Thesis Part A Seminar

The purpose of the seminar is for you to demonstrate that you are able to communicate your knowledge and understanding of a serious piece of research or development, and can convince the audience that you are able to work towards a solution or build the required product. The seminar will be held in week 7 each semester. Details are posted on the Noticeboard each year.

The seminar should go for a approximately 30 minutes, after which the presenter will take questions from the audience; the remainder of the 45 minute time slot should be used for the supervisor and assessor to meet with and give feedback to the student (without the audience).

This advice should be used as a guide by the student. The supervisor will have final say on what duration and format is appropriate for The Seminar.

Students should attend other presentations. Each student needs to carry with them an attendance sheet to be signed by the supervisor of the seminar at the end of presentations. Students are expected to attend at least 6 seminars. You can find the attendance sheet here and submit the completed form to the CSE Student Office.

In the seminar you need to convince the audience that you:

1. understand the topic;
2. have identified the problems; and
3. are capable of working towards a solution or product.

A basic skeleton of a seminar can follow the same set of 4 tasks that were described in the Course Outline, namely:

• define the problem,
• survey the literature,
• list your options (and compare them), and
• plan your attack (justifying any decisions that you have made).

The beginning and end of your talk should be understandable to other 4th year thesis students. The middle or main body of the talk should be targeted to academics.

Seminar - Date, Time, Location

Thesis Seminar scheduling will be available for Staff and Students in myCSE a few weeks prior to Seminar Week.

Consult the Seminar timetable on the myCSE web site at:

(Timetable released in week 6)

Your supervisor will chair the seminar (30 minutes) and the meeting afterwards (15 minutes).

Facilities

• Overhead, data projectors and computer are available in K17 113.  For all other rooms, there is only a data projector. If you require an overhead projector you need to book one from the CSE student Office (please organise your own laptop). When you pick up the overhead projector you will need your Student ID card.
• Twelve slides are available form the CSE School Stores, K17-B08A on presentation of student card (your supervisor needs to authorise this).
• No pens are supplied.
• Photocopying of slides should be done at your own expense.

Assessment Criteria: Your seminar will be assessed on the following aspects:

• Technical quality, which includes motivation of the work, quality of the literature survey, range of solutions, justification for choices, quality of the work-plan and the general degree of difficulty of the work.
• Presentation quality, which includes ability to communicate, clarity of description, platform manner, structure of the talk and competence in handling questions.

Thesis Part A Late Penalty