the audio system from a computer disc we now have a method of improving upon CD quality with even greater convenience of use than the CD player. Even so, the foremost, current example of computer audio, the MP3 player, has taken the convenience route to its extreme and employed technologies that produce poor quality, compromised sound that quickly becomes tiring unless the listener thrives on the distorted sound that deliberately appears in much of popular music.
This project sets out to explore and compare the technologies that can be used to build high-quality audio (stereo) systems and to evaluate different approaches to the use of computers to facilitate the reproduction of very high-quality sound. The high-end segment will never be a large part of mainstream music playback and enjoyment so the project will also investigate the market potential for high-quality computer audio.
The project (PgDip) will appeal to students with an interest in music, popular, country, classical, jazz, who are dissatisfied with the constraints of their MP3 player and want to understand and overcome its limitations and listen to high fidelity sound. It will involve some practical work (equipment supplied) and some programming and familiarity with computer hardware and software concepts.
2. Project:
Proposed by: Tony Norris (t.norris@massey.ac.nz)
Description: The most serious health issue facing developed nations is the increase in chronic diseases that results from ageing populations and unhealthy lifestyles at all ages. These diseases reduce quality of life and impose an enormous cost burden on the nation. Because the diseases often have long development periods it is also difficult to raise public awareness of their serious consequences. The pervasiveness of mobile technologies offers a promising opportunity to raise awareness and help deliver convenient and cost-effective care. The main aim of this project is to obtain a better understanding of how mobile health (m-health) technologies can be exploited to improve awareness and to identify the critical success factors for successful and sustainable m-health applications. We might even be able to design a framework for m-health excellence. You do not need any clinical knowledge to enjoy this project but you do need a willingness to search the literature, an analytical approach, and an interest in interviewing people to elicit their views. The work builds on a recent successful master's project.
3. Project: The Healthcare Potential for RFID Technologies
Proposed by: Tony Norris (t.norris@massey.ac.nz)
Description: Radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies rely on tags containing silicon chips and antennae that can be used to locate objects they are attached to or to send and update information on the items. They find numerous applications in tracking items such as parcels, animals, or people. They can be thought of as "intelligent barcodes" Pilot studies in healthcare have used RFID tags to track patients as they move through various departments of a hospital or locate expensive surgical instruments and their status (eg, sterilised or not) but there have been no systematic studies of how such applications should be introduced and which ones are more likely to succeed and why. This project aims to understand the potential of RFID in healthcare and in particular how they can be used in the labelling, prescribing, and dispensing of drugs. The project will analyse case studies of RFID applications and produce guidelines for their successful use in healthcare. You don't need clinical or knowledge or software construction ability to do this project but you do have to be able to analyse data, extract key principles and draw valid conclusions. The project may attract external funding.
Dr Brian Whitworth
Project:
Investigating online support for
Proposed by: Brian Whitworth (B.Whitworth
@massey.ac.nz)
This project involves developing the Research Roadmap Project which aims to offer online interactive support for thesis students and advisors. The core problem is that research can be conducted in many different ways for many different purposes, e.g. Qualitative; Quantitative; Delphi Method; Applied Research; Action research; Cartography; Case study; Classification; Experiments; Mathematical models; Participant observation; Simulation; Statistical analysis; Statistical surveys; Ethnography; Focus Groups, etc The question raised then is whether one online support tools (the Research Roadmap) can serve all these different types of research. The goal of this project however is simply to gather, under supervision, data on the various research methods used by researchers at Massey University, Auckland campus, and to analyse that data for commonalities. This project will especially suite a student interested in carrying on to do a Masters or PhD, as they will learn a lot about different research methods used in Information Technology. It also requires someone good at dealing with people.
Dr Rosemary Stockdale
There is
a small but growing body of literature on the use of RFID tags for tracking
surgical instruments within hospitals. However, current research remains
piecemeal and does not yet address several key questions, both technical and
social.
Consideration
of technical restraints requires some examination of the difficulties involved
in using tags in a hostile environment that involves such processes as
sterilization and fluid immersion. From a socio-technical perspective, there
are several questions that bear examination including what data could be
gathered from tags, and what are the potential uses of such data (instrument
tracking, sterilisation history, patient records, details of medical teams
etc). Analysis of the potential extent of data collection matched against
identified requirements would provide a basis for considerations of issues such
as data management, quality and privacy. Also a matching of usefulness versus
the costs involved, in both technical and data management development,
would be advantageous.
There are a
growing number of online communities being created for business, social and
health reasons. There remain several
interesting questions relating to:
I am
interested in addressing questions relating to the small number of women that
take tertiary education in ICT related courses and the subsequent impact on ICT
in the workplace. Any student with an interest in this area is welcome to talk
to me about a possible research project.
Dr. Dave Parsons
(Please note that Dave will be in the
Project: Professional
Proposed by: Dave Parson, D.P.Parsons@massey.ac.nz
Developing a
curriculum for a professional mobile learning system is different from
developing a curriculum for a conventional classroom, or even for an e-learning
system. It may involve blended learning, related to other forms of delivery. It
certainly needs to target those areas of learning that can benefit from the
mobile environment. This project would involve researching mobile curricula,
particularly for professional learners, gathering requirements from an external
client, and implementing a prototype system to demonstrate some key features of
the curriculum. End user assessment would be a required component of the study.
Project: Second Life
as a Learning Environment
Proposed by: Dave Parson, D.P.Parsons@massey.ac.nz
Second Life
has been used extensively to deliver teaching, but empirical investigation of
that work is lacking. A useful project would be to investigate the types of
curriculum delivery that can be achieved in Second Life, implementation of a
suitable test system, and evaluation with a group of learners. A comparative
evaluation with alternative forms of delivery for the same content would be
useful. A different angle on the same research topic could be an analysis of
the roles and benefits of virtual meetings / seminars in Second Life. A
qualitative analysis of participant experience might be undertaken to try to
ascertain what perceived benefits such an environment might produce when
compared with alternative ways of managing remote collaborative engagement.
Project: Collaborative
Design with
Proposed by: Dave Parson, D.P.Parsons@massey.ac.nz
Mobile
systems can be used for collaborative work. This study would focus on the use
of mobile phones for collaborative software design, based on the Class Responsibility
Collaboration (CRC) design technique. The work would involve the development of
a mobile phone based tool (probably written using Java Micro Edition) that
could support such a collaborative design exercise. Evaluation of the system
would include comparing user experiences with a more traditional approach to
CRC based design.
Project: Mobile
Proposed by: Dave Parson, D.P.Parsons@massey.ac.nz
Anuradha Mathrani
Project – Collaborative
tools used by virtual teams in distributed software development
Proposed by
– Anuradha Mathrani (a.s.mathrani@massey.ac.nz)
Description
- Virtual teams are
groups of geographically, organisationally and/or time dispersed workers
brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to
accomplish one or more organisational tasks (Powell et al. 2004). The
project will investigate the adoption of collaborative tools commonly used by