The Problem is ‘the problem’.
What is the problem space of my research? More concretely, what exactly is my research question?
I started pondering this question back in early January 2014 and now it is early July 2014.
What is my problem in getting to my research question?
Well, for the past 2 months I got interrupted and distracted (yet again!) by having to find new supervisors. My Cass supervisor left Cass Business School, and my main supervisor in Computer Science department in the School of Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering (newly combined school) left City at the end of June. It has been quite a frustrating experience in many ways. I now know why students move with their supervisors, if they have the choice. I don’t have the choice (I am funded by the Computer Science department) so it boils down to finding supervisors that want to supervisor me, and also interested in my topic of interests.
Hopefully I don’t have to go through another drama involving change of supervisors, as I don’t want to have to change my research topic and interests. My problem space involves not just finding my research question but how to remain in the research space I want to work on. Doing a PhD research is dealing and coping with change, nothing new or profound. The biggest problem is I am losing time, and this is probably my biggest challenge as I can’t turn back the clock.
Back to now…
What is my research question?
I am aware that a thesis or research outcome has to have ‘depth and substance’. I started off early this year planning on doing a multidisciplinary research. Now I am struggling to find a way to do this, partly because of the change of supervisors, and mostly because multidisciplinary research across schools just don’t work. The University just don’t have the structure to facilitate or encourage multidisciplinary research. Having gone through the process of finding supervisors from different schools highlighted the sad state of affairs. So, I have no choice but to change focus by removing aspects of my research interests.
I am still particularly drawn to social technical issues, issues involving technology and law especially matters with data protection and privacy in the context of organisation business environment. For my research space, technology falls into my solution space not in my problem space.
My problem space is organisations in cyberspace and their relationships in cyberspace and the issues with data loss and data breach.