Last updated by Hazel Hall, 20 JUne 2007

If you have any ideas for the improvement of this document, or spot any mistakes (e.g. broken links), please e-mail h.hall@napier.ac.uk.

The information provided here is primarily intended for students following programmes in the Information Systems Suite in the School of Computing at Napier University. Other students may find the general concepts useful even though many of the examples are specific to the subject area of Information Management. Please note, however, that everyone's dissertation is different and all the advice given in these pages does not necessarily apply to everyone. If you are a student in the School of Computing at Napier University you should be using the following as the main resource for your project/dissertation:

Undergraduates: SoC Honours projects page
Postgraduates: SoC Masters dissertations page

Check with your supervisor (or module leader up until the point that supervisors are allocated) if you are unsure about any aspect of the processes described below. You can also ask your subject librarian for help with the sources described below.

Page contents

1. The role of the literature in dissertation/project work
2. Pointers to relevant material: primary, secondary and tertiary information sources
3. Key information sources for literature searching in Information Management at Napier University
4. Recommended electronic sources for literature searching in the Information Management subject area
5. Locating copies of material for which you have citations
6. A digression about primary and secondary data
7. Matching information needs to sources
8. The importance of journal literature to dissertation/project work
9. The Internet: a warning

Resources - Further reading and dissertation/project hints resources

1. The role of the literature in dissertation/project work

1.1 Carrying out literature searches to generate material for the literature review chapter

The main purpose of conducting a systematic literature search when preparing your dissertation/project is to ensure that you have enough material for writing your literature review chapter. The literature review chapter is normally Chapter 2, and is used to provide a context for the research to be completed. (See the file on Writing up your dissertation for the order of material in the final piece of work.) When your literature review chapter is marked as part of the final submission you will be rewarded for:

• showing evidence of having conducting a thorough literature search
• being selective in your use of material found (focussing on high quality, up-to-date and relevant sources)
• summarising what you have read thematically (and not author by author, or format by format)
• providing critical appraisal of what you have read, for example by commenting on trends in the treatment of the topic (over time, according to industry sector, by geography) and the value of material retrieved.
• organising your findings from the literature review to fit in with the main themes of your research project

You need to carry out a systematic and methodical search of published sources of information to identify items relevant to your particular needs. To do this successfully you need to understand how information is generated in your subject area and understand how access points are created for this information.

It is important to think carefully before you start searching so that you don't waste effort, and you should record what you do as you are going along so that you don't end up repeating work. See also the file on Self-organisation.

1.2 Writing literature reviews to help formulate research questions

It is important that you have a good literature review drafted prior to conducting your own research. In doing so you will find that it is easier to plan the next stages of your work. For example, if your dissertation/project is about the future of mobile computing technology, you should first investigate the history of the technology and major stages in its development before embarking on your own work. This applies equally to a student who might be designing software for mobile computing applications as to another interested in investigating user acceptance of such technologies, although the way that each uses the material generated from the literature search will be different according to the different focus of each project. In the process of drafting your literature review you will become very familiar with the topic and place yourself in a good position to carry out your own project, whether this be to develop an application, or to design research tools for primary data collection.

This is illustrated in two examples of dissertation/project research shown in the tables below. Some of the main findings from the literature review work are shown in the left hand column. (They are not in any particular order here. The actual order of the material for Chapter 2 was decided at a later stage of the project.) In the right hand column are the research questions that the students needed to answer through their primary data collection. (Note that the questions on the right hand side are the students' research questions. They are not the actual questions posed to data subjects during the data collection exercise.)

Example 1 - Research on intranets to support knowledge management initiatives in public sector organisations

Literature review states	Research questions generated by literature review findings
Intranets are good for integrating disparate information systems.	Do the case study intranets integrate information systems? If so, how? If not, why not?
Intranets facilitate information use in organisations.	Have the case study intranets facilitated ease of information use within the organisations? If so, how? If not, why not?
Intranets are inexpensive to implement.	Were the intranets in the case study organisations expensive to implement? If so, in what way? If not, how were savings made?
Intranets provide cost savings.	Do the intranets in the case study organisations provide cost savings? If so, how? If not, why not?
Intranets save time on projects.	Do the intranets save time on projects in the case study organisations? If so, how? If not, why not?
Intranets are most useful for the provision of "yellow pages" type information.	What kind of information resources are held on the case study organisations' intranets?
Intranets allow distributed working.	To what extent are the intranets in the case study organisations used for distributed working?

Example 2 - Research on database data quality in the finance sector

Literature review states	Research questions generated by literature review findings
The cost of good data quality is too high.	Do the case study organisations know the investment that that they make in data quality? How is this regarded?
Organisations do not budget for data quality.	Do the case study organisations budget for data quality? If so, why? If not, why not?
Organisational dysfunction inhibits data quality.	Does this apply in the case study organisations? If so, how?
Managers' cognitive limitations inhibit data quality.	Is this the case in the case study organisations? How do the case study organisations address this, e.g. through training?
Poor systems design inhibits the maintenance of quality data.	To what extent does systems design help/inhibit the maintenance of data quality in the case study organisations?
Data entry errors are barriers to data quality	Is this the case in the case study organisations? Are there related barriers to data quality?
Systems that necessitate multiple "moves" of data make it more likely for data to lose quality than those that do not necessitate multiple moves.	Is this the case in the case study organisations? How well integrated are the information systems?
Some data can only ever be estimated.	Is this the case in the case study organisations? If so, how is this achieved? What impact does this have on data quality?
Maintaining good data quality is inhibited when employees do not share information readily.	Is there a culture of information sharing in the case study organisations? How does this impact data quality?

