During their master thesis, students are expected to contact their supervisors on a regular basis to present their work progress.
The aim of preparing a thesis plan is to demonstrate that you, as students, have understood the objectives of your work, and that you know how to carry out your work. This plan is due at most two months after the effective start of the thesis, and should be handed to the supervisor(s). Depending on your situation (e.g. first semester abroad) and on your programme commission, this can take various forms, such as an oral presentation, a public poster session, a written document, ....
In all cases, it should comprise the following information:
• clear statement of the objective(s)
• list of targeted LO's (especially specific ones)
• context (application domain, societal impacts, ...)
• proposed methods (theory, experimental tools, developments, simulation, ...)
• list of available technical (equipments, codes, ...) and human (supervisors, and resource persons for technical aspects) resources
• first bibliographical research, including technical manuals
• first schedule of tasks with deliverables
The composition of the jury is discussed between students and supervisors, but is mainly the responsibility of the supervisor(s). It has to satisfy the following rules:
- Each jury is composed of the supervisor(s) and the readers, and must comprise between 3 and 5 members (including supervisors).
- Each jury must include at least 2 academic staff members (unless an exception is granted by the programme commission)
- Each jury must include at least one reader who was not directly involved in the thesis supervision (ideally outside the research team of the supervisor).
The composition of each jury will be approved by the programme commission. Potential readers should be contacted first to make sure they agree to read the thesis and are (mostly) available at the proposed dates for presentations.
Once you have agreed about the jury composition and contacted the jury members, you can encode it on the TFEScheduler application. This application is only accessible to students, and is used to collect information to prepare the final presentation sessions.
Each master thesis is evaluated by the supervisor and by the jury in the following way:
- 40% of the final mark by the supervisor, about the work conducted during the year by the student, according to the evaluation grid Year-Work-By-Supervisor
- 40% of the final mark by the jury members, about the written manuscript, according to the evaluation grid Manuscript-By-Reader-And-Supervisor
- 20% of the final mark by the whole jury attending the final defense, according to the evaluation grid Oral-Presentation
All oral defenses take place in the Sainte-Barbe auditoriums and are organised like scientific conferences with parallel sessions. The schedule is published about one week prior to the defenses. These are public events and can be attended by anyone. Each session (with a few exceptions) gathers three consecutive defenses, each lasting 40 minutes, to be followed by a single common deliberation. For each defense, student(s) start by giving a 20-minute presentation (same duration for two students), either in English or French, then answer the jury's questions for about 15 minutes. Five minutes are left for the transition to the next defense. All jury members are expected to attend the full session and to participate in the final deliberation.
For supervisors
You are asked to fill for each master thesis an evaluation grid to assess the student(s)'s work during the year (this grid is not concerned with the manuscript). It is recommended to consult all people who may have been supervising or in close contact with the student.
In case of multiple supervisors please consult with each other and fill only a single joint grid per master thesis.
This grid should be sent back to your programme commission at your earliest convenience, a few days before or after the thesis submission.
This evaluation will be used with a 40% weight in the final grade.
For every reader (including supervisors)
You are asked to fill for each master thesis an evaluation grid to assess the thesis manuscript.
This grid should be sent back to your programme commission at the latest3 days before the presentation sessions , or given in person to the moderator right before the defense.
Note that supervisors also have to fill this second grid (and in the case of multiple supervisors each one has to fill his/her own grid).
All reader's evaluations will be averaged and then used with a 40% weight in the final grade.
These two evaluation grids (year's work and manuscript) should be seen as "check lists" that help motivating a grade based on the emerging general trend.
Both grids are available on this Moodle in PDF and Word formats, in both French and English.
Oral defenses
All oral defenses take place in the Sainte-Barbe auditoriums; they are public and can be attended by anyone. For jury members outside EPL, it is possible to participate in the defense remotely if necessary. In that case, please inform the programme commission secretary. Recall that the schedule, once published, can be found on https://tfescheduler.info.ucl.ac.be/public/schedule
Each session (with a few exceptions) gathers three consecutive defenses, each lasting 40 minutes, to be followed by a single common deliberation.
For each defense: student(s) start by giving a 20-minute presentation (same duration for two students), either in English or French, then answer the jury's questions for about 15 minutes. Five minutes are left for the transition to the next defense. All jury members are expected to attend the full session and to participate in the final deliberation.
Deliberation
Right after the last defense in the session the audience is asked to leave the room, while members from all three jurys and the moderator stay to deliberate.
For each master thesis, the moderator starts by gathering opinions about the oral defenses (mastery of the subject, answers to the questions, presentation skills, quality of the slides). Everyone present may share their opinion (including those who have not read the thesis).
The moderator then fills the corresponding evaluation grid, and reaches a consensus on a grade for the oral defense (to be used with a 20% weight in the final grade).
Finally the moderator shares all evaluations (and grades) received about the year's work and the manuscript, and computes a proposed final grade using the aforementioned 40%-40%-20% weights (one decimal place allowed). The jury may accept this proposal as the final grade, or propose to modify it (note however that grades awarded on the various grids should not be changed a posteriori). Deviations by more than 0.5 points require an explicit justification to be written on the deliberation report. The jury also confirms the appropriate diffusion level/confidentiality status of the electronic manuscript.
After the defense feedback may be given to students (e.g. using the assessment made via the evaluation grids), but the final grade awarded is not supposed to be revealed (nor the grades from the evaluation grids).