Research Paper and Presentation Guidelines

Research

In this course, you will be assigned to a team of three to four students. The team will work together to propose and write a research paper on an emerging telecommunications technology. Each team will also present their paper to the entire class at the end of the semester. Your team is required to write a one to two paragraph proposal about the selected topic and submit it on Blackboard by the submission due date. I will review your proposal and either approve it, or suggest other options. Once your proposal is approved, you and your team can begin to research and write your paper (note: if your team begins to work prior to instructor approval, you are working at risk. I will limit the number of teams working on the same topic, therefore, getting your team topic approved early is highly recommended).

Your team will analyze and gain knowledge on the technology topic chosen. The research paper and presentation demonstrates the knowledge gained, as well as the team's ability to organize and structure thoughts and conclusions. As an IT300-level assignment, the report and presentation should reflect the sophistication expected from students working at the college-level. The report will need to address applications, benefits, disadvantages, security flaws, if any, and how these flaws are being addressed.

The paper and presentation must have a section on Conclusions and Future Directions. You will need to link these sections to the major points discussed in the paper which support or summarize your conclusions and future direction.

In this course I will be using a plagiarism Software called Safe Assign, which reports verbatim content, no matter how small. Therefore, use your own words. Plagiarism in any form constitutes academic dishonesty and is a violation of the Honor Code. Simply copying and pasting material from any source is not permitted. To use material from a source, it must be properly cited in APA format. If you need help with citing content, please contact the writing center.

Paper Length and Formatting

The scholarly research paper should be 10 pages in length with approximately 4500 words of content. The 10-pages do not include the title page or bibliography (i.e., page that lists the references). The paper shall to be submitted in 11 or 12 pt. font with 1.5 spacing. The paper must start with a Title page, which includes the full name of each team member, course number and section, date, and research paper title.

The margins of the paper will be set to Normal, i.e. 1-inch margins. There should be no extra line spaces between paragraphs or paragraph and headings. Divide the content into appropriate sections. At a minimum, the paper should have an introduction and conclusion/future directions sections.

Submit the research paper in the APA format. The links below provide useful information on the APA formatting style.

References

The references you use to research the technology must be appropriately cited within the content pages using APA in-text citation formats. References cited will need to be placed on a bibliography page at the end of the paper. References should be selected according to the following:
- At least eight references that you used for the research
- At least three different reference types needed such as a web site, paper, book, journal, magazine, newspaper, etc.
- For electronic references, there must be an active URLlink to the source and the date you visited the page.

Topic Examples (your team is not limited to selecting the topics below; however, they must be associated with a telecommunications topic)

- IP4 versus IPv6
- WiMAX versus LTE
- Cellular and Wireless Technologies
- RF Modulation Techniques
- State-of-Art RF Antenna Designs
- Remote Control via Telecommunications Channels (e.g., UAV, Transports, etc.)
- Control Channel Communications
- NFC
- Effect of Telecommunications on Ecomerce
- Internet Next Generation Semantic Network
- Future Telecomm R&D
- Satellite Communications and Architectures
- Merging of Telecomm Capabilities (cellular, Internet, WiFi, etc.)
- Knowledge Management and Augmented Reality
- Peer-to-peer systems and overlay networks
- Impact of a specific telecomm technology on society
- Optical Communications
- Deep Space Communictions
- Other topics that are directly related to telecommunications