Procedures to be followed during your master’s thesis project
At this page the procedures are described that you should follow to obtain a smooth organisation of your master’s thesis project. General information about the master’s thesis, including competences and assessment standards, can be found at the Master's thesis page. Please read this first (if you did not do that already) before proceeding below.
Steps to be taken before, during and after the master’s thesis
1. Starting requirements
The master’s thesis is the final activity of your master’s programme and therefore you should have completed almost all other subjects of your programme when you start your master’s thesis. According to the Education and Examination Regulations (EER) only 10EC of courses may be open. Also your internship or your Individual Project (if applicable) must have been completed at the moment of the start of the master’s thesis project.
Note: you can start with your master’s thesis, if you from your side have satisfied all necessary obligations. This means that you can already make a start with you master’s thesis if an assessment of a course, internship or project is still pending, on the condition that you have submitted all documents necessary for the assessment. Please inform the Education Office (boz-ee-ces@utwente.nl) if such a situation occurs, because they have to approve your registration in the Mobility Online system (see step 4 below).
2. Finding a suitable research topic
Your specialisation is linked to one of the research groups of the Electrical Engineering department. Study the website of this research group, especially the research part, where extensive descriptions are given of the research topics in the group. Select one of the topics and contact the staff member, concerned with the topic (mentioned at the website). If you have difficulties choosing a topic you may consult your programme mentor.
3. Arranging your master’s thesis project with a staff member
Discuss your interests and the possibilities for a master’s thesis with this staff member. If you finally decide to carry out your master’s thesis under the guidance of this staff member we need the following:
- The chairperson of the graduation committee which will supervise your master’s thesis. The chairperson should be a full or associate professor in the group where you are going to graduate.
- Your daily supervisor.
- An examiner from another group, who also will become a member of your graduation committee. Possibly this person will be added later to the graduation committee.
- Other members of your graduation committee (optional).
- The start date and the end date of your master’s thesis project.
- A provisional title and description of your master’s thesis assignment.
Please discuss these topics with your supervisors. The chairperson of the graduation committee will have the lead looking for other committee members.
The planning of your master thesis project
Normally students will carry out their master’s thesis project “full time” so that 40 hours work per week are available. The study load of the master thesis is 40EC, which corresponds to 28 weeks of full time study. Additionally we give you an extra period of four weeks, because of possible illness, late delivery of equipment or anything. So you can fill in an end date which is 32 weeks after the start date. However, please make for yourself and your supervisor a planning for 28 weeks so that indeed you have this delay period available in case there are setbacks. Additional time for your project will only be given if you can show that for external reasons there was a delay of more than four weeks.
If there are other activities outside your project within “office hours”, you should fill them in on the form and add the time to be spent to these activities to the 32 weeks of the project. You need permission from your supervisor for these activities.
Download the planning form to fill in your planning, have it signed by the chairperson of your graduation committee and submit it to the Educational Office.
4. Registration of your master’s thesis project in Mobility Online
You should register your master’s thesis project in the Mobility Online system before the start of your master’s thesis project.
Most students carry out their master’s thesis at the UT. In this case please choose the Standard registration and fill in the open fields.
If you plan to carry out your master’s thesis outside the UT and have arranged this, then choose the Extended Registration.
- The course code of the master’s thesis project is 191211219.
- Please mention the professor who will chair your graduation committee at the place of the “Committee chair”. Mention the other committee members from the group at the place of “Committee member UT”. Add other committee members as far as you know them already.
- Copy and paste your assignment description into the available space under “Description of the thesis”. Note that you also need a (provisional) title of the project.
- Print the assignment description and have it signed by the chair of your graduation committee. Upload the printed and signed assignment description into Mobility Online.
- Have your time planning form, signed by the chairperson of your graduation committee and submit it to the Educational Office.
After submitting your registration you will receive an email, which may confirm that your registration is complete. Alternatively it may inform you that there are omissions or errors in your registration. In the latter case, please correct these omissions/errors.
Attention: If a graduation project is carried out external to one of the chairs of the Electrical Engineering discipline, this should be reported in advance to the examination board for an approval.
5. Approval of the start of the project
The Educational Office (BOZ) will check if you meet the requirements for starting the master’s thesis project (internship completed and not more than 10EC of courses open). If everything is OK, you will receive an email allowing you to start your master’s thesis project.
6. Changes
In many case the assignment description will be adapted later and members (especially external members) may be added to the graduation committee. Therefore you fill in the final project title and description and the final graduation committee at the “Form Registration Master Examination”, see step 7 below.
7. Completing your master’s thesis project and graduation
If you have completed all your courses, then the date of your final presentation will also be the date of your graduation. You should start planning your final presentation about five weeks before the planned date.
- Fill in the form “Form Registration Master Examination” Based on this form the Examination Board will give you a conditional allowance to graduate from your master’s programme after your final presentation. The condition of course is that you will receive a sufficient grade for your master’s thesis project. Note that the form should be signed by the graduation committee chairperson (green light declaration).
- If you don’t want to receive your diploma at the day of your final presentation then write a request to the Examination Board to postpone the examination date. Please inform the Educational Office about this.
The form must be submitted to the Educational Office (BOZ) at least four weeks before the planned date of the presentation. This requirement will be maintained strictly because of the preparations that must be carried out by BOZ.
8. Publication of your master’s thesis
The University of Twente makes all master’s theses available for the public, unless they have been declared confidential.
- Please submit your master’s thesis report before the date of your presentation at https://essay.utwente.nl. At the website you will find instructions what to do in case the report is confidential.