GuidANCE for existing Master Students

A Template for Table of Contents for Design Science Research

1- Introduction

• Soft entry into the general field/topic. Create attention for the topic, give a context. 

• Introduction to the key concepts/terms, terminology (so that your problem and research question/objective can be better understood). 

• Explain the focus of the study, clarify the research gap, define the problem and its significance

  • (the gap between what is available as possible solutions in the literature, and what is needed to solve the problem)

• Research objective(s) (or questions). (Research objectives should briefly specify the goals that are required of the artifact to be developed - though, the details can be left to the Research Design Section 3. Have a statement of "Therefore, the objective of this research is ...).

• Very brief overview (1-3 sentences each) of the:

  • The scope of study (things that are assumed, kept out of the scope, …),

  • Research design (including of the methods used), 

  • Findings,

  • Explanation of the contribution and its importance.

• Structure of remainder of the thesis/paper/report

2 - Background and Related Work (or Review of the Literature)

• Background on the existing concepts, tools, techniques, frameworks that you use(d). Give sufficient info so that -when you refer to them in the coming chapters- the reader can have a better understanding of what you talk about. 

• Review of related works  - those with the same or similar research question/objective - and how your work differs from these studies to justify the case for your work. 

3-  Research Design

A summary of what research activities you have performed (to addres your research objective or answer your research questions), including the research methods you used. 

• What are the main research steps you followed? As this is a DSR and you are proposing a design artefact, i.e. model, method, etc., refer here to the Design Science Research methodology/paradigm and to one of its process templates: e.g.: Peffers et al. (2008), Sonnenberg et al. (2012), Gregor et al. (2014). 

• A figure would help a lot to describe the process (research steps and phases) you went through including methods and outputs after each step. (E.g., check and customize Figure-1 in Peffers et al. (2008), or adopt Fig.3 in Sonnenberg et al. (2012)). 

• For instance, if you adopt Peffers et al. (2008), you will broadly have the following research phases: Problem Identification, Solution Objectives Definition, Design and Development, Demonstration, and Evaluation. It is a good practice to have subsections under Section 3 dedicated to each of these phases. ( See Gregor et al. (2013), Table 1 for more explanations). 

• Here, you describe the research methods you used in these steps (surveys, case studies, interviews, …). Very briefly explain these methods, and make sure that you answer the question of 'why you chose them”. 

• Also briefly explain how you used these methods.

<<<< Your MS Thesis Proposal comprises the first three sections above (and perhaps Chapter 4 too)  plus the study plan/schedule. >>>>

4- Description of the Artifact (i.e., method, technique, tool, framework, conceptual model, ...whatever the solution to your problem is) 

• A concise description of the solution artifact at the appropriate level of abstraction to make a new contribution to the knowledge base.

• This section (or sections) should occupy the major part of your thesis/paper. 

• The format is likely to be variable but should include at least the description of the designed artifact and, perhaps, the design search process.

• This part should be self-sufficient for an outside reader to apply your artefact.  

5- Evaluation 

• Evidence that the artifact is of some use or make sense, has some utility, if effective, etc.

• The artifact is evaluated to demonstrate its worth with evidence addressing criteria, such as validity, utility, quality, and efficacy.

• If deemed necessary, provide more details about how you applied the research methods you specified in Chapter 3. 

• And of course, explain what results you achieved.  

• (Check Sonnenberg et al. (2012) for evaluation of artifacts.)

6- Discussion

• Summary and interpretation of the (evaluation) results: what the results mean and how they relate back to the res. questions/objectives stated in the Introduction section (and possibly objectives/requirements that you specificed for your artifact in Section 3). 

• Summary of what was learned and comparison with prior work. 

• Limitations of the work: Limitations of the artifact as well as the limitations imposed on the research due to the research methods used. (This sub-section can also be in the form of "content validity, construct validity, and other threats to the validity”, particularly if evaluation involved empirical studies, such as surveys.)

• Future research: Areas requiring further work to address the limitations mentioned above. Limitations and future research can be coupled in a single sub-section. 

7 - Conclusions

• Brief overview of what is described/was done in the study.

