HINF6230

Overview

Students will be required to complete two project type activities: (1) Review Paper (2)  KM Solution Project. 

1. Review Paper

Each Student is required to review, critique and extend a healthcare KM topic based on available literature. Initial list of research topics is provided by the instructor, but students can propose their own topic of interest. A review involves (a) understanding the knowledge management relevance to the research question; (b) thorough literature review/critique to demonstrate past approaches to address the research topic; (c) discussion on the topic from your view point; and (d) extensions to the topic in terms of an analysis, commentary and conclusion. 

The review paper should present: (a) clear research question that is being investigated, (b) relevance of healthcare knowledge management techniques to research question; (c) thorough literature review/critique that demonstrates past approaches to address the research question; (d) critical analysis of the literature with your assessments and commentary, and (e) if possible a proposed extension to the existing approaches.  The review paper should clearly demonstrate the your contribution to the topic. 

1.1. Research Themes

A list of knowledge management research themes is given below. Students can also suggest their own topics.

Decision Support

Knowledge Sharing

Personalized Healthcare

Care Planning

Patient Self-Management and Home-Based Care

Web 2.0 Applications for Patient Care

Health data integration (semantic interoperability)

Health data mining

Health data warehouses

E-Health and KM

Patient Empowerment

1.2. Deliverables

The project deliverables are as follows:

1. Project Title and Abstract: Submit the project title, 5 keywords best describing your project and a 1 page abstract summarizing your project objectives, the healthcare problem/issue being addressed. 

Use the following abstract template to prepare the abstract. Failure to comply with the given abstract template may result in the deduction of marks. Note that your project abstract will be posted on the course website.

2. Conference Paper: Report your research as a conference paper. The maximum length of the conference paper is 12 pages. Given the page limit you need to use your judgment with regards to how much you want to talk about the different aspects of the project. Note that the purpose of the conference paper is to present your research work in a clear and systematic manner to the readers who should be able to easily identify and appreciate your research contributions.  Hence, the research objectives, research question/problem, literature review,  methodology, solution details and conclusions. A convoluted and ill-presented paper, despite reporting wonderful research work, is usually not well received by readers as they find it difficult to get a clear understanding of the research problem/question and the solution. 

In writing the paper you may need to ask and answer the following questions: (a) what is the theme of the paper ; (b) want are the research questions that you may want to pursue; (c) what are the different sections of the paper; (d) what aspects do you think are important and how to present them to make maximum impact; and (e) how to highlight your research contributions..

Depending on the quality of the research paper, opportunities will be explored to submit your papers to health/medical informatics and knowledge management conferences.

Use the following paper template to prepare the conference paper. Failure to comply with the given paper template may result in the deduction of marks.

You are required to submit the electronic softcopy (both MS Word or PDF files). The conference paper will be posted on the course web-site and made available to all the students.

1.3. Evaluation Aspects

In general, evaluation of the project will be based on the following aspects: coverage of the literature review and a critical analysis of the knowledge management methods related to the healthcare problem being addressed, soundness of research methodology; quality,  feasibility and depth of the solution; degree of innovation; understanding and aptness of the technical methods presented. The project report will be evaluated based on the quality of the content, presentation and bibliography. Measurable aspects for these three elements are given below:

Content: Clear definition of problem, project objectives, quality of arguments, quality of the discussion, relevance to the literature, validity and clarity of proposed solution, technical details, rationale for the technical/operational choices, critical analysis of the problem and the proposed solution and so on.

Presentation: Clarity of purpose, technical writing style; flow of the discussion by way of linking content across different paragraphs; organization of the content into meaningful heading, sub-heading and paragraphs; highlighting important points using italics (no underlining); highlighting salient steps, functionalities, salient points using bullet-points and indentation; avoiding repetition; avoiding spelling and grammatical errors; and utilization of available page limit--note that too much writing is not necessarily good writing. Use of tables and diagrams is recommended, for instance comparative analysis of methods and a summary of the literature review can be presented as tables. Whereas, process flow, dataflow, research methodology and system design are best described as diagrams.

Bibliography: It is important that you cite related research work in your discussion. Lack of citations implies that the problem (and solution) was not thoroughly researched and the author is not able to link his/her work with the research literature. However, it is important that the bibliography is not frivolous--i.e. it includes only those  references that you have read and understood. Quality and relevance of the bibliography will be judged. 

Part of the evaluation involves a peer-review by fellow students. The conference paper will be subject to peer-review. The percentage of marks available for peer-review will be determined later and students will be notified of the evaluation scheme before the evaluation activity.

2. KM Solution Project

Students will be required to conceptualize a 'realistic' KM solution for a healthcare problem. This will involve (a) a thorough understanding of the healthcare issue and determining whether it is an issue that demands a KM solution--note that not all problems can be solved by a KM solution; (b) identifying what aspects of the problem you plan to address in terms of a problem specification document; (c) determine the functionality of the proposed solution, (d) determine the operational conditions in which the solution will be operationalized--for instance who is going to use the solution, how users are going to use the solution, and how will it impact improvement in healthcare, (e) identify challenges in the deployment of the solution and the potential benefits, (d) present an evaluation strategy to measure the effectiveness of the solution. You are strongly advised to present the technical and functional details of your solution. This can be demonstrated by drawing system diagrams highlighting the various components of the solution with clearly identified relationships between modules with their input and outputs.

The abovementioned topics also serve as a guide for this project as well.

Each group is required to present their KM solution  in class to their peers, and respond to questions arising after  their presentation. Each student in the group is required to demonstrate a solid understanding of the overall solution and highlight his/her part of the overall solution.

Students are advised to:

1. Form a group. It is better to have diversity in a group such that there are people from different backgrounds.

2. As a group identify a healthcare problem and work out a potential solution approach (you can start with more than one approach and then narrow down to the most viable approach)

3. Inform the instructor, by email, about your project and the group-members

2.1  Evaluation Aspects

In general, evaluation of the KM solution will be based on the following aspects: (a) understanding of the problem, (b) suitability of the solution approach to the problem, (c) technical quality, completeness and correctness of the proposed solution, (d) practicality of the proposed solution, (e) soundness of the evaluation strategy, and (f) innovation in the design of the solution. Of course, presentation of the solution is an important component of the evaluation.