Master of Science in Information Systems - Handbook for thesis

The master’s thesis consists of five (5) three-credit courses. The thesis must represent the results of the student’s independent work after admission to the program. The proposed topic for the thesis, together with a brief statement outlining the proposed method of treatment, and the arrangement made for faculty supervision must be identified at the beginning of the program of study and approved by the program director and the SCIS director. The thesis will be evaluated by the student’s supervisor(s), and at least two examiners appointed by the graduate program director, one of whom shall be external to the School. The additional thesis examiners may be faculty members or industry resource persons approved by the program director.

A master’s oral thesis final examination will be required when completing COMP 680.

Research work formally begins after the student has completed their foundation and core courses. However, the student is encouraged to begin the process of identifying a research focus area, a research topic, and a prospective supervisor when they enter the program. A research topic can come from the student’s workplace or personal interest, interactions with the SCIS faculty members, and/or the research topics list. The student should use the MSc CIS Thesis Mini-Proposal Template (see Appendix A) to write a mini-proposal for the project, which may be based on the research topic identified in COMP 695.

The student should then submit this mini-proposal to their prospective supervisor. If no prospective supervisor has been identified, they should submit it to the MSc CIS program director. The prospective supervisor reviews the student’s mini-proposal and agrees (or does not agree) to act as the supervisor. If the prospective supervisor agrees to act as the student’s supervisor and approves the mini-proposal, the supervisor forwards the mini-proposal and agreement to supervise to fst_grad_success@athabascau.ca. Once the prospective supervisor receives the approval from the program director, then the student can register for COMP 676.

If the prospective supervisor does not agree to act as the supervisor, the student must either modify the mini-proposal in accordance with the prospective supervisor’s recommendations for resubmission (if the supervisor agrees to accept the mini-proposal again), submit the mini-proposal to another potential supervisor, or write a new mini-proposal.

If the student cannot find a prospective supervisor, they should submit the mini-proposal to the program director. The program director will review the mini-proposal and will assist the student in finding a supervisor.

Notes:

1. The effort expended in writing the mini-proposal (literature review, interactions with the program director, and the presentation of the mini-proposal to prospective supervisors) are not factors that impact the acceptance or rejection of the mini-proposal.
2. The mini-proposal (and each step in the thesis process) is the individual student’s responsibility, and the onus is on the student to demonstrate that the proposed investigation is worthy of being deemed thesis research.
3. After the supervisor approves the mini-proposal, its content, such as methods, tasks, or goals, is still changeable. Anything in the mini-proposal can be changed if both the supervisor and the student mutually agree during the period of the thesis research.

Upon finding a supervisor, the student should fill out the Master’s Thesis Supervisor Approval form and obtain signatures from the supervisor, program director, and FGS dean.

To obtain the required credits for the thesis, the graduate student must register in all of the following 3-credit courses: COMP 676, COMP 677, COMP 678, COMP 679, and COMP 680. These are not conventional courses; however, they are treated that way for administrative purposes.

If the student fails in any of the above courses, the student must switch from thesis route to essay route or project route by submitting a new mini-proposal and contacting the program director to identify a new supervisor.

COMP 676 Thesis I (Proposal Writing) is the first phase of the thesis work. This 3-credit course focuses on defining research questions, making hypotheses, identifying research methodologies, and assessing the suitability and applicability of these methodologies to the research problem. It also involves literature review and ethics/access approval if data collection is used in the research.

The thesis is carried out under the supervision of a supervisory committee and should be completed by the end of the student’s program. So, during this course, the student and the supervisor should work together to form the supervisory committee. Please visit the Graduate Handbook for details about the roles and responsibilities of the student, supervisor, and supervisory committee.

The supervisor should fill out the Master’s Thesis Supervisory Committee Approval form and obtain approvals and signatures from the committee members, program director, and FGS dean.

If the research project involves human or animal participants, or human biological remains, the student may need to request specific approval from the AU Research Ethics Board. For the policies, procedures, and guidelines for obtaining ethics approval, please refer to the university’s Ethics resources.

By the end of COMP 676, the student should have developed their thesis proposal, which will need to be assessed by the supervisory committee. The guidelines for the thesis proposal are in Appendix B, and a template for the thesis proposal is in Appendix C.

The assessment of the thesis proposal is done through formal adjudication of the proposal and an oral examination that involves the supervisory committee. Please refer to the Graduate Handbook for more details.

The assessment of the written proposal may result in one of four outcomes: Pass; Pass, Subject to Minor Revisions; Pass, Subject to Major Revisions; or Fail. The assessment of the oral presentation may result in one of the three outcomes: Pass, Fail, or Adjournment.

Once the proposal and the oral examination are adjudicated, the supervisor needs to complete the Master’s Thesis Proposal and Oral Examination Report.

Common problems with MSc CIS proposals

There have been a number of problems with previous thesis proposals that have occurred so frequently that it is worth identifying them explicitly. Some of these are major problems that will typically require major revisions to your proposal, while others are less serious but make your reviewers’ tasks difficult.