2. Pointers to relevant material: primary, secondary and tertiary information sources

Information sources can be classified as primary, secondary and tertiary information sources. In order to conduct a systematic literature search you need to understand in particular the key role of secondary information sources.

1. A primary information source holds the information which answers the question asked.
2. A secondary information source directs the user to possible primary information sources.
3. A tertiary information source directs the users to possible secondary and primary information sources.

3. Key information sources for literature searching in Information Management at Napier University

It is absolutely crucial that you search for literature systematically using the commercial secondary sources to which Napier University subscribes on your behalf.

Key to doing this are three subject guides maintained by the library staff:

1. the Business and Management page
   at http://nulis.napier.ac.uk/SubjectGuides/Bus/Bus.htm

2. the Computing page
   at http://nulis.napier.ac.uk/SubjectGuides/COM/Com.htm

3. the Information Management page
   at http://nulis.napier.ac.uk/SubjectGuides/Inf/Inf.htm

From these pages you can access subject-specific journal listings which include the abstracting and indexing publications (print and online), some of which provide access to full-text articles. The Library produces leaflets on how to use the sources.

4. Recommended electronic sources for literature searching specific subject areas

You should take advantage of the expertise of your subject librarian for identifying the best electronic sources for literature searching in your specific subject area. Your subject librarian is also skilled in how to search the commercial services available at Napier University, and can pass this knowledge on to you.

5. Locating copies of material for which you have citations

No single academic library in the UK can satisfy the information needs of all its users. Using the services listed above in the course of your literature search you will discover references to material not held by Napier University. In these circumstances you should make the most of reciprocal agreements that Napier University has with the other libraries in Edinburgh. You can check for details of these schemes in the library. Individual library catalogues are also accessible over the Internet. Your dissertation/project supervisor may also sign inter-library loan requests for you for highly relevant material that cannot be accessed locally.

6. A digression about primary and secondary data

Data is different from information sources.

In the context of research work primary data is data collected from the field by you. For example, a pile of questionnaires that have been filled in by your sample contain primary data.

In the context of research work secondary data is data collected by someone else from the field and then used by you. For example, you may need to use official employment statistics for Scotland presented by the Office of National Statistics in the publication Regional Trends as part of your research project. The tables you use in this publication represent secondary data to you since someone else gathered these statistics from the field.

7. Matching information needs to sources

Examples

Type of information need	Type of source
Facts and figures Names Addresses Definitions Overviews of a subject< "How to..." "What to do..." Dates Data Events	Reference books; compilations of facts and data. These are to be consulted rather than read. Examples: dictionaries; encyclopedias; handbooks; almanacs; yearbooks; directories accessed through library catalogues.
Comprehensive reviews or accounts of specific subjects, ideas, and research	Use library catalogues as a starting point to find relevant book material
Ideas and/or research on more specific aspects, especially more up to date materials found in journals	To find articles use secondary sources identified in the subject guides produced by the library.
Most up to date research findings in very specific subject areas.	These are found in reports and theses, sometimes in conference proceedings, sometimes on web sites. There are also specific indexes. For material that hasn't yet been indexed it helps if you know your own subject area and the likely conferences at which the material might be presented. Seek advice from your dissertation/project supervisor.
Information on work not yet published in any form, or currently in progress	Directories of work in progress exist. Professional networking is one of the most effective means of keeping up to date. Seek advice from your dissertation/project supervisor.

8. The importance of journal literature to dissertation/project work

For a piece of research for a major project or dissertation at Honours or Masters level you are expected to draw heavily on research literature. Research literature is found in refereed journals. When you are conducting literature searches you should make sure that you evaluate carefully the citations and full text material that you find so that you only spend time accessing and reading high quality material. The higher the level of the literature that you access and review, the higher the chance that you will write a good literature review.

Journals provide:

• up to date information (but it much has a shorter "life" than established material that makes its way into text books and encyclopedias)
• recent statistics
• specialised and focused information
• new topics and research reports
• means of communication (e.g. through letters pages)
• news
• contacts
• notifications of meetings, seminars and conferences

9. The Internet: a warning

There are some good sources of information on the Internet, but you should treat this "resource" with care. The Internet is useful in literature searching:

• when it is used as the delivery mechanism for the commercial services as described in Section 4 above;
• for accessing formal secondary sources;
• for directory type information such as names, addresses, facts and figures when you have a good idea of the actual information you're looking for;
• trade literature from known company web sites;
• joining lists and services, e.g. FreePint.

However, when it comes to searching for formal information sources that will form a major part of your dissertation/project's literature review you should not rely on the Internet. You can complement searching the formal sources with sensible Internet searching:

• check the web pages of other academic departments that offer degrees in your subject area;
• check the sites of professional bodies associated with your subject area;
• check the sites of the companies that publish the major titles (journal and book) in your subject area;
• use reputable sites that have set up subject trees for Internet searching;
• use search directories with caution;
• use search engines with extreme caution!

Resources

Further reading

Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review. London: Sage.
Hart, C. (2001). Doing a literature search. London: Sage.

Dissertation/project hints resources

• Dummy proposal
• Literature searching
• Proposal writing
• Self-organisation
• Writing up your dissertation/project
• SoC Honours projects page
• SoC Masters dissertations page