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Assignment Question When studying for a diploma or degree programme there will be many situations where you will need to conduct some form of research

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Assignment Question

When studying for a diploma or degree programme there will be many situations where you will need to conduct some form of research. This is necessary as you will need to gather information on a particular subject, evaluate it and present it within your own work. In today’s world, the Internet undoubtedly provides an invaluable reservoir of information. However, we must be careful as not all sources are academically sound. For instance, blogs and forums are not accepted as academic sources as they merely express an opinion of a person or group of persons. For a source to be academically sound it needs to go through a review process by other academics, before eventually being published in a journal or presented in some conference.

Google Scholar is a search engine specifically built for scholarly articles. This search engine looks up documents specifically within the academic world and not anywhere on the web. Some of these documents are available free of charge while others require payment or subscription, depending on where the particular document is being hosted.

This assignment is geared to help you appreciate the importance of using academic sound sources as well as to start getting familiar with Google Scholar. This search engine should be an integral part of your research tools along your programme of studies.

Task 1 - Getting Familiar with Google Scholar

In this first part of the assignment you need to get familiar with Google Scholar.  Follow the steps below:

1. Log into Google Scholar at https://scholar.google.com/
2. Type “Data protection act” in the search field and press the search button.

 

3. Spend a few moments to get used to the interface you see. Some points worth nothing are

 

• In the area labelled [A] above you find filters for the dates. As much as possible, we limit our research to articles which are less than 10 years old. This is particularly important for technology research which must be rather current.
• In the area labelled [B] above you find a brief description of the respective article. There is also a very important parameter which is the number of citations. This is an indication of how good a particular source is … the higher number of citations, the stronger is the source likely to be.
• In the area labelled [C] above you find any attachments to download. When a document is available free of charge (usually in PDF) it is shown here. If a particular link does not show anything in this part of the screen, most likely you will need to subscribe or pay to have that particular article.

For Task 1 you are to submit screenshots to show that you went through the process above. Include a brief description of what you did also.

Task 2 - Conducting a Research

In this second part of the assignment, you need to conduct a research of your own using Google scholar.

You should follow the steps in Task 1 to help with this exercise.

As a topic for research we will look into the botnets and you need to do the following:

• Search for botnets in Google Scholar and concentrate on articles from the last 5 years.
• From the articles in your search, explain what botnets are and provide some background information together with relevant examples.

In all, the Task 2 above should amount to 500 words. Include screenshots of your searches and results from Google Scholar.

Searches from Google Scholar ONLY will be accepted and these need to be complemented with the respective screenshots.

All sources of information and images must be appropriately cited and referenced. You should use the author-date system of referencing, for example, (Borg, 2018). You can use citation tools to help you with the citations and references. For instance, Microsoft Word has inbuilt functionalities related to referencing that you may use.

Structure of the report

You need to compile your answers in a report and submit one PDF document. The report should be structured as follows:

1. Cover page showing all your relevant details (including name, SM No, programme of study, unit and title of assignment).
2. Table of Contents - optional but good practice.
3. Introduction - In the introduction you should briefly mention what the assignment is about and also indicate how your document is structured.
4. Provide your answers to the questions set out for this coursework (Task 1 and Task 2).
5. Conclusion – In the conclusion you briefly outline what the assignment was about and what you did. Being an academic exercise it is also important to say what you learnt from the assignment and/or what you found particularly challenging to do and how you tackled this.

Further guidelines

• Use subheadings in the sections above to divide your work accordingly. Avoid having one whole long essay.
• Start each section on a new page.
• Where necessary use diagrams and explain them.
• Use the template provided and retain a professional look.
• All information (including diagrams) must be well referenced. ? Use spelling and grammar checks!

Marking scheme

Introduction	5%
Task 1	5%
Task 2	50%
Conclusion	5%
Presentation	15%
References	20%

 

END OF COURSEWORK