Prospectus

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Thesis Preparation Course

Course
2021-2022

Title course: Thesis Preparation Course

Coordinator(s): Dr. L.M. Kamp and Dr. H. Ward
Other involved teachers: -

Entry requirements

This course is obligatory for students of the MSc Industrial Ecology (joint degree TU Delft and Leiden University).

Short description course

In this course students will conduct a guided approach towards a thesis proposal. Students will orient themselves on a (thesis) subject; do a literature research; critically review scientific papers in order to explore a suitable academic knowledge gap. Based on this, students will write a research proposal, formulate research questions, select a suitable research approach, select research methods, develop a research flow diagram and conduct thesis project planning. During the course the student will read and analyze at least 15 scientific articles, and peer-review all elements/assignments of draft research proposals.

Learning goals:

After completing this course, students are able to:

  • design and write a research proposal, that demonstrates:
    societal relevance, scientific relevance, based on state of the art literature review, coherent and consistent scientific argumentation, program specific research(able) questions and research approach, a do-able research plan including a conscious and justifiable choice of research methods and an accompanying time schedule and design research typical for the MSc Industrial Ecology

  • do serious and high quality peer reviewing

Education format

Online learning in combination with several workshops. Peer review is an important learning activity in this course. It is obligatory to meet the deadlines: if not, students can be excluded to continue the course.

Assessment forms

All assignments need to be fulfilled. The grade will be based on the final versions of

  • a research proposal - ~3500 words (grade)

  • peer assessment of reviews of formative assignments (a bonus of up to 0.5, which can be gained if the research proposal itself is sufficient (>5,5))

Final grades are expressed by means of a figure between 1 and 10, rounded to the nearest half. The grade 5,5 cannot be granted. Grades between 5,01 and 5,49 are rounded to 5,0 and grades between 5,50 and 5,99 are rounded to 6,0.

Class schedule

There will be several workshops during the course. Most communication and feedback will go via Brightspace.

Literature

Relevant literature will be made available via Brightspace.

Brightspace

This course uses Brightspace. Course documents, the course manual, announcements etc. can be found via Brightspace. To get access to the Brightspace page of this course, you first need to register via uSis.

Registration

This course is only open for students of the MSc Industrial Ecology (joint degree TU Delft and Leiden University). These students can register for the course and exam via uSis.