Thesis Part A - Course Aim

The aim of the Thesis is to investigate a research/development topic and develop a research or work plan. The outcomes of Thesis Part A are a report and a seminar, both of which are assessed. The purpose of Thesis Part A is to prepare you for both research/development and the thesis writing that you need to carry out in Thesis Part B. In Thesis Part A, you should also develop the skills and gain the confidence you need to work semi-independently in Thesis Part B.

Pre-requisite:

• 75% of stage 3 for BE students, ie. approximately 132 units of credit must be completed before enrolling in Thesis Part A.
• Computer Science Honours students enrol during their first semester of honours.

Nominating your thesis topic

To commence Thesis Part A you need to nominate your topic. You may select a short-list of topics, from which one is allocated to you, or you may approach academics directly to arrange a topic. Once you have a topic, you can expect to work on it for the whole of Thesis Part A and Part B. It is possible to change your topic however, but in that case you must arrange a new topic by finding a new supervisor, who will need to sign a Thesis Variation Form (coming soon).

To nominate your topic(s), follow the link in the side menu for Topic Selection.

Students who have failed to nominate a topic and supervisor by Friday of week 0 will be given a final warning before they are asked to discontinue themselves from Thesis Part A. It is not possible to remain enrolled in Thesis Part A without a supervisor beyond the UNSW Census Date (31 March/August), students will need to finalise their fees by this date and a refund will not be possible after Census.

Topic types

The topics are categorised into types:

• Research (RES) topics, which are generally problems in methodology and algorithms, but could involve some proof-of-concept coding;
• Development (DEV) topics, which have as principle task producing a hardware or software product;
• Research and Development (R&D) topics, which are a mixture of the above;

Tasks

All topics will require you to carry out the same basic set of 4 tasks. These are:

• Define the problem: with the topic description as starting point, you need to describe in more detail what the problems are or what the product is. You also need to motivate the work and say why it is important that it should be done.
• Survey the literature: you need to determine what the key developments in the area are, and in particular, how they related to your topic. Describe, compare and analyse the `competition’.
• List your options: describe and compare the alternative methods that could be applied to solve the problems that you have identified, or the (alternative) steps involved in making the product. Highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each of the methods.
• Plan your attack: finally, decide on the method(s) that are most appropriate, and justify your decision(s). Plan how you will do the work, and check with your supervisor that your plan is realistic. Note that you will be using this plan in Thesis Part B.

Irrespective of whether you are developing software or hardware, or are doing a piece of pure research, you cannot predict how the work will go. However, you should be able to develop a work-plan that will help you determine whether the work is on track. This work-plan may take the form of a timeline, commencing in week 1 of Thesis Part B and finishing on the date of final thesis submission, and contain milestones. For example, if you are developing hardware, you need to plan when the fabrication of the equipment should take place (and check for example on workshop availability). If you are developing software, a software lifecycle may determine how long you are in the requirements gathering phase or when you need to start testing and evaluation. If your work is more research oriented, then the original problem is normally broken up into smaller, more easily doable sub-problems, and some ordering is placed on these sub-problems. Many topics will involve some mix of the above, and this will result in a possibly more complex work-plan. In any case, an important aspect of both Thesis Part A and Part B is that you demonstrate that you can set yourself and carry out tasks (semi-)independently.