Title Content

Title page Project title, your name, student number and course
Abstract This is a short statement summarising the most important points in your
report for an expert audience.

Note: Since the abstract is aimed at an expert audience it is the only section
of the report where you don’t need to include in-text references or define
specialist terms.

Contents Full contents listing including the titles of individual appendices

Introduction This is a general introduction to your report for a non-expert audience

 Explain the purpose of your project, and summarise the aims,
objectives and rationale
 The final paragraph should give a short outline of the structure of
the rest of the report
 Remember to define any specialist terminology you use in this, and
subsequent, sections and include in-text references to support your
points.

Review of literature This chapter places your project in context by summarising what is already
known about the problem you are tackling, including a discussion of any
similar solutions developed by others. Ensure that you:
 Provide relevant details from current books, academic journals,
conference papers and other literature you have read as
preparation for your project
 Outline the development and applicability of current ideas,
methods and products relevant to your project
 Mention important findings which will influence the development
of your product later in your project
 Discuss possible alternative approaches and justify your reasons for
rejecting them.

Review of You should do practical research into tools, technologies and products
technologies appropriate to the development of your product. Ensure that you:
 Include a review of any practical work you have done to:
o Assess alternative development technologies, tools or
platforms
o Test your ideas by creating prototypes for part, or all, of
your product
o Develop your technical skills
 Mention important findings about technologies which will influence
the development of your product later in your project
 Discuss possible alternative technologies and justify your reasons
for rejecting them.

Methodology and A review of your research into methodologies and design approaches that
design help you to develop your product. Methodologies can be formal or
informal but the specific methods you choose should be based on research
and should form a framework for your product development. Ensure that
you:
  Mention all the key stages of product development and link your
proposed methodology to your project plans
 Discuss possible alternative methodologies and justify your reasons
for rejecting them.
 Detail the design process carried out to support product
development
 Describe the design techniques used and explain why they are
appropriate for your project
 Discuss possible alternative design techniques and justify your
reasons for rejecting them.

You may wish to include a section which identifies product requirements, or

you could make this an appendix and simply refer to it at relevant points.

Implementation and This is where you write about the development of the product itself. The
testing actual contents of this chapter depend on the type of project and the
product which was developed.

You should discuss the product that you have developed:

 When discussing code that you have written use short screenshots
showing just the most relevant lines of code and refer to the
appendix where you have placed the full code listing
 When discussing non-text-based software artefacts that you have
developed, or hardware you have created or used, include
screenshots or images to illustrate your discussion.

You should also discuss how you tested your product to ensure quality. This
should include tests conducted by you during development, and user-
testing of the finished product (or product prototype).

Product evaluation This chapter evaluates the success of the produced product.

Evaluation is not the same as testing. You should evaluate the product by
comparing the implemented product to what you originally planned. Refer
to your original product specification and assess the extent to which each
requirement has been fulfilled.

Some projects (especially those based on collecting empirical data) may also
require an explicit Results section in support of the product evaluation.

Project evaluation This is a key chapter which should evaluate the success of the project as a
whole. Ensure that you:
 Provide evidence of how you used project management techniques
 Refer back to the original aim and objectives of the project and
assess how well these have been addressed
 Highlight problems/issues you encountered to present an honest
and balanced evaluation
 Identify the successes of the project overall, and of the project
management methods employed.
Summary and Summarise your findings, recommendations and present conclusions based
conclusions on your research, product development and results of evaluation.

Include recommendations for how you might have completed the project
differently in view of your current knowledge.

Define future work that could be done on the project to further refine and
develop current outcomes.

Bibliography A comprehensive list of all the source consulted and referred during your
project.

Refer to the booklet “Quote, Unquote” (see Reading List on MyBeckett) for
details of the correct citation and referencing method to use.

Appendices Evidence supporting your project may be added in appendices. Any

important information which cannot be contained in the body of your
report should appear in an Appendix. Typical content would be as follows.
Note the ordering and exact content of the appendices may vary
significantly from project to project.

Appendix A. Supporting evidence of a professional approach to product

development, e.g. evidence of the application of the SDLC
such as detailed design documents.
Appendix B. Supporting evidence of your research and product evaluation
(for example, the results of interviews and product testing)
Appendix C. Supporting evidence of project management (examples may
include, reflective journal, production schedules, minutes of
meetings – with team or client, action points, Gantt charts)
Appendix D. Evidence of working in a professional manner (for example,
blogs, diaries, document repository, backup plan,
communication plan, risk analysis)
Appendix E. Various versions of your Project Plan with a brief commentary
on the reasons for changes.
Appendix F. a User Guide or instructions for your product, if you think this
will be useful.
Appendix G. Code listings for all code you have referred to in the report.

You may add more appendices or combine them differently, as you wish. In
fact, any important information which cannot be contained in the body of
your report should appear in an Appendix.