2
Overview
• Course outline
• Master Thesis Proposal
• Introduction to the Master Thesis
– What is a Master‟s Thesis?
– Supervisors
– Thesis Size
– Evaluation: The Thesis Board
– Risks
3
Schedule of E&I Master
Period Course
Cr.
1
Course
4
Course
4
Course
4
2
Course
4
Course
4
Course
4
3
Seminar
12
4
ICT and Economics
4
Thesis Proposal
4
Thesis
4
4
Master Thesis Proposal (MTP)
• Part of Master Thesis project
– Master Thesis is 16 ECTS
– MTP is 4 ECTS in bimester 4
– Together, you spend 20 ECTS on your Master Thesis
– MTP deliverable is a document that contains
• Research question
• Methodology
MTP Setup
• Write thesis proposal early in bimester 4
Prepare on basis of
– seminar project,
– internship project, or
– your own ideas: discuss with supervisor
• Literature review of the Master Thesis is
done as part of this course
• Proposal will be graded as pass/fail
– Content (good proposal?)
– Topic (Is it E&I?)
How to find a thesis topic?
• What can be a thesis topic?
– Any topic at the interface of economics and
informatics, which you can study in a scientific
perspective
• Look at media, latest developments, what
interests you, interests of intended
supervisor, interests of internship company
• Arrange a supervisor early on
– Discuss with several people
– Check availability
• Note: supervisor has to teach in the E&I
Procedure
• Discuss your idea and proposal contents
with your supervisor
– This will take at least two to three iterations
• Perform literature survey
• Agree on a planning
• Submit proposal with the accompanying
form and the literature survey
• MTP form must be signed by supervisor
(and if available by second supervisor)
Deadline
• MTP must be approved before you can apply
for the Master Thesis exam
• Deadline for submission:
15 April 2011
– This date guarantees that MTP is evaluated in
bimester 5
– Submit electronic version by email
([email protected]) and a signed hardcopy to
H11-02
• Obtain approval as soon as possible: I may
not be available when you need your
Thesis proposal
• Introduction, including
– Research question
– Sub-questions
– Scoping
– Expected results
• Theoretical background
– literature review
• Methodology
– what you are going to do to answer the research question?
– how you are going to validate your results?
• Sources
– For example, data and insights gathered during an internship
• A list of literature
Planning
• List of activities
• Phasing (distribution in the time) of activities
• Connection with a time line
• Do not underestimate the time that a good research will
take
• Write your chapters during the research (more efficient
than doing the research first and then writing the report)
• Reserve sufficient time for re-reading and corrections
Planning
• Schedule
Duration
Deadline
Activity
2 weeks
Literature review and table-of-contents
1 week
Design initial model
5 weeks
Build model in simulation language
2 weeks
Conduct experiments using model
1 week
Validation
2 weeks
Design revised model
3 weeks
Build revised model in simulation language
1 week
Conduct experiments
1 week
Validation
3 weeks
Analyze results
2011-08-01
Thesis approval
21 weeks
13
Master Thesis
• Individual exercise in
– scientifically solving a problem
– writing a scientific document
(including a justification of the research
approach)
• Learn the process of solving a complex
problem
14
Master Thesis
• Often combined with a company
internship
– This requires careful planning and a lot of
preparation
– Coordination between company, student and
supervisor is essential
• Project definition must satisfy demands of all
parties involved this takes time and effort
– If you want to do this, you should already
have started make arrangements
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General structure of Ma-Thesis
• Introduction with
background, goal, methodology, structure
• Elaboration of background
• Existing approaches to the problem
• Introducing the new approach, its
hypotheses, the reasons why,…
• Experimental set-up and outcomes
• Conclusions and Outlook
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Guiding Principles
• Projects are individual
• Thesis and proposal must be written in
English
• Student has the initiative: it is your thesis
project
• Keep an eye on the deadlines
– For Thesis proposal
– For Thesis submission
• Fraud/Plagiarism are not tolerated
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Supervision
• Formal: Staff member who teaches in the programme can be
thesis supervisor
• You have to arrange this
• Staff is busy
– Seminar supervisor should be available
