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Welcome!
A few pages linked with this one contain
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| Ideas of available MSc research projects: | |
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| Taxonomy of a MSc project: |
The objectives of a MSc thesis project are multifold, focusing on reaching certain attitude in: making relationships between scientific and practical aspects in the field, improving a project management capabilities, collaboration in a team work, extending extensive document making capabilities.
The following sections have as an intention establishing a sort of regulations for a pursuing a MSc research project in our group.
A project proposal captures the most important facts of the project to be undertaken: motivation, problem context, intended approach, expected results. The most characteristic property of the project proposal is that it is iteratively evolutional. It evolves in two ways: towards the formal abstract of project proposal (which goes to the administration) and towards the project report.
You will be given a certain period of time to make a proposal of the project (that fits your wishes and needs) which is in the direction of one of the ideas for the MSc research areas (listed above). The period for articulation the proposal complies with the overall MSc projects timeline (see Phasing the work).
It is required that the project originally contributes in the existing research of the group. During the consultations with supervisors assigned to one of the research directions (listed above), you'll discover that there are a lot of freedom for you to drive the orientation of the project to your perspectives for the future. Our hint for you is to think about the topic of your MSc project like one of the most important entry of your individual Curriculum Vitae - in the light of the wanted nature of your job/profession in the future. We think that such an entry should have a practical quality.
Example of the form for formal abstract of a MSc project proposal (abstract should fit the available space, limited with dotted line in the figure):
General Planning (GP) breaks down the timeline of the project into three main phases: Planning/Analysis, Development/Research and Finalization/Presentation, as sketched in the following graph:
The perfect timing of a hypothetical ideal student fits these three main phases in 6 (six) months, so every phase consumes 2 (two) months. Usually, the project timeline takes longer, between 7 (seven) and 9 (nine) months. Here it is meant on calendar months, so 4 (four) working weeks in a month. A working week consists of a 5 (five) working days, which in turn consist of 8 (eight) working hours.
As you can see, the main phases are somewhat overlapping, as it is the case in all real-life engineering activities. You have a freedom always to review your preliminary assumptions and timely and reasonably propose adaptation of existing plans. Also, pay attention that in a good project abstract (like in the example given above) it is suggested to oversee that some subphases of your project can consume more time that can be optimistically estimated, what corresponds to embedding certain degrees of freedom (escapes) of finalizing the thesis before all (optimistically) listed research topics are reached. This does not negatively affects the assessment of your work; on contrary, this reflects the general true that capabilities of estimation of project topics' feasibilities is an important virtue!
The points on the timeline graph depict monthly meetings with your supervision board (so-called D-committees). It is usual to have a weekly meetings with (two of) direct supervisor(s), and possibility of almost everyday short consultations with your first supervisor, if needed.
The responsibility for success of your MSc
project is shared between you and the supervision board.
Supervision board consists of typically four faculty members: professor
promoter, promoter deputy, first and second (so-called "daily")
supervisors. Professor promoter is usually the chairman of the chair, promoter
deputy is a lecturer of the course(s) closest to the field of the MSc project,
daily supervisors are PhD or postdoc students.
Besides monthly and weekly meetings with (the members of) the
supervision board, you call for help your direct supervisors when you face
problems in the course of your work. Supervisors contribute in iterations of achieving
satisfactory project proposal. They suggest to you the possible ways of
solutions in order to avoid getting in troubles too. You can also count on help
from the technical staff of our laboratory, to whom you are referenced by the
supervisors. Arranging the policy of cooperation between you and your
supervisors takes place on the early beginning of your project.
Timeline of your project takes place in the Laboratory. This means that you share all facilities of the Laboratory like one of the employees. Working hours start at 9:00 and finish at 17:30 (with one hour lunch break). You'll work on your working place, equipped with a PC of sufficient capacity, the intranet resources, your engineered object and all relevant equipment standard for a electronics/mechatronics laboratory. The project is granted with a buying budget you can ask about.
The feedback about your work you receive from all members of the supervision board. The feedback inputs vary in the same frequency like the meetings: monthly, weekly, daily, instantly. A special feedback is a mandatory interim presentation you are asked to give in the second half of the project. This is all about your preparation for the final presentation. Also, you are free to ask for one more interim internal presentations to exercise giving the talk.
The first direct supervisor is in charge to document all relevant outcomes from the project progress. This means that both you and your first daily supervisor have the logbooks of the project, you can use in writing final report. This encompasses not only paper work, but also photos, files back-up and so on.
It is very important that you manage your own project. This means successful dealing with several aspects: yielding a clear and focused project proposal; documenting on all relevant project inputs and outputs; searching literature sources; estimation of (time) costs and sticking to the plans; proposing adaptations and modifications duly in time; reporting on the project progress, problems and results; debating and concluding from sessions with supervisors and supervising board; strong convergence to the features of the final report; informing on difficulties and doubts; collaboration in organizing project meetings; feedback on supervision.
There would be appreciated your capabilities to find the balance between team work and independency in research. You make agendas for the weekly meetings, by listing all relevant results, shortcomings, problems and questions which are relevant in your opinion. For the D-committees, you prepare reports duly in time (three working days before the meeting).
Orienting the research in the planning/analysis phase is inseparable with making the project abstract which smoothly evolves towards the final report. This means that the outline of the project report is funded in early stage of the project, and it progresses as the project does. You'll be asked to pay special attention on documenting the work artifacts. In the finalization/presentation phase, it is expected that you keep one eye on the final presentation - you bear the most part of responsibility for organizing the presentation.
All these activities are everyday tasks in engineering practice. Training them is one of the main objectives of the MSc project.
You will be guided in the ways of writing the project report. There exist hints and examples of very good (and less good) MSc project reports, which will be available to you.
The text is written in English language. You'll have detailed and quick feedback of the supervision board on all parts of the text.
The volume of the project report can vary between forty (40) and sixty (60) A4 pages plus appendices.
Members of the supervision board consult the assessment sheet which reflects the most important aspects of the quality of a MSc project. You are advised to ask for explanation and clarification of those criteria and to make self-feedback from time to time according to it.
MSc project leads to the graduation if it is marked with a mark between six (6) and ten (10) inclusively. The mark is based on three main criteria sets, which participate in the grade approximately in the following way:
1. Problem approach (50%)
2. Research process (30%)
3. Reporting and presenting (20%)
For this page the material from the DINKEL INSTITUTE/EDUCATIONAL CENTRE course "Supervising M.Sc.-Students" has been used to a large extent
08-04-2002
The
Department of Control Engineering
Drebbel
Institute for Mechatronics