FEM31010 Master s Thesis Proposal E&I

Transcription

1 FEM31010 Master s Thesis Proposal E&I Yingqian Zhang yqzhang@ese.eur.nl Course Information

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 2

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 5 Thesis 12 3

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 Literature review 4

5 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?)

6 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 Master

7 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)

8 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 (yqzhang@ese.eur.nl) and a signed hardcopy to H11-02 Obtain approval as soon as possible: I may not be available when you need your approval

9 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

10 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 Plans are nothing; planning is everything (Eisenhower)

11 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 Thesis approval 21 weeks

12 Introduction to Master Thesis

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 Not limited to topics of the seminar 13

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 14

15 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 15

16 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 Every thesis is checked for plagiarism 16

17 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 `Computational Economics : Prof.dr.ir. Uzay Kaymak 17

18 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 Hand him/her a nicely printed version as well as a digital copy 18

19 Thesis Size Roughly 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 /11 point letter More is not always better 19

20 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 20 Date

21 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! 21 Submit archive CD-R to department secretary, programme secretary (H11-2) and supervisor

22 Grading 22 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) Dedication and autonomy

23 Thesis Evaluation Form Evaluation Criteria Thesis structure Substantiation Detailing Added Value Relevance Design and presentation Student s commitment 23

24 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 24

25 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) 25