Thesis Demonstrations/Showcase

As well as submitting a final report on the thesis work, all theses which lead to a hardware/software product must be demonstrated to at least the supervisor and assessor before the thesis is marked.

The first opportunity to do this will occur in Week 10 of the semester. You may also wish to demonstrate the final product after submitting the thesis. There will also be a Showcase of outstanding theses.

Preliminary Demonstration Week (Week 10)

During Week 10 all students should arrange with their supervisor and assessor to hold an informal demonstration of their work so far.

The preliminary demonstration is intended to be a useful opportunity to get feedback which might be incorporated into the final product. If the product is already complete, this is a useful place to draw a line on the development work and focus on completing the thesis in the following weeks.

The preliminary demonstration week also provides an opportunity for supervisors and assessors to identify outstanding theses to appear in the Showcase at the end of semester. Feedback on the preliminary demos will be considered by a panel which determines the these to appear in the showcase. Students whose projects are selected for the Showcase will be notified by the end of Week 10 and given assistance in preparing a poster to accompany their Showcase demonstration.

There are a number of reasons for doing the demonstration:

• To impress the supervisor/assessor with the research before they read and mark the thesis.
• The assessor in particular may have had little to do with the research and may need face to face contact to better understand the scope of the research and to ask questions.
• Thesis students usually welcome the opportunity to present their work to others - it is a form of `closure' to all that hard work.
• It is part of the students' education to have experience of demonstration (like the Thesis Part A Seminar), and to see how others do it.
• Future thesis students can get a better idea what thesis work involves, and in particular, on a particular research area.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Agree on a time and place with your supervisor and assessor to demonstrate the research sometime during Week 10
2. If appropriate, use the CSE Booking Facility to reserve a workstation. (Note that some topics may require other laboratory facilities to be made available.)
3. Make sure that the assessor is informed.

Showcase

View current Showcase schedule.

Outstanding projects will be nominated by supervisors/assessors to be presented in the thesis showcase. The showcase will be publicised to all students and staff @CSE. Students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their work to academics and students from CSE. The showcase will be particularly useful to inspire 2nd and 3rd year students by providing good examples of thesis projects. The criteria for choosing outstanding projects are: (i) likelihood of getting a solid HD, (ii) novelty (iii) significance.

Students whose projects are showcased will receive a certificate from the Head of School produced by the Development Office.