Phase 2: Formalisation

This activity should result in a project plan in which the general objectives and approach of the project are documented. This project plan should form a kind of contract between the supervisors and the candidate. A tangible deliverable of this activity is a graduation project description with a summary of the project plan and the members of the committee as part of your registration in Mobility Online. Before you start with registering your Final Project you need to complete Research Topics.

In this activity, the graduation committee of the final project is also settled. As the MBI programme is part of the faculty of BMS and the faculty of EEMCS, the graduation committee consists of one examiner from each of both faculties.

Initial Project Plan

In the initial project plan, at least the following issues should be tackled concerning the final project:


It is obligatory to (after finishing Research Topics) fill out the Extended registration from in Mobility Online. After registering, log back in and complete the procedure. Choose internal for a graduation project within the UT and external for a project outside the UT. Print out and upload the form signed by both members of the graduation committee. 

Additionally, it is advisable to tackle the following issues in the initial project plan:

Some supervisors consider the writing of an initial project plan as the first activity you have to do in the project. Other supervisors may develop it together with you. In any case, you and your graduation committee have to agree on the contents of this initial project plan before the project can continue. A project plan as indicated above attends the formal requirements of the Students Records and gives a common understanding of the work to be done to the candidate and the graduation committee. However, in most cases this project plan has to be refined and improved during the final project (preparation and development activities). These improvements normally concern the sharpening of the motivation (problem statement), objectives and approach, and the refinement of the time schedule.

Confidentiality

The Master thesis is a public document. It is only by way of exception that a thesis can be declared “confidential”. A written request for confidentiality must be submitted by the student after obtaining the approval (i.e. signature) of the 1st supervisor to the Programme director which then takes the final decision on the (level of) confidentiality of the thesis. The Programme management can also decide whether the thesis or only a part of it contain confidential elements. A thesis that receives the label “confidential” is not freely accessible. But, in that case, an additional public version of the thesis must be submitted which would be freely accessible. The confidential thesis doesn't need to be uploaded to the UT Library but still needs to be on file at BOZ for quality assurance purposes.

Graduation committee

The graduation committee guides the final project, starting with the initial project plan until the final report and the other planned deliverables are produced. The graduation committee also evaluates the results of the final project and assign a mark to it. Therefore, the graduation committee should critically evaluate the initial project plan for its scientific contribution, feasibility, societal relevance, etc. and give feedback, aiming at reaching a satisfactory initial project plan.

The first supervisor is responsible for forming a graduation committee. A graduation committee consists of a first (internal) supervisor, external supervisors (mandatory for an external project), one or more (secondary) internal supervisors, and a chairman, who is an associate or full professor in the research area of the final project.

The most important tasks of the first supervisor are:

The second supervisor has to some extent the same duties as the first supervisor:

It is possible that your final project is carried out in an external organisation, which acts as a kind of client to your project. You must never forget the scientific character of your final project, which is more important than the pure satisfaction of your client, in this case the external organisation. Since the internal supervisors are responsible for the scientific character of the final project (requirements in exploration), the external supervisor normally sets the specific topics and activities, but these must comply with the scientific and quality standards determined by the internal supervisors.

The external supervisor has the following responsibilities:

Although in the graduation committee may have reached consensus on the initial project plan, it is still possible that you find yourself later confronted with a conflict of interests between the internal and external supervisors. For example, you may not be capable of getting some necessary background information, because certain documents are confidential.

Initially you should try to find a solution to this sort of problem yourself. If you sense that the problem can jeopardize your project in any way, then you should discuss this problem directly and openly with the graduation committee.

The chairman of the graduation committee has the same responsibilities as an ordinary member of the graduation committee, but of course the chairman has the final responsibility for the final project. In the case of conflicts, the chairman has to intervene and take binding decisions.