MSc-Thesis Project

Overview

Description

The MSc-Thesis Project (MTP) is the final individual research project of the MSc Robotics programme of 40 EC. It is recommended to perform the MSc-thesis project at one of the research groups of the UT, but it can be done outside the UT. This is only allowed if no internship outside the UT has been performed, so variant 3 of Year 2. Note that in all cases, the research group is in the lead of drawing up the project topic.

After the MSc-Thesis project has been completed, the student is able to:
•      apply a suitable research or design methodology in a scientific manner.
•      deliver an original contribution to the research group.
•      run a scientific project within its time frame.
•      write a scientific report and hold a public presentation.
•      communicate to peers and non-specialists.

The MSc-Thesis Project is about further specialising in the direction of the expertise of the robotics research group of the UT where this project is performed. Usually, the MSc-Thesis Project is part of ongoing research at the research group so the research group is in the lead of drawing up the project topic. An Internship is about gaining work experience on an academic level of course by conducting a small project outside UT. This makes the MSc-Thesis Project and Internship quite distinct from each other: only running a project on a robotics topic is similar.

The MSc-Thesis Project is carried out within a robotics-related research group of the UT. The list of recognised robotics-related research groups is indicated in the table. <to be added> This list is also in the EER-B, Article B4.7.2, Table 16.

The topic of the MSc-Thesis Project must be in the scientific fields on which the Specialisation of the student is grounded. Furthermore the MSc-Thesis project must address aspects being taught in the Profile of the student.

CBL-like techniques can be applied, as the MSc-Thesis Project is formulated as a rather open problem. In fact, MSc-Thesis Projects are CBL projects avant-la-lettre, as conducting thesis projects has its origin far earlier then CBL way of working. 

Students must report on CBL activities applied during the MSc-Thesis Project in their portfolio of the course CBL in MSc Robotics 2 (202200121), for which you must enrol (open all year). As usual for CBL work, the CBL contribution to the portfolio is assessed separately from the MSc-Thesis Project. 

Note that this CBL assessment (and finishing) is done in the beginning of the third phase of the Thesis work, in order not to interfere with the finalisation of the MSc-Thesis Project.

There is no Canvas page of the MTP, as there is no synchonised start each year, the work is in the research groups, and the forms needed for doing the MTP are available on this website: the Forms and Procedures Page.

Entry Requirements

To start your MSc-Thesis project (MTP), a maximum of 10 EC next to the MSc-Thesis Project may be open, whereby the six compulsory courses of the chosen specalisation and CBL Year 1 (202200115) must have completed. See also EER, Article B3.12. In case of variant 2 of Year 2, so taking the Academic-Skills Project (202200119), this project must also have been completed before starting the MSc-Thesis Project.

You must satisfy these requirements at the moment you actually start the MSc-Thesis Project. You can start acquiring an MSc-Thesis Project before you meet these entry requirements, as it takes a month or two to acquire an MSc-Thesis Project.

You may start the MSc-Thesis project at a moment that results of examinations are still pending. However, in case these results appear to be insufficient later, the Examination Board may order you to interrupt your MSc-Thesis Project to repair these insufficient results.

Duration

The study load of an MSc-Thesis Project is 40 EC, being 28 weeks of full-time work.  Any day off, public holiday, or time spend on other courses or jobs extends the wall-clock time (calendar time) of this period. This 28 full-time weeks is the minimal duration of an MSc-Thesis Project project. You have to set up a planning, in which all extra days are taken into account, such that netto 28 full-time working weeks are mapped onto Calendar days. As some time is consumed due to organisational issues and slack is inevitble, 4 weeks are added to compensate for this. It is advised to spend at least 60-80% of full time to your MSc-Thesis project to keep the project going and not to lose too much time to get started again and again.  

Regulations in force

The regulations to which the MSc-Thesis project must comply are in the Education and Examination Regulations (EER), most notably Articles A3.7, A3.8, B3.12, B4.7, and B4.8. The text here is based on those regulations. In case of discrepancy between this website text and the EER, the EER is leading. 

