Procedure, form and evaluation

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Preliminary notes

We noticed that the following points, which we address in every initial discussion, sometimes lead to ambiguities in the past. Therefore we want to explicitly state:

• If you want to work with us, reach out as soon as possible. Anticipate at least one month between the initial idea and the start of your thesis.
• We will be happy to give you feedback on your thesis. We need the final draft at least 2 weeks before the deadline to do this. If you do not meet this deadline, we will not be able to give you feedback.
• If you have any questions during the creation of your thesis that relate to your written text, we need the material at least 2 days before discussing it. Otherwise we will not be able to review the material in time.
• Appointment requests for consultation hours as well as for discussions during the creation of your thesis also require at least 2 days’ notice. We are unable to consider requests made less than 2 days in advance.
• Please let us know as early as possible if you have a hard deadline for your thesis, for example at the end of the semester. A seamless transition to a Master’s program is possible, but must be coordinated with us early on.

Procedure

If you want to write a thesis with us at seclab, you can either work on one of our topics or your own topic. If you don’t have a topic yourself, then think about what exactly interests you in advance and have some initial thesis ideas. Requests without a concrete topic or ideas will be handled with lower priority.

• Before the thesis
  We strongly recommend attending the course Einführung ins wissenschaftliche Arbeiten for the Bachelor thesis or for the Master thesis the course Profikurs wissenschaftliches Arbeiten.

• First contact
  If you have a topic, send us an email to make an appointment for a preliminary discussion. Either to the supervisor, the seclab (seclab-fk07@hm.edu), or Prof. Dr. Thomas Schreck (thomas.schreck@hm.edu).

  Please get in touch with us as early as possible and briefly describe your planned topic. Also, tell us your time frame. We will give you feedback on whether the work with us fits both in terms of time and topic.

  If you intend to write your thesis with an external company, consider that we do not sign any NDAs.

• Exposé and initial discussion
  Write an exposé (3-4 pages) on your proposed topic. Use LaTeX, Pandoc or Markdown already for the exposé (see form). I will discuss your work with you in my office hours and give you feedback on it. The exposé should include the following:

  • Cover sheet
  • Motivation, Relevance
  • Related work (3-5 sources)
  • Problem and gaps in research
  • Research questions
  • Approach and methodology
  • Table of contents draft
  • Sources

• Registration
  You must register your thesis before you can begin working on it. The thesis registration must be done no later than four weeks after the acceptance of the exposé. Fill out this form and send it to your supervisor by email. If a second examiner is specified on the form, please select one by yourself. An informal confirmation is sufficient.

• During the thesis
  If you have any questions during your work, you can contact your supervisor via email. We are pleased to be at your disposal during our office hours or at agreed appointments for discussions.

• Interim presentation
  After about half of the working time, you will give us an intermediate presentation with the aim to show us the results so far.

  The intermediate presentation is obligatory for all master theses and bachelor theses with five months of working time.

• Feedback
  If you send us a thesis draft two weeks before submission, we can give you feedback. We cannot guarantee feedback for later requests.

• Submission
  Send your supervisor the thesis (as PDF) via email on the submission date at the latest. Handing in a printed version is no longer necessary. Please observe the formal requirements of the faculty.

• Final presentation
  The final presentation (Colloquium) will take place after submitting the thesis. For this, you will make an appointment with your supervisor. The presentation should take 20 minutes. Afterwards, questions will be asked about the work.

Form

You should use LaTeX, Pandoc, or Markdown to create your thesis. However, we recommend Microsoft Word if you have no experience with LaTeX, Pandoc, or Markdown. In addition, you should study the topic of technical writing before writing your thesis. We can recommend the book “Technisches Schreiben: (nicht nur) für Informatiker”.

We recommend our LaTeX template for the creation of your thesis.

Your bachelor thesis should measure between 40 and 60 pages, a master thesis between 50 and 80 pages.

You can write your thesis in German or in English.

Evaluation

Your thesis will be evaluated as follows:

• Content (70%)
  • Knowledge
  • Assignment
  • Scientificness
  • Methodology
  • Autonomy
  • Related Work
  • Quality of the results
• Form (30%)
  • Language
  • Structure and Citations
  • Layout and Content