• What was your research objective (questions), and what did you do about it (in brief). Restate the important findings of the work.

• Significance of the work - theoretical and practical (how can/should researchers and practitioners use your artifact?) 

  • Contributions to research 

  • Contributions to practice

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Sources on DSR, Research Design and Literature Review:

Design Science Research

1- The first one is a seminal paper on Design Science Research: 

Hevner AR, March S, Park J, Ram S (2004) Design science in information systems research. MIS Q 28:75–105

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eGykfxrv41MILleBvrdzfe0nNLDxJ0mm/

It clarifies what DSR refers to and how it differs from behavioral science research.
We perform both types of research in our group, but mostly DSR.
You will see parts that are (yellow) highlighted in this paper.
You can pay more attention to Sections 1 (Intro) and 2 (A framework for IS research). 

Parts that are particularly relevant are:
- Figure 2
- Table 2  (… evaluation)

2- The second one proposes a process for performing DSR: 

Peffers, K. et al. (2014): A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research. J. Manag. Inf. Syst. 24, 3, 45–77 . https://doi.org/10.2753/MIS0742-1222240302 

The part you should definitely pay attention to is "Figure 1-Design science research process (DSRP) model” and relevant text.
We adopt this process frequently in our research.

3- The third one investigates how designed artifacts can be evaluated: 

Sonnenberg, C., vom Brocke, J. (2012). Evaluations in the Science of the Artificial – Reconsidering the Build-Evaluate Pattern in Design Science Research. DESRIST 2012.  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29863-9_28 

This paper also proposes a DSR process (like the one from Peffers), that you can adopt. 

--> Check Fig.3 and Table 3.

4- The fourth is another important one on DSR: 

Shirley Gregor and Alan R. Hevner (2013). Positioning and Presenting Design Science Research for Maximum Impact
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eh-aP2Bk0SJk3WYnanC9mspzekYzv1dl

This is a good read in general, and the following parts are particularly important:
- Figures 1-2-3
- Table 3. Publication Schema for a DSR Study
I find this table quite useful in structuring a paper, thesis or any other professional report. 

- Take a look at Table 1 as well, and position your artefact accordingly (Level 1-2-3?)
- You can also check Appendix C for an example

5- This is an example paper that could be useful to see how DSR research can be communicated.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12599-018-0565-x 

(OK, this is one of my papers, and probably not the best in communicating DSR research ;) so, use it with care and do a better job please :)

(Systematic) Literature Reviews

6- A seminal paper on literature reviews: 

Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future- Writing a Literature Review-Webster-2002
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4132319

7- Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines by Synder 2019. 

A reatively recent paper with practical guidelines. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296319304564

8- Detailed guidelines for performing Systematic Literature Reviews by Kitchenham: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OFwCqPg895IBk_9mmaprt0jis34Cqr-e/

This report offers a useful guideline on how a literature review can be conducted in a systematic way.
However, it is rather long. 

Alternatively (or in addition), you can go through one of our papers that reports the results of a systematic literature review. You can focus on how the research (systematic review of literature) has been conducted:

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950584916300015

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950584916302889

9- Multi-Vocal Literature Reviews. 

If your review will benefit from looking at the grey literature (practice-oriented sources like white papers, company reports, blogs, etc.), then you can perform a "multi-vocal literature review” 

The following paper is an example of a multi-vocal lit. review and also provides some pointers to other papers that describe how such a review can be performed: 

• https://doi.org/10.1177/2055207620914772 

Research Methods

10- I find this work quite useful too ... as it clarifies several concepts (e.g., research methodology, res. process ...) and gives a good overview of available research options, including how they relate to each other: 

Wohlin and Aurum (2014) "Towards a decision-making structure for selecting a research design in empirical software engineering". Empirical Software Eng. DOI 10.1007/s10664-014-9319-7. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cxQkaGj4FVSOaMVSyrbcEnbCztpKsllx/

In particular, Fig. 2 Research decision-making structure is informative … acts almost like a table of contents.

The rest might be a heavy or a standard read (if you are not interested in a particular method). 

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