Student thesis

After an interested student has registered to work on the topic, he or she must complete the upper half of this form. The lower half of the form must be completed by the supervisor and handed in to the secretary’s office (together with the printed assignment) for further processing.

Please note the following:

• The student grants the university a simple, free, temporally and geographically unrestricted right to use the results of the student’s work, including any industrial property rights and copyrights, for the purposes of research and teaching. This grant of rights leaves the rights of commercial exploitation of the work results entirely with the student. On request, we also offer topics that do not require such a granting of rights. For external theses, for theses carried out as part of externally funded projects directly commissioned by industry, and for theses with foreseeable commercial benefits, a considerably more detailed and case-specific contract may be required in individual cases.
• If the thesis is to be written in English, this must be specified at the beginning of the working time span. In the case of an English assignment, the student must confirm that he/she has chosen this assignment him/herself and that he/she was also offered German assignments.
• The accompanying sheet is created in the chair’s office and the thesis is officially assigned by this letter. The thesis description from point 1 and a declaration of acceptance of the thesis will be included with this letter. In addition, the students are pointed to this website.
• If the student has accepted the master’s thesis, the supervisor changes the status of the thesis in UnivIS (from open resp. reserved to ongoing) and the chair secretary registers the thesis with the examination office.

• The workload of a master thesis in the computer science degree program is 900 hours. The standard runtime is therefore 6 months. An extension is only permitted in exceptional cases. Other degree programs may contain different regulations.
• Computers are available for students to work on in room 05.125. The entrance doors of the computer science department building and room 05.125 can be opened with the FAUcard, which must be given permission by the CIP-Pool administrators (the permissions must be requested by the supervisor).
• Towards the end of the thesis runtime, but usually within the lecture period, the student must give a 30-minute presentation on the thesis in the “Begleitseminar zu Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten”. It is strongly recommended that students attend at least two dates of the colloquium as audience members beforehand, such that the expectations of the presentation are sufficiently known to the presenters. For presentations in the corporate design we offer a LaTeX template as well as a PowerPoint template (from Office 2007, German or English).
• A written thesis must be submitted (see below).

• The length of the written work should be approx. 100 pages. In agreement with the supervisor of the thesis, the number of pages can also be only approx. 40, if program code had to be created to a considerable extent as part of the thesis and is considered in the assessment.
• The 4.0 certificate is only awarded for something written that is worth a 4.0 at least and if (additionally) the associated presentation in the “Begleitseminar zu Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten” has been successfully given!
• For LaTeX there is a thesis template (using KOMA Script) that looks like this. There is also a LaTeX cover template for the cover of the thesis (needs the FAU logo and looks like this). Please build with “latex cover.tex” and then “dvipdf cover.dvi” but don’t forget to replace “Master’s Thesis” and “Bachelor’s Thesis” accordingly.
• For writing the text it is highly recommended to follow some typographical principles.
• The thesis must be submitted in a light brown cover, either ring-bound or glue-bound, to the secretary’s office or to the supervisor in a timely manner.
• The student must prepare the thesis at his/her own expense.
• The written thesis must comprise a cover sheet and an assurance (aka “own work declaration”). The thesis topic and problem definition from point 1 and a summary of the results must be placed at the beginning of the written thesis. The summary should clearly state both the problem to be solved and the solution concepts in short and simple terms. It is also desirable that the summary briefly describes how this thesis distinguishes from related work.
• Programs belonging to the work, the source code (LaTeX) of the thesis, the thesis as PDF file as well as the summary (as index.html in the root directory) of the work have to be handed in on a CD-ROM to the supervisors. The following has to be achived on the CD:
  • index.html: the German summary
  • README.txt: how to build everything (cd src; make…), how to start it up
  • src: the source code and whatever else belongs to it, e.g.
    • examples
    • classes (IMPORTANT: do not forget the source code files)
    • javadoc
    • bin (IMPORTANT: do not forget the executable binaries)
  • Thesis: Directory with LaTeX sources + Makefile, etc.
  • Thesis.pdf: the thesis as a PDF file
• Accepted publications (conference papers) can also be used for a thesis. However, this must be agreed on with the professor!
• Colored images in theses are generally OK as long as you can still read everything in a black and white printout without the color information.

• After the master’s thesis has been received by the chair secretary, it is noted in the master’s thesis list, given the corresponding final id number and passed on to the supervisors. In UnivIS the status and the temporary id of the thesis must be updated. The PDF of the thesis will be placed on the homepage of the chair (personal data of the editor will be blacked out if desired) and linked in UnivIS. The date of submission will be communicated by the chair to the examination office.
• If the master’s thesis is not submitted in time before the deadline, it will be graded as failed. The work is otherwise to be graded according to this pattern.
• The supervisors have to take care that literature borrowed from the university libraries and borrowed keys are returned.
• The supervisor submits the master’s thesis together with the appraisal to the secretary office. While the grading is being checked by the professor, the system administrator has to clean up the user directory and backup the final version of the programs. A certificate is sent to the examination office.
• A maximum of 3 months can elapse before the work is evaluated and graded. Since a certificate of completed work may be needed, such a certificate can be issued at the student’s request.
• The copy of the master’s thesis is placed in the local archive.