Guidelines for student research projects

The objective of this page is to give students and graduates a concrete step-by-step guideline on how to proceed when they write a thesis at our chair. Note that each of the below steps is mandatory for a thesis or guided research at sebis except stated otherwise.

1. Find a topic. Browse open topics on our web site or ask researchers at our chair for an overview of the most recent topics. Attach at least a current CV and a transcript of records.
2. Initial meeting with a research assistant or post-doc. In this step, you meet with a researcher discussing on the topic and possible research objectives and research questions. These meetings are characterized by their informal nature and commonly the results are vague at this stage.
3. Creation of a web-page at our chair’s system. The goal of this step is to create a short summary, a so-called abstract about the discussed topic you are going to research on. Note that this abstract commonly is not final and typically is revisited several times until your thesis is complete. Here is an example for such a page. For good examples on abstracts, we refer to our list of publications.
4. Initial Meeting with Prof. Matthes, your Supervisor, and a research assistant or post-doc, your advisor. During this meeting, the idea is discussed together with Prof. Matthes and you get his direct feedback on your and your advisor’s ideas. Discuss the title of the thesis, following the TUM guidelines, see Link.
5. Revise the abstract on our web-page. Goal is to incorporate the feedback.
6. Register for the advanced seminar via TUMonline (Oberseminar - Software Engineering betrieblicher Informationssysteme (IN2122)). If your thesis covers more than one semester you have to re-register. You have to participate regularly.
7. Prepare the formal registration of your thesis by taking care of all the points of the CHECKLIST. In case you have any questions ask your advisor or contact the secretary of the chair.
8. As soon as the completed CHECKLIST is handed out to the secretary of the chair, your advisor will register the thesis via the Koinon portal (https://portal.cit.tum.de/de/Theses). The student has to confirm the thesis registration under the same link. The School Office will then check the student's admission requirements and confirm the thesis.
9. If your thesis has not been registered in TUMOnline within one week after submitting to Koinon, please contact your advisor and the secretary.
10. Give the kick-off presentation at the advanced seminar (max. 4 weeks into the thesis).
    1. Search for a free slot on the website
    2. Contact your advisor to register the slot
    3. Upload your slides for the advanced seminar as PDF and PPTX to the web-page of your project (see kick-off presentation slides attribute). Please, do it before the start of the advanced seminar.
11. Proceed with your research and write up your thesis. Take a look here for tips on how to write a thesis. During this time, you should provide status updates proactively to your advisor. This is an opportunity; maybe you came up with new ideas and you want to have feedback; maybe you find another interesting direction that is worthwhile to research on.
12. Optional (!): Upload a draft version (80-90%) to Koinon (CIT portal).  This is mainly as a fallback to have a version uploaded before the final submission.
13. Give the final presentation. This presentation makes up a significant part of the grading. We expect you to present your results. In such a presentation, commonly people tend to run out of time. Focus on the interesting results; do not include everything. Before the final presentation, upload the presentation as PDF and PPTX on the web-page where your abstract is stored (see final presentation slides attribute).
14. Final Check: Congratulations! You are almost done. In this step, check your thesis for completeness. Are formal regulations met? Is the title of the formal application and the title on your final PDF the same? If not, you might want to talk with your advisor. The latter is very uncommon and you should have had a chat with your advisor about such an issue during step 7.
15. Upload the final version of your thesis to Koinon. Make sure to checkmark that this is the final submission. 
16. Upload your final thesis as a PDF file to the web page containing the abstract at our chair. Make sure everything is up-to-date (abstract, pictures, etc.) on the page. Make all resources used available to your advisor. Future research may build upon your results; completeness is expected.
17. Get your grade. Your grade is determined by your advisor and your supervisor. The advisor then enters your grade into Koinon. The supervisor has the final word and has to confirm the grade in Koinon. Usually, the decision process does not take too long and you can expect to get informed about your grade one month after submitting your thesis. Prerequisites for this step are: 1) handed-in thesis, 2) you have finished your web page, and 3) the page indicates the status completed which has been set by your advisor.
18. Unregister from the advanced seminar

Please read and obey the information given in the documents Grundsätze guter studentischer Praxis and  Statute of the Technical University of Munich on Safeguarding Good Academic Practice

Find below different aspects of scientific work: literature, papers, presentations, etc.

• Thesis Writing Tips @ sebis
• How to have your abstract rejected
• Richard Hamming's ''You and Your Research''
• TUM Thesis Guidelines
• LaTeX template (or this one)
• Wie schreibe ich eine Abschlussarbeit in Informatik?
• http://thesisguide.org
• The Use of English in Thesis Titles at TUM