Thesis information for students at School of Information Technology

The thesis work is often an entrance to the first employment as engineer or researcher or continued studies after graduation and shall show that the student has attained the level of knowledge, skills and understanding needed to successfully do and report an satisfactory thesis in the study direction. Below you can find links to helpful pages regarding how to write and publish your thesis.

• Course syllabus
• Grading criteria Pdf, 25.3 kB, opens in new window.
• Automatic generation of thesis front pages
• Master thesis template (MS-Word) Word, 128.3 kB.
• Master thesis template (LaTeX) Zip, 388 kB.

The process includes the following main elements:

Subject selection

The thesis subject must be selected so that it is relevant for the education program as well as opportunity to show the students skills in using the knowledge for analysis and solution of a thesis task within direction of the program. The examiner does not accept theses that do not meet these criteria.

The typical thesis is an analysis or synthesis investigation, related to an embedded system, a computer system, a computer program, a communication protocol, a robot, an electronic sensor, a controller, or the use of services or systems based on such techniques or innovations etc. The thesis may also consist of a survey investigation. Such an investigation shall be intended to be used as a basis for decisions in a company or organization.

The assignment of proposals will be based on the following criteria:

• Preferences
• Backgrounds and grades (prerequisites)
• Teamwork (for most proposals it's preferred to work in groups of two students)

The work can also be carried out in close cooperation with a company. Thus to find a project, identify a company or business area that you would like to work in and contact them (send them a presentation of yourself). Use contacts you already have, for example, the companies you worked for in the past. They may have several thesis project proposals.

The examiner or course responsible provide access to thesis proposals that emerge both from within the university and from companies. You might also get own ideas or ideas to contact companies from previous thesis on your program.

An information meeting about the thesis project is held in the study period before the thesis work begins. At that meeting the program responsible or the examiner may also provide suggestions for thesis projects.

Start report

Each project group must make a plan on how to work with the thesis. The start report should be approximately five pages and should include the following pieces of information:

• Problem definition
• Literature review
• Project plan & management methodology

Please note that the report should first be reviewed and approved by the supervisor and then sent to the examiner.

The reports will be followed by a short (~10 minutes) oral presentation, to be attended by all students, supervisors and examiners.

Half-time seminar

At the half-time seminar the project group shall present the results achieved in the project so far, compare the results with the project plan and present a refined plan on how the project objectives will be achieved. Before the half-time seminar, the students shall submit a mid-term report to the examiner and the opponents. The report should be approved by a supervisor before sending it to the examiner. Both delivering a report and an oral presentation are mandatory.

At the half-time seminar, the examiner assesses the work progress. Projects that are considered not progressing as planned and unlikely to be ready by the first examination event will be re-scheduled for presentation at the second examination event. In such case, the project plan and the supervision schedule will have to be adjusted accordingly.

The report should be approximately 20 pages and should cover the following aspects:

• Complete literature survey,
• Clearly stated contribution and novelty,
• Concrete evaluation (assessment) criteria for the solution,
• Design of the planned experiments (in case of theory: basic definitions and conjectures)
• Some preliminary analysis / results

Supervisors need to approve the report before it is sent to the examiners. Be sure to plan accordingly – we believe it is reasonable to expect at least two feedback cycles, and each will probably take 1–2 weeks.

Supervisors will attend the oral presentation. There will be no formal opposition but the students should actively respond to each others’ presentations. Oral presentation must include information on project progress (using an actual formal methodology).

A LaTex template should be used for all (initial, mid-term, and final) reports.

Final seminar

The final report together with the final presentation is a very important part of the thesis project examination. A preliminary (but approved by the supervisor) final report must be sent to the examiner one week before the final seminar. Supervisors need to approve the report before it is sent to the examiners. Be sure to plan accordingly -- we believe it is reasonable to expect at least three feedback cycles, and each will probably take at least 2 weeks.

Final steps, after the oral presentation, include:

• Refinement of written report based on feedback from opponent, supervisor and examiner.
• Final report is sent for approval and grading to the examiner at most 3 weeks after the presentation.
• For each individual student: the student, the supervisor and the examiner fills and signs a grade calculation template.
• If given the grade 3, 4 or 5 the approved report is uploaded to DiVA and then grading result is registered in Ladok for students.