What my group originally decided on was to do a white paper on was wireless network security. My research in the situation was going to be on WEP/WPA key protection. I believe that the type of research that I would most need is the technical data about how effective this key protection would be and how it compares to other variants of security. We are however changing course since the solution the wireless security could include all the options we were thinking and it was not a necessity to pick from our choices as a white paper usually implies. So now, we are headed in the direction of wireless routers themselves. The choice is between several different options of router so I think the research ideas from the previous proposed subject still apply and are very parallel. I will likely be researching one specific router so I will do my best to find out the technical specs of it in comparative terms to its competition. I’ll apply methods as laid out in the Thomson Handbook to do my research. My method of writing down info for my research will likely be a simple word document that I can lay out all the important facts on thus making it easier for me to go back and forth between Google Docs. I think the specifics that I will want to scour out of the internet would be important specs like the router speed, size, cost, and hardware/software requirements. Other important research to be done would be to find out how user friendly the peripheral is. This will be harder to find than simple numbers. If possible I would like to get an online manual to see how well the instructions are laid out. I will also definitely be looking at user and critic reviews to see what has troubled people with the item in question. I think this type of research will be effective and I will be able to stay unbiased since I am focused on a single option of our choices.
Good ideas
I like your ideas to look at the instructions manuals of the router you end up looking at. I've been trying to think of different parameters for us to look at today, too, and that was a really different one that I hadn't come across yet!
I also think it's a really great idea to check out user reviews and critiques of the product. This will help us get a more human view on the problems with the different products, which will be good. I imagine it will be a much needed break from the technological side of our paper!
Kristin
Please incorporate the reading
You have provided an outline of your research plan here. However, please also incorporate information about how the TH reading for this week might help you accomplish your research goals (because this is a Reading Response). These responses are our main way to ensure that students are keeping up with the reading material.
User Friendly
I like your idea about researching how user friendly your different options are. As with any type of writing, the most important thing with white papers is to focus on your audience. One thing you may want to keep in mind, though, is that you can't just research how user friendly each one is individually. You have to find out how user friendly they are in the parameters that your audience will use. For instance if you are focusing on corporations, people may love a certain router in their home, but maybe it doesn't have the range that a corporation would need. Just because most people love the router, doesn't necessarily mean that your audience will, or at least not for the same reasons.
Extract information from the market
As a corollary to what Bill said, I think you are correct that this information of how user friendly the options are will be difficult to procure. Comparing instructions is a good idea, but also try to extract as much information as you can about user-friendliness from ratings and other market material. It would be helpful to have an idea of what the market thinks of the products' user-friendliness instead of just relying on your own judgement. I do think examining user-friendliness is a really good idea, instead of just sticking to specifications and statistics.
Audience
Just like everyone else said, the audience should be the number one concern while working on almost any project. The ability to catch someone's attention and keep it throughout the presentation is crucial. If the attention of the audience is not captured then there really is no reason to be doing to project because no one is going to listen to what is being said. This is especially crucial for the white paper project because the whole idea is to pitch an idea to some one and try to sell the idea.