• if you don‟t take the seminar this year…
– Good proposal helps to get attention of potential supervisor
– Staffs are allocated 30 hours for supervising a master‟s thesis
– One meeting per fortnight
• If you can not find a thesis supervisor, contact your master
programm‟s coordinator
– `Economics and ICT‟: Prof. Dr. Gert van der Pijl
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The Second Supervisor
• If your supervisor thinks you are ready, it is time to finalize
the thesis
• Before submission, a second supervisor must approve the
thesis
– You must arrange second supervisor
(your supervisor may have a suggestion)
• At this stage, the second supervisor will review your thesis
– If he/she agrees: you can submit the thesis
– If he/she does not agree:
• Some feedback
• Improving the thesis will be supervised by your supervisor
• Plan ahead:
– Second supervisor will usually take about two weeks for the
review
19
Thesis Size
• Roughly 60-90 pages
– including
• introduction
• figures
• Footnotes/endnotes
– Restraint plz• Reference list
– Use a uniform style,
such as the Harvard Business School Citation Guide (zie Bb voor link) – Very convenient: bibtex (for LaTeX), EndNote (for Word)
– excluding
• Appendices (data, code excerpts)
– Line height 1.5
• 10/11 point letter
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Formatting
• Front page of a thesis
should contain a number
of elements:
– Title
– Name and student-id
– Name of the programme
• Including
– “Erasmus School of
Economics”, and
– Erasmus University
Rotterdam
– Type of thesis (bachelor
or master thesis)
– Name of supervisor
– Date
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The Finishing Touches
• After supervisor and second supervisor have approved the thesis…
– Make 4-5 hard copies
• Supervisor
• Second supervisor
• 2x Archive (department and programm (H11-2)) • Yourself
– Mail final soft copy to supervisor
• DOC, LaTeX and/or PDF • Required for plagiarism check
– Create archive CD-R with
• The thesis source (DOC, LaTeX) • Final version in PDF format
• Data files you have used
• Programs, scripts, etc you have written
• Copies (PDF) of all the papers you have used • Keep track of all this stuff during the project!
– Submit archive CD-R to department secretary,
programme secretary (H11-2) and supervisor
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Grading
•
Pick a (fixed) defense date
Submissions have to be done
4 weeks before the defense date
!!
•
Meeting of Erasmus Thesis Board
– Members: Supervisor and Second Supervisor – Guest: internship supervisor
– Public meeting (family and friends are welcome) – 15 minute presentation
• In English
• Bring your own laptop (and ask for beamer when you submit thesis)
– 30 minute discussion
– Board withdraws for deliberation and determining thesis and programme grades
•
Grading of thesis is based on :
– Structure – Foundation – Elaboration
– Added value (originality and relevance) – Layout (formatting and readability)
23
Thesis Evaluation Form
Evaluation Criteria
• Thesis structure
• Substantiation
• Detailing
• Added Value
• Relevance
• Design and
presentation
• Student‟s commitment
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Risks
• Potential bottleneck: Final sessions for evaluation
(esp. preparation of second supervisor)
• Risks:
– Thesis proposal not finished on time
– Slow start in bimester 4
– Supervisor availability
– Illness/holidays
– Tight schedule and high workload
– Poor internship poor thesis
• Don‟t count on August to wrap up your thesis!
– Resits end in July; August is basically the only time
available to staff for holidays
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Manage Your Project
•Your supervisor is typically busy:
make sure you are on top of your
project
•On Time
– Submit new text on time
– Indicate what has been changed or what you want your
supervisor to focus on
– Arrive on time for meetings
•Manage your supervisor
– Mention any specific questions beforehand so supervisor can prepare
•Follow-up
– Process your supervisor‟s remarks
– Do not take criticism personal: the aim is to help you write a great thesis
•Be systematic
– Maintain a project log (wiki, blog) with your ideas, remarks,
hyperlinks, references, …
•Formatting
– Make your document nice to read
– Conventions exist for a reason – Each and every document has
an author, version number, date, page numbers
•Tools
– Use appropriate tools (Word, EndNote, LaTeX, BibTeX, Visio, …)
– Make backups
• Versioning system (surfgroepen, subversion, cvs, etc)
