November 3, 2011

• Meeting the professor

  Meeting the professor

  PhD 

  This morning I went to see Prof. Du Preez to discuss the presentation of my proposal for my #Doctorate research in #Industrial_Engineering. I am focusing my #PhD research on information management in #parliaments in order to support democratic processes and collaboration between parliaments. This morning I wanted to focus on the methodology I am proposing. I was uncertain if I included sufficient detail and clarity. The meeting was salubrious with the professor providing feedback on how he understood my proposal. I then commented on the feedback by pointing out both differences and points of agreement. He confirmed that the methodology I want to follow is sound and made two contributions.

  Firstly he requested that I start a bit more on a theoretical basis than what I anticipated. I have to show how reference models like the Zachman framework and other enterprise architecture models developed as an attempt to provide tools for engineering an enterprise or an industry. He also helped me a lot to give credibility to my methodology by reflecting how the methodology relates to an Enterprise architecture approach where the architect moves from a generic model to a partial model to a specific model and finally to an implementation instance.

  Although his input did not change the fundamental academic methodology it did add considerably my methodology by showing that the methodology is also a sound engineering problem solving approach. In terms of the further discussions he advised that I highlight how I am mitigating the risk areas of such a project such as: Timeline, costs, practicality etc. We also discussed how I will formulate the contribution that this PhD will make on several levels. I still have some preparation to do and changes to make to the presentation for tomorrow. I am glad that the professor felt enthused by my proposal and that he expressed his confidence in the proposal. 

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