Course-PM

MSc thesis course at the division of Interaction Design at Chalmers and GU

Important note: the information on this page is valid for both the students in the "Interaction Design and Technologies" and "Game Design and Technology" programs.

Overview of roles

A few people are involved in your master thesis project. 

• Master Thesis coordinator – course manager for the master thesis project course, approves your participation in the course;
• Master Program Administrator - evaluates the project proposal ;
• Examiners – finally approves your project 
• Academic supervisors – supervise the academic part of your project and your learning in the course
• External supervisor – supervise the company based part of your project, if you do your project at a company or other external organization

Advertisements of new proposals

Thesis project ideas, from companies and others, are published on this IXD/GDT canvas room for the master thesis course. The Master Program Administrator in cooperation with relevant examiners evaluates the quality of the proposal.

As a student you are encouraged to do your thesis work in good surroundings. This could for instance be at a company, where you can get experience of a professional environment and a good start to your working life; or within the department, working as part of a research team and preparing yourself for possible future PhD studies or other research activities.

During the fall before the master thesis course the program organizes seminars to give you the student a good idea of what options you have when choosing a thesis project, internally and/or at companies. Here, representatives for companies, and faculty members, may come and present proposals to the students.

Prerequisites for initiating the master thesis project

In order to submit a thesis proposal you must have finished a BSc thesis, and must have passed 60 higher education credits worth of courses from the master’s programme. If you – despite having finished a BSc thesis – do not have a BSc degree, then you must, in addition to the requirements above, have passed 180 higher education credits worth of Chalmers courses.

Course introduction

The master thesis course is introduced via one or more compulsory lectures clarifying how to do the academic part of the project; outlining what is expected of the various deliverables (e.g. thesis proposal, planning report, interim report for 60-credit theses, report, oral presentation, and student opposition.); and giving the students more information about research and/or development methods and academic writing. This focus on research methodology and conducting the research is continuously followed up by the supervisor throughout the whole master thesis project.

Thesis proposal

You the student should write and submit a thesis proposal, approximately 2-3 pages. The proposal is a simpler and shorter version of the planning report, described below, and the aim is to judge whether the thesis is within the "interaction design" or" game design and technologies" subjects, whether it has a clear research question and is framed in such a way that it encompasses 20 weeks of work. The master thesis project can be done individually or in pairs, but not in larger groups.

The thesis proposal must be written in English and consist of the following parts:

Thesis proposal content

• A tentative title
• An introduction to the domain and why it is interaction design, or game design /technology
• An introduction of the stakeholders
• The research problem
• A research question
• The planned type of result
• A briefly planned working process
• A brief time plan
• A brief consideration about ethical issues that may arise in the project

Formalities

• An explanation of how knowledge from the given master’s programme(s) and the courses the students have taken will be used in the project;
• A brief explanation of how the intended learning outcomes listed in the course plan for DATX05/DIT910 will be addressed;
• Possibly a suggested academic supervisor;
• A starting date for the thesis;
• For the involved student(s): the master’s programme(s) from which she or he wants to get a final degree. (The Director of Master's Programme must approve )

Thesis proposals must satisfy the following criteria, which are adapted from Chalmers’ guidelines for evaluation of master’s theses [1]:

It must be clear that the thesis work will involve significant specialization within the main field of study, and that it will make use of knowledge from advanced studies within the main field of study.

The problem must be formulated in a clear and delimited way.

The proposal must use relevant and correct language, good structure and layout, and give a good overall impression (more detailed criteria are available [2]). If the language of the proposal does not meet this criterion, then it can still (but does not have to) be accepted, but then the students get must professional help with the writing of the report.

Any potential ethical consequences of the performed project must be presented.

It must seem likely that the project can be performed with a reasonable amount of support.

The proposal is submitted on Canvas and the Director of Master's Programme decides on its approval. At most ten working days after a proposal has been submitted one of the following responses is given:

• Accept, along with information about the assigned examiner and the academic supervisor.
• Reject, along with a motivation.
• Accept pending certain changes. The students get five working days to perform the required changes. At most five working days after the updated proposal has been handed in a new response is given: accept or If this deadline is not met, then the examiner can reject the proposal.

Academic supervisor and examiner

All passed project proposals are assigned to one of the programme’s appointed examiners; this assignment is done by the examiners themselves.

An academic supervisor is also assigned to the master thesis project. The master thesis coordinator is responsible for assisting you in finding a suitable supervisor. Usually the student contact the potential supervisor herself, and usually the supervisor is giving advice to the student on the thesis proposal writing. The academic supervisor’s first official task is to review the thesis proposal against the given criteria to ensure quality and feasibility.

In order to separate the assessment role from the teaching role the examiner and the academic supervisor for a given thesis should be two different persons (but the examiner is free to ask the supervisor for advice). Thus, in case one of the appointed examiners is supervising a project then the other one has to be the examiner for it.

Planning report

Four weeks after the start date, you the students are expected to submit a planning report. The aim of this is to ensure that you do ground work first in terms of researching existing theory and methodology. It is an expanded version of the thesis proposal and the first step towards the final thesis. It should be written in English. It should contain:

• An introduction to the thesis, including research question and aim
• Background, describing the research area and problem, including related work
• A theory section, including theoretical frameworks and relevant concepts as well as related research, in any
• A description of the scientific method you will use, referencing to relevant literature specific to your method. See suggested literature under Course Information.
• A time plan
• A consideration about ethical issues that may arise in the project

It is important that all content is in place, including references. The requirements are all based on Chalmers’ guidelines for evaluation of master’s theses [1]:

It must be clear that the thesis work will involve significant specialization within the main field of study, and that it will make use of knowledge from advanced studies within the main field of study. The planning report must also contain a comprehensive review of existing literature, including reflection on the project’s connection to existing knowledge in the main field of study.

