weekly project log

Weekly Project Log

Extended Project 2014 | Maurice Yap 6946 1

WEEKLY

PROJECT LOG A RECORD OF THE TASKS, DECISIONS AND ACTIONS TAKEN TO COMPLETE MY PROJECT

OVER THE COURSE OF THE YEAR.

Week beginning

Main tasks completed Comments

13 January 2014

Think of and refine title, start planning project

Attended initial presentation about the Extended Project Qualification, met supervisor. Decided to produce a written report instead of an artefact. Put onto paper all my different ideas for general topics and titles for each of these. Quickly firmly decided to base project on cyberwarfare. Started drawing up initial ideas in this topic in a mind map. Decided that my title will be "Cyber and electronic warfare between China and the United States, and their respective allies.”

20 January 2014

Start “research on researching”. Finish mind map planning. Arrange first 1:1 meeting with supervisor.

Attended lecture on research. Learnt about using key word search terms, searching academic sources using college accounts and Harvard Referencing. Learnt to evaluate and rate sources e.g. bias, accuracy, and date of publication. Contacted supervisor to arrange initial 1:1 meeting time.

27 January 2014

Start production log, Gantt chart, project proposal.

Attended lecture on planning and keeping track. How to create, maintain and use production log and Gantt charts. Had first 1:1 meeting with supervisor on Thursday. He expressed concerns that there may not be enough information out there on my chosen title. He also suggested that I visit my college's library to find books on the topic or to arrange inter-library loans. Other things which I took from the meeting were that I need to complete my record of initial planning and attach the mind map which I have created as an accompanying document, and there are also resources on our college's internal intranet which I can use.

03 February 2014

Re-asses title. Complete initial planning and project proposal part A. Start gathering and recording sources for research.

Attended lecture on evaluating the reliability and accuracy of sources. For example, the bias of specific newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Guardian. Also, I was told that it is the range and use of my sources which is marked, not the quantity of them. I was also shown how to evaluate sources in my Resource Log. I have re-assessed my title and I have changed it to: Will cyberwarfare become the primary method of war in the future?

10 February 2014

Continue to gather research. Record sources carefully,

Attended lecture on interviewing people and creating and analysing surveys for primary research. This included

Weekly Project Log


start bibliography. learning about the ethics, rules and conventions with interviewing people, as well as how to create successful questionnaires and surveys.

17 February 2014

Half term. Continue researching.

Gathered more research sources. Because many of my sources are websites, I have decided to electronically capture them by ‘printing’ them into a PDF document or downloading videos from YouTube. For previous experience, I know that websites and other online content can frequently change, disappear or become permanently deleted by the creator or web host.

24 February 2014

Gather more and refine sources. Become more familiar with topic.

Had meeting with supervisor. We discussed my title and its phrasing. He said it could be very hard to answer as I would need to look broadly at other forms of warfare (e.g. conventional land warfare, nuclear), and any conclusion would be too speculative. Again, I have changed my title. It is now: What is cyberwarfare and to what extent does it pose a significant threat to world security and the future of humanity? As well as this, we also decided that it would not be appropriate or needed to use primary research (e.g. questionnaires) as this probably wouldn't be much help to me.

03 March 2014 Gather more sources. I had a lecture about using the Harvard Referencing technique and how this should be done correctly for different forms of media and types of sources. I spent this week gathering more sources and continues to read about the topic, so I can become more familiar with it.

10 March 2014 Gather more sources. Begin to create bibliography.

I gathered more sources this week and used the referencing feature on Microsoft Word to create metadata tags for each of my sources. They include standardised data fields, like date, author and title, which will be automatically be inserted into my bibliography and as references in my main text in the correct format.

17 March 2014 Categorise sources. Gather more sources. Complete Planning Review section of Production Log.

I decided upon the structure and contents of my essay. This enabled me to devise a coded list of areas and topics which I need to research. I have used this to categorise all my sources by the part(s) of my essay they are relevant to. This has allowed me to organise my sources. I created an ‘Overall Structure Plan’ document. The planning review was completed in the AQA project log.

24 March 2014 Gather more sources, categorise as I go.

I gathered more and a larger variety of sources. I have put a tally next to each of my sections to identify which topics I need to gain more sources for.

