MASTER OF STATISTICS
THESIS PROJECTS
1. Applying for a project
Students wishing to start a project should fill out the application form and
return it to Mrs. Viviane Mebis. On this form the student has
to indicate in what way he wants to choose a project. In general there are two options:
- Choosing from projects presented at the Project Meeting Day: to facilitate contact
with research centres and industry the project meeting day will be organized at UHasselt where
several companies and research institutes will present their project proposals. During half a day there
will be a kind of fair format in which all project proposals will be presented by the researchers themselves
such that interaction between students and researchers is stimulated. The main goal of this event is two folded:
(1) Students are required to look for a topic and make a final decision at latest at the end of the event while
(2) researchers presenting their topic have the possibility to screen and properly select the student(s) they want
to work with. At the end of this event an agreement should be signed by both the student and the researcher
presenting a specific topic.
- Own individual arrangement: students can propose a project themselves in a clearly outlined
proposal (research question, short description of the data, proposed analysis technique,
institutions involved, ...) in collaboration with a contact person at an institute, laboratory or
research centre... of their own choice. This should be clearly indicated on the application form.
The application form should reach Mrs. Viviane Mebis, no later than February 9, 2009 and should
be accompanied with an approving statement of the supervisor (approval by e-mail suffices) in case
of an own individual arrangement.
Finally approval needs to be granted by the examination commission. A student certainly needs to be
enrolled for the master thesis in his program subscription and furthermore study results should be promising
in order to finish the master thesis with success. In case of questionable results in previous courses of the
first or second year the examination committee has the right to prevent the student to start working on the
master thesis. As a general rule it is stated that every student who successfully finished his first year and
all courses of the first semester or achieved at least 24 credits (out of 29) with a weighted average of at least 65%,
there is an automatic admission to start the thesis project in the second semester. All other cases will be considered
individually by the Examination Board.
For this reason part-time students can only start their thesis project in their final year.
2. The start of the project
A student properly enrolled and approved by the examination board can start working on his Master thesis. From now on it
is the responsibility of the student to immediately contact the contact person at the company and to complete
an internship form. This form should be sent to Mrs. Viviane Mebis.
Only those handing in this sheet will be considered working on their project.
3. Contact with UHasselt during the project
Apart from a (external) supervisor at the project place, 2 I-Biostat staff members will be assigned
as "internal supervisor and co-supervisor". The role of the supervisor is to give advice on the conduct
of the project and the format and writing of the report. The role of the co-supervisor is simply to take over the role
of the supervisor in case the latter is absent for a longer period of time. Both the supervisor and co-supervisor
will take part in reading the final report and judging the work of the student. The names of the internal supervisor
and co-supervisor will be communicated by Mrs. Viviane Mebis.
The time schedule of the second semester will indicate some exemplary points in time for
contacting the supervisors. While working on the project, the student should discuss the work
(encountered difficulties, solution strategies, progress, results, intermediate reports, …) with
the external and internal supervisors. The student should NOT contact other teachers or
researchers at CenStat or elsewhere, unless the internal supervisor suggests doing so.
4. The report
The activities of the training have to be described in a written document. This typeset document
should have the form of a well-written scientific report in which the student proves the ability
to analyse one or more specific problem situations and to discuss the possible solutions in a
scientific way. The length of the report may vary but should not exceed 40 pages. If thought
necessary, relevant computer output may be appended.
Possible sections in such a report are:
- introduction;
- description of the problem(s);
- description of the method(s);
- data, results;
- conclusions, discussion, open problems;
- literature, etc. ...
Guidance is provided by the projects ‘Learning from Data’ and ‘Discovering Associations’ and by feedback from courses in the first year
of the Master of Statistics programme that involve reporting on data analysis problems.
Once the student finalized the report it should be uploaded by logging on to the
student intranet and browse to "Mijn studentendossier" yielding a first screen where one can
indicate "English". Click on "Master Thesis" and the next screen shows all the details about the
master thesis (Please check these details and contact Mrs. Viviane Mebis if any error occurs).
These details appear on the cover of the master thesis. Next click on "Instructions upload".
Make sure to create only 4 files at most
- A file with the report
- A file with pages which request colour print
- A file with the attachment (only if this needs to be in a separate book)
- A file with the pages from the attachment which request colour print (only if this needs to be
in a separate book)
Finally the following screen shows the publication rights in order to put the report in the
library. Please choose between ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’.
Once this procedure is finished correctly an e-mail will be sent containing an order form for the
printing services. Only after handing in this form and making the payment, the report will be
printed. Finally, 7 printed reports will be delivered to the secretariat and an electronic
version of the thesis report will be sent to the library if necessary. In case of an appendix only
3 copies of the appendix are provided to the secretariat.
Make sure you respect the deadlines provided by the guidelines because the printing service will be
very busy in this period and the time indicated really is the time needed for this service to process your report properly.
5. Signatures and continuation form
In order to make sure the project proceeds in a normal way it is mandatory to fill out the
continuation form. It is again the responsibility of the student that this form is
completed by both the internal and the external supervisor. Only students with both signatures
on the continuation form will be allowed to defend their master thesis.
In case this form is incomplete or it indicates the student did not meet the requirements, the
student will be prohibited from defending the project and the final mark will be 0/20.
6. Thesis defence day and final evaluation
The project will have to be defended in public to a jury (15 minutes presentation, 7 minutes
questions). An electronic version of the presentation (PowerPoint, PDF...) has to be sent to
loa@uhasselt.be 5 working days prior to the thesis defense day,
mentioning your name and lecture hall you are scheduled to defend.
The final evaluation will be done by both the internal supervisor and co-supervisor together with the chairman of the session in which the student was
defending his thesis. The scoring will be as follows:
- The report is graded by both the supervisor and co-supervisor (score on 20 points)
- The presentation is graded by both the supervisor and co-supervisor and also the chairman of the session (score on 20 points)
- The actual defence with respect to the questions is graded by both the supervisor and co-supervisor and also the chairman of the session. (score on 20 points)
In case of a failure the student will get one more opportunity in the next academic year with a new project. An exception can be granted by the examination board leading
towards the decision that only upgrading and re-defending the current report is needed.
7. Important deadlines
For the academic year 2009-2010
Deliberation year 1 + year 2: 3 July 2010
Epidemiology & Public Health Methodology + Bioinformatics: thesis defence: 20 September 2010
Biostatistics: thesis defence: 21 September 2010
Master of Statistics: Proclamation: 24 September 2010
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