Good Methods For Selecting Dissertation Topics In Data Mining

With the rise of technology, topics like data mining have been growing increasingly popular in dissertations. There are a number of different ways to approach this topic, and students need to choose the right one before they begin. Once the student has chosen the right topic, they should discuss their choice with their academic adviser because the academic adviser will be able to tell the student if the topic will be easy to research.

• Covering Current Techniques

One of the first options is to consider the ways that data mining techniques can be improved. Students must have a strong background in technology if they plan on doing this topic because the techniques can be technologically and intellectually challenging. For an even more unique approach, students can cover ways that current data mining techniques can be improved. Comparing and discussing current techniques is interesting, but finding a way to improve algorithmic, mathematical or other techniques would make a contribution to the current state of the field.

• Choosing a Technique to Improve

If students want to write a dissertation on improving current techniques, they will need to decide which technique they want to focus on. Students could work in outlier detection, neural networks, algorithms, clustering, association rule mining or another field. Since it is always easier to research a topic that the student cares about, students should pick the topic that they feel the most comfortable with.

• Using Data Mining in the Real World

For a unique dissertation, students could find specific data sets that they want to analyze. Cancer data, stroke-related deaths, smoking deaths, graduation rates and a wide range of topics could be chosen for analysis. Students could also combine a new data mining technique to show how it would work and compare its effectiveness using one of these topics.

• Ask a Professor

If it seems impossible to find a single topic, students should not lose hope quite yet. Their academic adviser or a knowledgeable professor can help. Students can make time to visit their professor during office hours to discuss all of the possibilities. The field of data mining is exceptionally large and complex, so it may take expert advice to find a topic. At the very least, students will want to get their academic adviser's approval before they begin working on their chosen subject. Once students have obtained this approval, they can begin working on their data mining dissertation.