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It is my first time writing an article on a software project. I am supposed to use ACM UbiComp paper format. I already have a structure that I should follow and there is a Background & Research Methods section after Abstract, Introduction, Related Work sections. I have browser through several articles, but some of them either dont have it, have only background section or have only research methods section. I am having hard time to find an article that has this section and moreover what I must write on here. My project is about Bluetooth location tracking and I do have the implementation and evaluation, so it is not something theoretical.

sterz
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  • Sooo... what's your question? – Michael K Dec 03 '10 at 17:46
  • what should i write there? and some articles that i can use for inspiration and follow their structure on this section. – sterz Dec 03 '10 at 17:47
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    Seems like you should document the background of your project (referencing the background examples you found) and the research methods you used (reference the research methods examples you found). – BenV Dec 03 '10 at 17:51
  • At the risk of sounding simplistic, you should write some background about your paper, and describe the research you conducted. See here for a background example: http://www.sportsci.org/jour/9901/wghpaper.html – Robert Harvey Dec 03 '10 at 17:51
  • the problem is with **research methods**. i have not actually sat down and scientifically researched anything. i build my project on existing frameworks and APIs. surely i read articles about the projects that have been done on the field and talked about them in related work section. – sterz Dec 03 '10 at 17:53
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    You should ask whoever is requiring you to follow this template for some guidance. – Macneil Dec 03 '10 at 20:57
  • I ended up talking briefly about the technologies/frameworks used and the aim of the project. I know this is not proper but I am waiting for the feedback. – sterz Dec 14 '10 at 16:44
  • the feedback: not so good – sterz Jan 24 '11 at 18:31

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In your Introduction, you will have set out the problem your project is addressing; and in the Related Work section, you should have described similar projects that address slightly different problems, in particular highlighting why they don't address your problem. That provides the justification for why you worked on your project.

For the Background and Research Methods section, while the section title is a little inappropriate for a software development project, you need to describe the steps you took leading up to actually implementing your project. This may be complicated, because there's often an iterative process of trying something out and then revising it if it doesn't work out. Some of the things you could cover are:

  • Any technical background that's necessary to understand the rest of the article. But consider your audience: presumably you don't need to describe in depth what Bluetooth is, but you may want to describe the particular facets that are directly relevant to location tracking.
  • The setup of your development environment. E.g. what Bluetooth hardware/software development platform you used. (I don't know anything about Bluetooth development, so this may not make sense.)
  • What different approaches you considered to solving the problem.
  • How you selected the approach you eventually used, including what the criteria for making the decision were.
  • What problems you encountered that didn't have an immediate obvious answer; elaborate on the techniques you used to solve the problems.

The section should prepare the reader for the Implementation section, which should describe in detail the interesting parts of the implementation as a system. There may be some overlap with things you've already discussed in the previous section, so aim to cover each topic in detail in one section or the other, not both.

In summary, the section needs to cover all those things that were going on in your head in between formulating the problem you wanted to solve, and actually developing the implementation. You probably made some "aha!" realisations during that period that were critical to being able to complete the implementation -- you need to help other people understand those.

TimB
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