This weeks required blog post is on research questions. I am still working on trying to figure out how to put an appropriate research question together. Especially based around my areas of interest, narrative design and big data analytics.
I spent a few moments writing questions down for each of these topics. The one that interests me most in the big data section is “Why do we need/want to analyse data”. How would I research this question? Well I would need to look back at the beginning. The beginning of the realization that the data we are storing could be used for something and go from there. Who was the first people/company to analyse big data and for what? Most of the answers to this question is going to come from historical documentation about the first companies to use data analytics.
I am not really sure what the final outcome of this would be other than a research paper around big data analytics.
My other idea around Big Data was to create a course for polytechnics such as NMIT to teach Big Data. For this my question could be how do you learn to analyse data? Here I would need to figure out the basics of analysing data. What tools are needed and how they work. What programming language is used. Is statistics a needed requirement prior to learning about big data analytics or could it be taught, specifically for big data analytics. What are the NZQA requirements around courses like this. It would be a matter of researching all about big data analytics. Coming to an understanding of the tools used and the programming language used. Being able to talk to people who teach or who are being taught this type of course. Speaking with NZQA and also tutors who put courses together.
The final outcome of this would be a course that could possibly be taken to NZQA and a board and made into a actual line of study at the polytech level.
In regards to Narrative design, I would like to figure out what makes a good narrative design. Along with this would be a look at how narrative design has changed over the years, why it has become important and why gamers are moving more and more towards games with a rich narrative design. For this I would look at board games and the evolution of online games. Survey gamers of all ages. Speak with people who work in game narrative design. Play games.
The final outcome of this would be a research paper on narrative design. What it is, how it is done well and a look at how it has progressed over history and possibly some forward thinking on it.
All of these ideas are great. I also came up with another one. I am great at coming up with ideas. It is based in part on something that Clare (tutor) came up with in regards to viewing big data analytics. I took that thought and have been working it in my head, but basing it around a networking line. I am currently working in a virtual environment and thought it would be amazing to see a 3D representation of this virtual network. Being able to select one of the ESXi hosts and drilling down into it and seeing the individual VMs places within and instead of imagining how the cables would look placing them in and seeing how the traffic flows from a vm into a physical world. Being able to watch the packets of data move back and forth. I also thought it would be good to drill down further and look at the machine itself and see how the TCP/IP stack (OSI model) takes the data and moves through its various stages from application (layer 7) down through the layers to physical (layer 1) and out.
To do this I would need to know how to create a 3D world and all the facets around it. Understand completely how traffic flows over a network. Understand the TCP/IP stack. Be able to show the traffic moving. It would even be cool if it could be done in real time. I.E taking TALOS for instance and creating a 3D version of it, showing traffic as it is flowing in real time. Creating a bottleneck and showing that in a 3D world. I just think programs like this would help students better understand how a network works, plus visual representation helps understanding. Which would be my final goal if this was to be my project. It would be a development project.
RES 701 