Scientific Method for Wikimedians/Introduction

Slide deck of Introduction

video of 1st deck of the Introduction

This session is a brief introduction to the MOOC: 'Scientific method for Wikimedians, it can be divided into six main categories:

1. Tutor introduction: Name and small brief about me.
2. Structure of the course: the main parts of it and what are the chapters within each part.
3. Learning outcomes: what are you going to learn and gain from this course.
4. General Notes: these notes are classified into two main categories the pre-requests and the recommendation:
   1. The pre-request would include what you need to be able to make the most benefit of this course
   2. The general recommendation is some general nodes I have noted in my experience that can help you concentrate on the course and make the greatest output of it.
5. The recommended references, it's my preferences but I really recommend you to give it a look.

Tutor introduction

Michel Bakni portrait in 2019

My name is Michel Bakni.

I hold a Ph.D. in electronics I also have a master's degree in informatics. I have been in Academia for more than eight years. I work mainly in the education department but I also do some research. Currently, I'm a pedagogical engineer at ESTIA, it's a French engineering school located in the Basque country.

In this engineering school, I have been teaching the scientific method to fresh Engineers for the last three years. My main domain of activity is internet communication wireless sensor Networks, and energy consumption if you have some time I would like you to give it a try and look at the last book I published last year and you can find the bibliography

Structure of the Course

This course is composed of five main parts and a total of 20 chapters.

First, we will talk about What is knowledge what is the meaning of this word and how we handle this word in our daily life.

Then I will talk about the methodologies used in the research domain one of these methodologies is the scientific method which is the main subject we are addressing in this course and this is part one in part two we will talk about the research itself how we can conduct a good result research how we can create a plan for this research and the third part is going to be the sources that you are going to use in your research after you create your plan you need to start collecting information you need to make a survey maybe you need to read papers that were created by other authors in the same domain all of these subjects are going to be included in part three part four is about analyzing data and how we can use mathematics and statistics to make the most important to read the data and to analyze it to make the most important to read the most important part of it and in the final part we are going to talk about how do we write a good research report

we are going to discuss two main points first is the structure of the report and then we are going to talk about the format of the reports let's dive now in the first part to see what are the chapters included within it this part includes five chapters

1. The first chapter discusses knowledge in this chapter we are going to define the word and talk about its types
2. In The second chapter we are going to talk about what is scientific fact what is reality and how we can say about something that is really a fact from the scientific point of view
3. The chapter 3 we are going to discuss the methodologies used in the research domain we are going to pick up one of these methodologies which is the scientific one and we will discuss it in detail in this chapter
5. in the final chapter in this part we are going to address the research question the research question is the problem that the research is trying to find a solution for it

Part two includes three chapters it's called the research plan

6. In the first chapter in this part we are going to discuss the concept of defining the research question as the main pillar to creating your research because, without a good definition of the research question, there can be no research at all
7. Chapter 7 discusses the concept of the state of the art which means what are the current technical status that the world has achieved regarding the research question we are trying to answer
8. Chapter 8 discuss designing a research method to be good and solid.

Part three we can see that it includes six chapters and it talks about the sources that are accepted in the research domain:
9. In Chapter 9 we are going to talk about Publications what they are what is considered reliable publications and how we can cite them.
10. In chapter 10 we are going to talk about taking samples from the audience what is the concept and how we can go take reliable samples and of course
11. we are going to use surveys to do that this is going to be the main subject we address in chapter 11 which is called samples and their types and in this chapter we will mainly focus on the type of surveys and how we create them and when do we create each one of them

in the next two chapters, we are going to address the questions that we need to keep putting in our survey there are two types of questions the direct one and the indirect one
14. In chapter 14th we are going to discuss the ethics of the research because if you start collecting data from people there should always be a moral aspect and this moral aspect is going to be the subject we're going to discuss in chapter 14 of this course now

if we look at part four we can see that it includes four chapters and it mainly address the concept of analyzing data:
15. The 15th chapter is talking about how we prepare data to be analyzed how we sort them how we delete the repeated piece of data and so on after the data is sorted.
16. we need to address them in a table form and this is going to be the subject of chapter 16 where we are going really to talk about the technical part of how we can address sorted types of data.
17. In chapter 17 we are going to explain what are the graphics what are types of graphics used to show the data present the data and when we use each one of them
18. finally, in chapter 18 we are going to speak a little bit about statistics tools it's a branch of mathematics that address analyzing raw data and this is going to be chapter 18 and the end of part 4.

Finally, in part 5, we have only two chapters:
19. the first one is how do we write down or how do we create the structure of the research reports what are the main parts of these reports and what kind of information or text we need to put in each part of it for example we should not start by the results we should start by showing the problem results normally come at the end of the report.

20. In the last chapter of part 5 and the last chapter of this course we are going to show you how we can format a research report so now let me jump with you to what you are going to gain if you successfully arrive at the end of this course

Learning outcomes

you will learn about the history of the scientific method who created how we arrive at the point we are today and how humanity make use of this method

the second thing that you are going to gain is you will learn how you can create a research plan it's a critical step when you are going to conduct research and you're going to learn it by the end of this course

Additionally, you will be able to detect what are the good sources for the research what are sources that are acceptable in the research domain and you will learn how to cite them in a proper way this is a very important skill not only in the research domain but also in the daily life because we are living in a world where we have a lot of fake news and be able to detect what are the acceptable sources is really a great skill in these times and last but not least you are going to learn how to how you can create a surveys how you can collect data from the people and how you can analyze the data that you have collected

Finally, you will be able to write down a research report in a good format

General Notes

Prerequests

what do you need to be able to follow this course and what are my personal recommendations for you if you said that yes I will take this course and I will follow it to the end regarding the pre-required first of all you need to have a very solid level of English we are going to use very academic English words so you need to be familiar with that second as you saw before we will touch some statistics so you need to have a basic knowledge of math and you should be able to handle numbers with no problems and the last requirement asked for from you to be able to follow this course is the basic knowledge of the Microsoft Office, especially we are going to use the award and Excel the word program you are going to use it to create the research report in a good shape and a good format and the Excel is a very great tool to sort the data and analyze it

general recommendation

This course is talking about very abstract concepts and philosophical ideas so it's a really heavy charge so when you want to watch these videos you have to be free and you give it to stay present this means that close all the windows on your PC don't look to your emails while you are watching because if you get confused if you lost your attention you need to repeat again and again the same video to be able to understand its content and this is really time wasting

I also advise you to bring a paper and a pen and take notes this is a great way of learning when you are watching the video you can take note of it and then you can easily revise what is the content of this video later and finally as I said in the start of this video this is a 40 hour course so you need really to be organized you need to organize your time you need to create your order how many video you're going to watch per week how many hours you're going to give per week is it going to be a two-month course is it going to be a three-month course are you able to finish it in one month you need to do that you need to create that before you start preparing for this course and the last part of this video is just some recommended references based on my personal preferences here and on the screen you can see multiple references books I really advise you to search for them you can find them on the Internet or if you have the possibility to buy one of them at least it will be a great a great help for you the course is really complete and you don't need to apply any book to be able to follow the course but this can be really an extra source of information that you can use while you are doing the course

Recommended references

The Beginner's Guide to Scientific Method it's a small book with a very organized structure that can guide you to be able to fit to contact very good research. The second book the one with the red cover is really addressing the scientific method from a historical and philosophical point of view this is one of my best references when we are talking about addressing the method from the historical point of view