Acquiring an MSc-Thesis Project

As a student, you must find an MSc-Thesis Project yourself. Robotic research groups often advertise student projects on their website or provide information on research projects they conduct. Together with the envisaged supervisor(s) an MSc-Thesis Project is defined, either (partly) by the student or by the supervisor(s). This holds for both an internal-at-UT project as for an external-outside-UT project. The research group, however, is in the lead of drawing up the topic of the MSc-Thesis Project in all cases.

The supervisor(s) check explicitly whether the proposed MSc-Thesis-Project idea is doable by the student, with respect to time budget, expected knowledge and skills, academic level, and whether it matches with the specialisation and the profile the student has chosen. 

The MSc-Thesis Supervision Committee consists of at least a senior examiner chairing this committee, and a day-to-day supervisor. These two roles may be combined in one person. The MSc-Thesis Assessment Committee is the MSc-Thesis Supervision committee plus the external examiner, see EER-B Article B4.7. The supervisors are responsible for the composition of both the Supervision Committee and the Assessment Committee.

It is important to start in time preparing for the MSc-Thesis-Project, as consulting scientific staff and asking them about an MSc-Thesis-Project, takes time. We advise you to start looking for an MSc-Thesis-Project about two months before the expected start of it.

As student, you must send the MSc-Thesis Project Registration Form (also signed by the chairperson of your Supervision Committee) to the administration. The Examination Board checks composition of the Supervision Committee and the topic of the MSc-Thesis-Project using this information.

Only in case you do the MSc-Thesis project outside UT (only allowed if take Variant 3 of Year 2 of MSc-Robotics),  you must register your MSc-Thesis-Project in the Mobility Online system. So for MSc-Thesis projects executed on the UT, only the Registraton Form need to be filled in and sent.

Running the MSc-Thesis Project

Use the Doing Projects approach: splitting project time into three equal parts: exploration, production, finalisation, with a project plan after 1/3, a ‘demo’ after 2/3, and a report and presentation at the end (obviously).

More details are in the DoingProjects document (also on the MSc-Robotics Canvas site, as this document is not yet finished), and an overview is below.

Starting and Exploration Phase

At the beginning of the project, make agreements concerning:

• Milestones of 1/3, 2/3 and final date
  These dates mark the ends of the Exploration Phase, Production Phase, and Finalisation Phase, respectively. This implies a meeting in which the Project Plan respectively Demo are discussed, and the final presentation and thus assessment is held.
  These dates must be put on your MSc-Thesis Project Registration Form such that these are known by the administration. 
  Note that the planning of these milestones is the initial planning, which may be updated during the course of the project. Obviously, updates must be send to the administration, see below at the "Feedback, Assessment, Extension" subsection.
• Practical issues
  Like workplace, access to Lab, where to go for support, use of tools and servers etc. This is of course specific to the research group where the work is conducted.
• Scheduled progress meetings
  • Weekly PIP meetings
    On Progress, Issues, Plans: once per week with the student and at least day-to-day supervisor. 
  • Monthy PIPPF meetings
    Monthly meetings on Progress, Issues, Plans, and next to that, Planning and Formal Formative Feedback: once per month with Supervision Committee and student. It is about PIP on project level, and on the global planning of the whole project. Furthermore, the Supervision Committee gives formative feedback to the student. See EER Article B4.7, Paragraphs 6 - 10.

When the work is done part-time, this rhythm can be scaled accordingly. It is advised to spend at least 80% of full time to your MSc-Thesis Project to keep the project going and not to lose too much time to get started again and again. 

Note that the planning of these milestones at the start of the project is the initial planning and thus provisional. These may be updated during the course of the project. 

The result of the Exploration Phase is the Project Plan, covering the following topics:

• Introduction to the project
  Context, problem statement, goals of the project.
  The goals can be formulated as research questions or design objectives, depending on the nature of the project.
• Analysis / Feasibility
  Literature review, analysis of the problem resulting in requirements (for design work) / how to proceed; test experiments to support feasibility reasoning. Especially for design-oriented projects, this includes possible approaches with advantages / disadvantages, presented in Design-Space Exploration tables, for example. 
• What to show at Demo Meeting
  Describe the testing (verification / validation approach), especially what is needed to get out of tests, to support the scientific reasoning, and as such goes into the final report. Describe what to show at the Demo milestone. And thus, to know what to work for in the Production Phase.
• Initial Structure of the final report
  To give a target to work towards, and pinpoints to what must be delivered in the final report.
• Action plan
  Tasks and the planning of the work to be done in the production phase.