31 March 2014 Administration. I met with my supervisor to discuss my production log and my progress so far, and what I intend to do next. He condoned putting the project on hold in order to focus on my more important AS exams. I also need to complete my mid-project review.

07 April 2014 None. Easter holidays. I decided not to do any work on my project in order to help me concentrate on revision and exam practice for my upcoming AS exams.

14 April 2014

21 April 2014 Exam preparation period. I have not worked on the project so that I am totally focused on revision and preparation for my upcoming AS exams. I did, however, spend a bit of time completing my mid-project review, as I had forgotten to do so.

28 April 2014

05 May 2014

12 May 2014 AS exam period.

19 May 2014

Weekly Project Log


26 May 2014

02 June 2014

09 June 2014

16 June 2014 Gather more sources, categorise and add to bibliography.

I have made a record of the number of sources I have for each topic so my search for sources is more focused. I have continued to gather sources.

23 June 2014 Gather more sources, categorise and add to bibliography.

I have continued to gather sources.

30 June 2014 Finish collecting sources, collate information.

I finished collecting the final couple of sources and have started to collate all the information together, placing them in a Microsoft OneNote notepad with sections and subsections for each topic within my essay, following my ‘Overall Structure Plan’ document.

07 July 2014 Complete draft project. I wrote the 500 word draft required by my supervisor, referenced it, proof read it and emailed it to him.

14 July 2014 Collate information Continued to record the information in my researched sources.

21 July 2014 None. I worked long hours every day this week and so did not have sufficient time, energy or motivation to do any worthwhile work on my project.

28 July 2014 Collate information. I was out of the country on tour with my band this week so did not get much done. I extracted information from a couple of sources.

04 August 2014 Continue to collate information.

I extracted information from my many sources.

11 August 2014 Continue to collate information.

I extracted information from my many sources. I got rid of a source which was almost a duplicate of another. I am about half way through my sources.

18 August 2014 None. I attended a Sutton Trust Summer School in Cambridge this week and so did not work on my project.

25 August 2014 Finish extracting information from sources.

I finally finished extracting information from my sources, which totalled around 90.

01 September 2014

Evaluation of sources. I created the document in which to evaluate my sources for reliability, quality and accuracy. As a result of the information extracted from my sources, I have made some slight changes to the structure of my report, compare to the ‘Overall Structure Plan’ document.

08 September 2014

Admin. I decided to tidy up all my documents and make sure that my AQA production Log is up-to-date to as much as I can do. There is missing information which I will need to sort out at my meeting with my supervisor next week.

15 September 2014

Write report. I wrote the entire report using the information in my OneNote document. I continued to be flexible in following the initial overall structure plan, using my judgement to expand, discard and reorder sections as I saw appropriate. I also started to proof-read the document to check for grammatical and punctuation errors. I met with my supervisor on Friday so that he could check on my progress with the project.

22 September 2014

Proof-read report, create presentation. End-of-project review.

I finished proof-reading my report and created the PowerPoint slide show which will assist me with my presentation. I also prepared what I was going to say during it and made notes to prompt me if needed. The end-of-project review was written at the end of this week.

Weekly Project Log


29 September 2014

Deliver presentation. Presentation evidence. Compile reference list and bibliography.

On Tuesday, I delivered my presentation in a lecture style to my classmates, my teacher and my supervisor, followed by questions. I then created a document to show evidence of this, as well as notes for each slide to document what was said for each one where necessary. I also compiled the reference list and further bibliography which will be an appendix to my report. I added a few lines onto the conclusions of my project because I had thought of some new points during the process of creating and documenting the presentation. I wrote the abstract for the report and pasted this into the summary section of my production log.

06 October 2014

Complete, check and edit AQA Production Log. Complete sources evaluation. Compile final print version of report. Check bibliography. Physically organise paper documents for handing in. Hand in project.

On my final week, I made the final finishing touches to my project. This included completing the reflection and presentation sections of the AQA production log, writing the rest of the source evaluation, making the necessary edits of my report and creating the final printed document. I also checked the formatting of my bibliography and then organised and files all of the paper printouts of my project documents as required by my college in preparation for handing in. Finally, I collected physical signatures from my supervisor and centre coordinator before handing in the project for marking.

weekly project log

Documents