Potentially relevant academic theories and methods must be identified and motivated. These may relate to engineering or design related issues.

The problem must be formulated in a clear and delimited way. A realistic plan for the project must be formulated.

The proposal must use relevant and correct language, good structure and layout, and give a good overall impression (more detailed criteria are available [2]). If the language of the proposal does not meet this criterion, then it can still (but does not have to) be accepted, but then the students must get professional help with the writing of the report.

If relevant: The selected methods are presented and justified from a life cycle perspective, with a focus on sustainable development.

Any potential ethical consequences of the performed project must be presented.

It must seem likely that the project can be performed with a reasonable amount of support.

The planning report is submitted on Canvas. The examiner approves your planning report, or provides suggestions for revision. However, it should not be sent to the examiner before the academic supervisor deems it fit.

If you the student(s) do not meet the deadline for the planning report, or repeatedly fail in meeting the content criteria, the project may be failed, already at this point in the process, in which case you will have to start all over with a new project.

Continuous reporting

The academic supervisor and you the student(s) should agree on the level of, and forms of supervision. On the one hand the students must keep the academic supervisor informed of their work, so that any problems can be addressed early; on the other hand the students are entitled to a reasonable amount of supervision.

If the thesis work is not progressing according to plan, then a new plan should be drawn up together with the academic supervisor. In severe cases, when little or no work is being done without plausible explanations, the examiner can decide to immediately abort the project, giving the grade “fail”.

Examination

The examination consists of three parts: finalizing the thesis report, presenting the thesis work, and be opponent on another thesis.

Final report

The final report aims to summarize not only the findings but also the process during which these were attained, as well as the content from the Planning report in a more refined state.

The report should contain the following content, or similar, although structure and order may be adapted to fit the specific project:

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Background
• Theory
• Methodology
• Planning
• Execution | Process, using project phases as subsections
• Result (if iterative design process the result of the last iteration is here)
• (Data Analysis if there is any data)
• Discussion regarding result, process, generalizability, ethical issues, future work
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendixes

It is the academic supervisor that judges the progression of the thesis. When the thesis report is ready for final presentation it is submitted on Canvas. At this stage, it should be about 90% done, that is, the development part of the project is completed, all text is in place, but some revisions of the final text is to be expected. The supervisor approves the submitted report, and then proceed to book the presentation date in accordance with the master thesis coordinator’s scheme (available dates and slots are available in Canvas). The supervisor should also point out whatever else that needs to be improved in order to finalize the report. At this stage, these improvements should be more about form, presentation and structure rather than content.

The master thesis report (being at least 90% done) must be distributed to the opponents at least one week before the presentation. This distribution can only be done after the report is approved for presentation on Canvas. The opponent may download the thesis report from Canvas or receive it from the students by email.

Opposition

The second part of the examination is to oppose someone else’s thesis presentation. It is preferably done before presenting one’s own, but this is not a requirement.

The opponent(s) must have read the whole thesis and it is their job to ask questions and suggest improvements. The opponent’s task is to provide constructive criticism. The opposition should cover research questions, methods, how the results have been discussed and analyzed, as well as the clarity of the text and the quality of the academic argument made in the text.

Each master thesis presentation should have at least one opponent, either another student or an external opponent. External opponent means someone working outside the Interaction Design division. It can be an academic from Chalmers, another university or someone from industry. If the latter, it is important that the person has good knowledge about academic research. The master thesis student can suggest an opponent, preferably together with the academic supervisor, but the thesis coordinator decides on who will eventually oppose on whom (primarily to avoid opposition in pairs, on each other’s). If the opponent is a student, then that student must be a master student that are doing or have done their master thesis. It can be students from other educations, but preferably they should be students at the Interaction Design division, either in "Interaction Design and Technology", or in "Game Design and Technology".

Presentation

Each completed master thesis must be presented orally. Here, it is likely that the opponent(s), the examiner or the audience suggest changes or improvements. It is the academic supervisor who, after the presentation, decides on which - if any - changes must be done before the thesis is sent to the examiner for final review. When the suggested changes have been carried out, the student submit the final thesis report in Canvas, and the academic supervisor carries out the mandatory check for plagiarism using the Urkund system and sends the report to the examiner. The examiner may in turn have requirements for improvements before the thesis is approved. At this point, the work card with all necessary signatures needs to be handed to the examiner.

References

• Riktlinjer för betygssättning av examensarbeten. Available from http://www.chalmers.se/insidan/SV/utbildning-och-forskning/ grundutbildning/undervisningsstod-for/riktlinjer-for (both in English and in Swedish),
• Chalmers tekniska högskola,Centrum för fackspråk och kommunikation. Bedömning av den skriftliga presentationen rapport - HISS. Available at http://thor.lib.chalmers.se/inst_fack/kandidat/Kriterier.pdf (only in Swedish), 2007.
• Graham       Writing           a     project      proposal.     Available     at     http://www.cse. chalmers.se/~kemp/teaching/project/project_proposal.shtml, 2012.