At the end of this Exploration Phase, during that PIPPF meeting, the Project Plan is discussed, and formal formative feedback is given. The date of this meeting is reported to the administration by the supervisor. 

If the Supervision Committee expects no pass to be achieved at the planned end date, repair actions can be set up, ranging from updating the project content, changing / extending supervision, adapting student’s way of working. If at a next PIPPF the performance of the students is still below par, the resit policy can be started: project time is extended with 2 months, and the grade is maximally a 6 for a Pass or a Fail.

Production Phase

This is executing the project plan and document the progress (logbook like) as that contributes to the final report. 

In these kind of scientific projects, often work appears to be different than originally planned. This is due to growing insight, growing experience, unforeseen issues popping up, etc. To keep on track tasks, priorities of tasks, and thus planning need to be reconsidered and updated when necessary. This is part of the doing projects activity. Decisions on changing the plan must be taken together with the supervisors.

Especially at PIPPF meetings, the plan and progress of the project as a whole is discussed, and the Supervision Committee gives formative feedback. If necessary, repair actions can be started, or the resit policy can be set up. See EER Article B4.7, especially Paragraphs 6 – 10.

The Demo (showing essential results) at the end of the production phase, needs to be carefully prepared. This demo is a kind of (design) review to discuss and gather feedback from the supervisors. Next to that, it is to become clear and to decide that the work is good enough to enter the Finalising Phase. Often, many new ideas arise, so the left-over work and new things must be prioritised to avoid overloading and thus unnecessary extending the Finalisation Phase. The date of this demo meeting is reported to the administration by the supervisor. 

Finalising Phase

First is to update / detail out the planning of this phase: plan the left-over work agreed to be done at the demo meeting, and plan the report writing, taking into account feedback moments and reading time for reviewing by supervisors.

On report writing: discuss the articulated outline first (rich report outline), that is a global line of thought of the report, so more then only chapter and section headings. For the review process, check the process as is used at the research group. Often, the day-to-day supervisor reviews draft-thesis chapters in between.  Use earlier made documentation, including material of the project plan, obviously. 

At least four weeks before the presentation day, the so-called green-light meeting is held, in which the draft report is discussed with / scrutinised by the Supervision Committee. For this, the report must be submitted one week earlier, so five weeks before the presentation day. The Supervision Committee decides on green light, that is, the work and draft report are good enough to give a final presentation and can be assessed after the presentation, provided the work to be done is of same quality as shown before. The senior examiner co-signs the Master-Examination Application Form, and the student sends it to the administration. This form must be at the administration at least four weeks ahead of the presentation day (the administration needs some time to process all checks, etc).

The green-light meeting can best be planned at the first PIPPF meeting after the Demo meeting (so one month after the Demo meeting). Also, the presentation day can be decided upon. The Supervision Committee can start looking for the external examiner, or wait for the green-light decision to do this.

The presentation takes 30 minutes, and after that, a Q&A session of about 30 minutes is held. This is in public at the University of Twente.

After presentation and assessment, deliver all the artifacts (including documentation and data) according to the process as used at the research group, and clean up lab space if applicable. This must be done within one week after the presentation and assessment.

Next to the report on the content of the work, as student, you must write and submit on CBL activities and add that to the CBL portfolio of the course CBL in MSc Robotics 2 (202200121). Best is to submit this report in the beginning of the Finalising Phase. As usual for CBL work, this CBL contribution to the portfolio is assessed separately from the MSc-Thesis Project.

