Dissertation Meeting

30/05/2024

Agenda

  • General Information
  • Timeline
  • Supervision General Tips
  • Assessment
  • Reference Documents
  • Integrity Issues (Rudolf Tange)
  • Q&A

Projects have been allocated and communicated in May 2024

  • Allocation shared with students on Minerva.
  • Allocation shared with Supervisors on Teams/ via e-mail
     

 

What happens next?

 

  • Students were advised to be in contact with the supervisors to introduce themselves.

  • If you have not done, please email your supervisors asap to start arrangements.

  • If supervisors are unresponsive (ie not replying by mid next week), please email me promptly.

Supervision: General Info

  • Dissertation work starts in early June, after students' last exam.
  • Student to contact supervisor(s) before June to arrange an informal meeting (not included in the official supervision meeting hours).
  • Student and supervisor(s) should arrange 6 hours of meetings (modalities to be agreed) - do this as soon as possible.
  • Consecutive meetings should not be more than 2 weeks apart (with flexibility)
  • Supervisor should monitor students progress.
  • Students are expected to be on campus during their dissertation work (see Useful Contacts SES/VISA)

Supervision: General Info

  • First 3-4 meetings in a group (if applicable)
  • At least 3 meetings before mid July
  • Dissertation drafted by mid August
  • Not proof read but general sanity check

Group meetings

meetings can be 1-2-1 or group meetings if many students have been assigned your project.

  • Group meetings are efficient and encourage students to share and discuss. It usually speeds up the progress and creates healthy competition dynamic.
  • Make sure to have individual final output (eg. by focussing on specific aspects of the topic).
  • Usually 3- 4 groups meeting and 2-3 final individual ones to address specific issues (this works well, flexible).

Dissertation feedback before submission

  • If students provides the supervisor with a draft of the dissertation at least 3 weeks before the deadline (and anyway within supervisors agreed timeline), the should receive general feedback (not line by line) before their final submission. 
  • The expectation is that students only receive feedback on the dissertation draft once.

Good Practice

Suggestions:

  • Share a short report with supervisor(s) ~2 days ahead of every meeting so that you can comment on their progress and give guidance more effectively.
  • Practice on using latex with the provided template on Minerva. A very good online tool is overleaf.
  • Create a project on GitHub to share with your supervisor(s). (ABC for a Data Scientist!).
  • Learn how to use GitHub. Very good tutorials here: Atalassian and Software Carpentries.

DSA Timeline & details

 

  • There will be a poster session to assess the ongoing students work
  • The poster session will take place between Wed 10th and Tue 16th July 2024 (Only assessors need to attend, not supervisors).
  • All students must be available on campus throughout this period.
  • Deadline for submission of completed dissertations is 3.59 pm of Monday, 2nd September, 2024 (British Summer Time)

Sta./Appl.Fin. Timeline & details

 

  • Deadline for submission of completed dissertations is 3.59 pm of Wednesday, 28th August, 2024 (British Summer Time)
  • The oral examinations and presentations will be held in the period from Monday 9th to Monday 16th of September 2024 (Supervisors and assessors to attend).
  • ​Arrangements are flexible and to be agreed promptly with assessor and supervisors (more details in the handbook)

Assessment 

Poster Session MATH5872 (DSA)

  • Mixed sessions of ~ 2h with a variety of topics

  • 5 min individual poster presentation + up to 10 min Q&A per student ( about 2 hours per session)

  • Each student asks a question and gives feedback to their group posters 

  • Lead Assessor + Second Assessor

  • Sessions allocated by the project manager

  • Assessors mark independently

  • At the end of the session, the assessor will merge their marks and comments.

  • individual feedback forms will be sent to the students

Poster MATH5872 (DSA)- Marking Scheme - 10% of the final overall dissertation mark

Understanding (30%)  
Content (20%) -         Technical Content or conclusion of data analysis  
Poster (30%)  
Timing (20%)  
Language (markers are satisfied the poster meets the threshold for written English) pass/fail
Overall (out of 10)  

Dissertation Assessment DSA

MATH5872 (DSA) Form

 

                                         weight

Understanding

30%

Achievement

20%

Initiative

20%

Report

20%

 

Text

Language (markers are satisfied the poster meets the threshold for written English) pass/fail

Dissertation Stat./App. Fin.

 MATH5871 Form

 

                                             weight

Understanding

30%

Achievement

20%

Initiative

20%

Report

Presentation skills

20%

10%

 
Language (markers are satisfied the poster meets the threshold for written English) pass/fail

Handbooks

 

MATH5872: https://minerva.leeds.ac.uk/ultra/courses/_551438_1/outline/file/_11881894_1

 

MATH5871: https://minerva.leeds.ac.uk/ultra/courses/_549032_1/outline/file/_11881897_1

On Minerva MATH5871/2 Module page,

under Learning resources: preparing for your dissertation.

Useful Contacts

 

Student Visa Advice:

studentvisaadvice@leeds.ac.uk

 

Maths Students Support Team: mathsstudentsupport@leeds.ac.uk

Libray Contacts

 

Suzy Beck: s.e.beck@leeds.ac.uk

 

Anija Komatar: a.komatar@leeds.ac.uk

In July here will be a drop-in session about how to write your dissertation organized by the library

Integrity Issues

 

Dr Rudolf Tange

 

Any Questions?