ACIT5910 Master's Thesis, Phase 1 Course description

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competence:

Knowledge

The student:

• understands the basic problems relating to carrying out a research project, including professional and research ethics, methods of cooperation, hypothesis formulation and experiments
• has a basic understanding of financing, reporting and the organisational structure of a research project
• understands the possibilities and challenges related to the generalisation of research results

Skills

The student is capable of:

• applying scientific methods, including basic qualitative and/or quantitative methodologies
• searching for, applying and referring to relevant scientific literature
• critically reflecting on the connections between research questions, research design and choice of method

General competence

The student is capable of:

• defining a research issue, research question and relevant methodology
• completing a scientific experiment through e.g. user testing, experiments, questionnaire surveys or prototype implementation
• assessing the quality of the different aspects of a scientific study

Supervision sessions with an internal and/or external supervisor. The students will work in groups of three to five students on a project, which is part of a research project at OsloMet or another institution, in cooperation with the research project’s participants and the relevant research group.

The course can be carried out individually by agreement with the course coordinator.

The projects are chosen/assigned at the start of the semester.

The following coursework is compulsory and must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• A compulsory Orientation Meeting.
• A project outline that describes how the group will organise their work on the project.
• A standard learning agreement must be entered into between the project provider/supervisor and the student(s), and this must be approved by an internal supervisor before the project can begin.
• Three minutes of meetings from the supervision meetings held during the project period.

The deadline for submitting the project outline and the minutes of the meetings will be presented in the teaching plan, which is made available at the beginning of the semester.

Each student is appointed a supervisor when starting Phase 1. The work is carried out under the guidance of the appointed supervisor.

In addition to the project work, there will be a series of online, asyncronous classes during which students will be provided with a range of analytical tools and methods to help develop their writing skills. Students will also receive formative feedback on draft versions of their texts from the course instructor and their peers.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

1. a draft text of the Phase 1 submission
2. a peer review of another students draft text of the Phase 1 submission
3. a Process memo (reflection on the feedback received).

All aids are permitted, as long as the rules for source referencing are complied with.

All aids are permitted, provided the rules for plagiarism and source referencing are complied with.

Assessment is pass or fail.

Two internal examiners. External examiners are used regularly.

Master thesis coordinator: assistant professor Nikola Holm

Writing workshop coordinator: professor Pavel Zemliansky