Feedback, Assessment, Extension

Feedback during the project is embedded in the workflow of the MSc-Thesis Project (See EER Article 4.7):

• During each PIPPF meeting, the supervision committee give a formal formative assessment on the process including planning and content. This feedback is related to the assessment criteria as presented on the assessment form. 
• This formative feedback can trigger the repair policy: in case it turns out that the original project appears to be too much / too complex for MSc-thesis work or equipment / tools are not functioning as expected, the project can be updated w.r.t. topics and/or planning, arrangement of extra technical support, adaptation of supervision approach / policy, etc.
• If at the next formative feedback (the next PIPPF meeting), so, after working a month according to this repair policy, the student’s work is not back on track (that is, the student’s work is still not good enough to achieve a pass at the very end of the MSc-thesis project), the resit policy can be started. In case the level of results are beyond the control of the student, the repair policy can be reviewed and adapted, which may cause a delay of the project.
• Resit policy implies that the student can extend the project with a maximum of 9 full-time weeks (2 months). Assessment of this extended MSc-thesis project results in a pass with grade of 6 or a fail. 
  This implies that the resit policy can already be started before the summative assessment at the 'normal' end of the project.
• In case the repair policy implies the project gets delayed (so due to reasons beyond the control of the student), the planning must be updated accordingly, and agreed upon as such by the examiner. In case no agreement on the rescheduling of the plan is reached, the student can request the EB to mediate. 
• In case of a delay due to the repair policy, or if the resit policy is started, the student must send the updated and signed registration form to the student administration (BOZ), acting as the registrar of the EB. 

Final summative assessment of the MSc-thesis project is done by at least two examiners, one being responsible for the day-to-day supervision and the other being an independent colleague from outside the research group of the supervisor, who is not involved in the supervision. Criteria for grading, including rubrics, are in the assessment form. When at assessment it turns out that the work is insufficient, the resit policy can be started. In case the assesment is still a Fail after the resit, the student has to look for another MSc-thesis project.

Within one week after the presentation and assessment, the student must have submitted all documentation and data to the supervisors. If applicable, decide on reuse or disassemble the setup that has been developed / used, and further clear the lab space being used.

For the Supervisors

Supervising as examiner / senior examiner an MSc-Thesis project of MSc Robotics implies

1. Check and approve explicitly whether the proposed MSc-Thesis-Project idea is doable by the student, with respect to time budget, expected knowledge and skills, academic level, and whether it matches with the specialisation and the profile the student has chosen. 
   This approval must be done before the student starts their MSc-Thesis-Project, and indicate that on the MSc-Thesis Registration Form. 
2. As senior examiner, co-sign the the MSc-Thesis Registration Form, and Mobility Online form of the student. 
   All forms used for the MTP are on the Forms and Procedures page.
3. Act as a supervisor and arrange day-to-day supervision, that is, compose the Supervision Committee. Use the DoingProjects supervision scheme for the actual supervision.
4. Provide formal formative feedback at each PIPPF meeting. The PIPPF meetings at the end of the Exploration Phase and Production Phase, deal with reviewing the project plan and demo respectively. Inform the administration (BOZ) by sending the dates of these meetings to BOZ.
5. If needed, formulate repair actions, or start the resit policy. See EER Article B4.7. In case these change in plans cause delay (always so in case of the resit policy), sign the updated MSc-Thesis Registration Form (signature of one of the supervisors suffices), and let the student send it as usual to BOZ. 
6. Green-light meeting: Review / scrutinise the draft report, consolidate the presentation date, and arrange the external examiner.
   As senior examiner, co-sign the the master-examination application form of the student.
7. After presentation and Q&A session, and based on the work and report, assess the project by the Assessment Committee. Use the specific assessment form to record and file the assessment. An editable and prefilled form will be sent to you by BOZ shortly before the assessement day.
   Also at this moment, the resit policy can be applied if need. However, try to avoid applying the resit policy so late in the process. The resit policy implies 9 full-time weeks (2 months) extra time and grading with a 6 in case of a Pass, or a Fail. See EER Article B4.7 Paragraphs 10 and 15.
8. Send the filled-in and signed assessment form to the administration, often via your secretariat, after the student has submitted all data / documents / artefacts, but not later than one week after the presentation and assessment.