Department of Technology

F4203 Master Thesis

Guidelines for Master Thesis

Written by Finn Haugen in January 2008 for "his" students.

Master Thesis home page maintained by coordinator David di Ruscio (david.di.ruscio@hit.no).

  1. Startup and ending: Startup time is normally Friday 11. January 2008. The work ends normally Friday 6. June 2008 at 1pm.

  2. Startup meeting should be held as soon as possible after startup date. Each student contacts the main supervisor to agree about when and where to hold the startup meeting.

  3. Final thesis definition must be written no later than three weeks after the startup date, i.e. no later than Friday 11. January. The thesis definition is to be signed by both the main supervisor and the student. It will be included in the report, e.g. as an attachment.

  4. Changing the weights of certain aspects of the thesis: As the thesis work goes on, it may be desirable to put more weight on certain aspects (subtasks) while others get less weight. Also, new important aspects may appear. Such changes are allowable, but such changes from the original definition must be justified in the report. The formal thesis defintion must not be changed, however.

  5. Oral presentation of the results: The basis of the grading is the written report. However, it is a natural part of the thesis to present the results for both internal and external partners. An oral presentation also develops presentation skills. Therefore it is assumed that each student plans such a presentation. It should be held as soon as possible after the ending date of the thesis, at the locations of the external partner.

  6. Project plan: Within Friday 1. February the student must make a project plan (Gantt Diagram) containing milestones and send it to the supervisor(s). (Send the plan as a PDF og GIF file, not as a MPP (Microsoft Project Plan) file. Of course, the project plan can be adjusted during the thesis.

  7. Fronter room for the project: The student shall create a Fronter room for the thesis, with access at least for the main supervisor, no later than Friday 1. February. All relevant documents, drawings etc. must be available in  this room. In addition the student may create a homepage for the thesis on any web server. (It is possible to use the web server at HiT for this purpose. Information about how to do this is provided by the IT Service at HiT in Porsgrunn.)

  8. Formal project meetings: Three formal project meetings must be arranged with the student, the supervisors and others if appropriate. The meetings may be held at HiT or at the location of the external partner (if this applies). These formal meeting must appear in the project plan. The student distribute a summon to these meetings in due time, with the agenda and relevant documents attached. The student conducts the meetings. The student writes minutes of each meeting to be distributed to the participants for approval. One of the issues of the meetings should be how decisions made in the previous meeting have been followed up.

  9. Informal meetings: In addition to the formal meetings there may be held any number of informal meetings in any form (physical presence, telephone, video conference, etc.). Minutes should be written for any meeting.

  10. Two week reports: Each student must send the main supervisor a short report about what has been done during the recent two weeks of the project and about the status of the project. The report should be in the form of a document attached to an e-mail. It is sufficient that the report contains just a few lines. These reports must be published also in Fronter.

  11. Preliminary report: During the project period - but not later than four weeks before the end of the project period - the student can send to the main supervisor a preliminary report or a preliminary part of the report. The purpose of this is to get detailed feedback from the supervisor about the report layout and the writing style.

  12. Advice about the report: Experience tells that it is wise to start writing the report very soon after the startup of the thesis. You can start by entering the headlines of the chapters, and then add details later.

  13. Independency: One of the main purposes of the thesis is to give the student experience in independent work. The student must therefore try to figure out solutions by herself/himself by reasoning, experimentation, literature search, consulting resource persons, etc. However, the student can of course discuss topics of the thesis with the supevisor to get more insight into the problems of the thesis.

  14. Guidelines for grading the report: grading_master_thesis.xls.

Updated 25. January 2008 by Finn Haugen. E-mail address: Finn.Haugen@hit.no.