PhD Info

Methodology

Research methodology

• Mary Shaw on writing good software engineering papers
• Practical Research by Paul D. Leedy, Jeanne Ellis Ormrod: research method for non technical developments. The book has been reedited since.
• La méthode expérimentale, The OHERIC method
• un doc très précis sur la méthode expérimentale, à destination des psychologues de Paris Ouest

Typography

• Edit you Latex documents with Texnic Center and Miktex
• Learn Latex for professional publishing
• Some typo hints by Jacques Andre (in French)

Bibliography

• Find publications with Google scholar
• Find publications at Service Commun de la documentation, Unistra

Misc tools

• Manage development projects with ICube Forge
• Manage your meeting with Doodle
• Manage your tasks with Trello
• Share documents with Google Drive
• Edit documents collaboratively with Google Docs

Standard planning

Some tipps by Fred Le Mouel

• Calendrier prévisionnel du déroulement d'une thèse

For my own students

• Goal
  • 5 conference papers, 2 journals

• Year 1
  • Before you start
    • Prospective thesis outline
    • Scientific method to be used
    • Technical goals of the project
  • Feasability study (4 months)
    • State of the art
    • Proof-of-concept (PoC) of the thesis goal
    • Conference paper: typically a small conference, for learning writing
    • Project Poster
  • Iteration 1: core of scientific contribution (8 months)
    • Rewrite core research question, write a domain survey
    • Formalise scientific contribution, develop PoC of the contribution
    • Conference paper
  • End of the year
    • Rewrite thesis subject
    • Rewrite prospective thesis outline
    • 1 page on project progress
• Year 2
  • Iteration 2: refine/extend scientific contribution (6 months)
    • Research question, domain survey
    • Formalise scientific contribution, develop PoC of the contribution
    • Conference paper
    • Journal paper
  • Iteration 3: refine/extend again (6 months)
    • Find partners abroad
    • Research question, domain survey
    • Formalise scientific contribution, develop PoC of the contribution
    • Conference paper
  • End of the year
    • Rewrite prospective thesis outline
    • 1 page on project progress
• Year 3
  • Iteration 4: refine/extend again (6 months)
    • Research question, domain survey
    • Formalise scientific contribution, develop PoC of the contribution
    • Conference paper
    • Journal paper
  • Redaction (6 months)
    • Finalize thesis outline
    • Make missing contributions
    • Write (4 months)

Bootstrap you PhD

• Find founding and advisor
• Define the objective (both technical and scientific), get thesis subject
• Find: the suitable scientific community, target conferences and journals
  • Identify conferences and journals where your team is involved in
  • Identify A* and A level conferences for your topic: CorePortal
• Make the administrative part
  • Apply for your doctoral college. In Strasbourg, MSII
  • For Cifre application, apply to the Cifre website
  • This directory may be useful for informations about french labs and doctoral colleges.