The following are the most common serious problems seen in previous MSc CIS thesis proposals:

• Failure to identify and clearly state a specific problem that you are addressing.
  You must make it clear to the committee what you are intending to do. Even if you are planning on doing work that is more generally focused (such as developing a taxonomy or a framework) rather than, for example, solving a specific implementation problem, you must clearly identify what it is you intend to do. A good guideline is that you should be able to specify what it is you are trying to do in a single sentence, perhaps with a couple of sentences of clarification afterward.
• Failure to clearly describe the methodology you will use to complete your work.
  While, at the time you are writing your proposal, you will be unable to provide complete details on how you will solve your problem, you must be able to describe the techniques you plan on using and explain why they are appropriate for what you are trying to do. You should also discuss whether and how you would alter the proposed techniques for use in your work.
• Failure to properly organize your proposal.
  If you do not organize your proposal in a logical fashion, it is extremely difficult for the reviewing members of the supervisory committee to tell that you have a good understanding of the area and are therefore prepared to begin your proposed work. Most importantly, your thesis proposal itself, and each section within it, must have good flow. This means that each statement must logically follow the one preceding it. You must always present complete trains of thought. There should be no leaps of faith required to understand what you are writing about. This reflects the process of scientific reasoning. Ideas should carefully follow from one step to the next as in a mathematical proof. It is also a good practice to look at each paragraph in each section individually and ask yourself, “Does this paragraph correspond to the title of this section?” If your answer is “No,” then you need to consider removing or refocusing that paragraph. A common example of this occurs when related work is discussed in a different section. (This is often easily identified by the presence of many citations in the paragraph in question.)
• Failure to make comparisons between related work.
  It is insufficient to simply enumerate work related to your proposed thesis. You must logically organize and discuss the related work so it is clear to the reader how the various previous research efforts relate to each other and, especially, how they relate to what you are proposing.
• Failure to remember that the supervisory committee is, by its constitution, a multidisciplinary committee.
  You must write your proposal accordingly. You are not writing to an expert audience within your specific chosen area of study. Consequently, you must always define all acronyms and explain terms before you use them. You may assume only a general, undergraduate level of knowledge and must, in your thesis proposal, explain everything beyond that. Always follow the adage, “Know your audience!”

The following are some common, less serious, problems often seen in MSc thesis proposals:

• Grammatical and spelling errors.
  The prevalence of such errors speaks negatively to your concern for detail and your industriousness. These are characteristics that are fundamental to success in scientific research and higher-level study such as the MSc and PhD degrees. You should remember that negative impressions of your written work will often be reflected later in, for example, reference letters written for you. As a first step, you should always spell-check your thesis proposal. Remember, however, that spell-checkers are not perfect and will fail to detect certain errors. Further, grammatical checkers are notoriously bad in certain situations; technical writing, such as that in a thesis proposal, is one such situation. The bottom line is that automatic checking must be only a first step. Careful, human proofreading is also needed. If necessary, it might be useful to arrange to have proofreading of the final (submitted) version of your proposal done by a professional editor or at least a highly proficient English speaker. A proposal which has obviously been poorly proofread may be returned for improvement prior to review.
• Inadequate and/or dated citations.
  Whenever you refer to the work of others (including figures you may have reproduced), to specific systems, and/or to specific claims that you do not explicitly justify within your proposal, you need to provide a citation to the related work. Further, such citations should always be made on the original reference to the corresponding system or piece of work. There are no exceptions to these two rules. Further, when selecting citations, you should always pick the best possible reference, where best is judged in terms of direct relevance, quality of the source, and recentness of the citation. Always try to avoid the use of old citations that might have been superseded by more recent work.
• Incomplete and/or inappropriate references.
  Each reference you provide should be as complete as possible. This means that it should include such elements as page numbers, date of publication, etc. Sometimes getting this information requires a little extra work (especially if you find the paper online), but this information should be included so that it is easy for the reader to locate the reference if they need to. (Note also that this will be even more important for your thesis document itself since a larger audience will likely read it.) It is also increasingly common to see references to web-based documents, such as technical reports, that are not refereed and are thus of dubious quality and value. Such references should be used extremely sparingly in your proposal and certainly should not be used alone to argue for any key point that your work depends on. Always try to find references from recognized journals, books, and top-tier conferences whenever possible. A proposal that obviously makes little or no attempt to provide complete and consistent bibliographic entries may be returned for improvement prior to review.

Timing of MSc CIS thesis proposals

This handbook states that your thesis proposal must be approved at the end of COMP 676. However, you should not put off sharing your proposal with your supervisory committee. There are several reasons for this.

First, when you submit a so-called proposal after the bulk of the research work has been done, it is not really a proposal but is, instead, a summary of what you have done. This is not the purpose of the proposal! If you submit at a late stage, you run the risk of having done a good amount of research on a topic that is not acceptable to the supervisory committee. In this case, you might be asked to select an entirely new topic and start all over again. While this is the worst-case scenario, it is not impossible, and it is certainly within the rights of the supervisory committee to reject a proposal entirely. In general, you should prepare the thesis proposal and have it accepted before undertaking most of your MSc thesis work.

Further, sharing your proposal at an early stage helps you get feedback and get advice on what specifically needs to be done to successfully complete the research, which is therefore advantageous to you.

Finally, early submission of your proposal allows you to receive potentially valuable feedback from the members of the supervisory committee, who commonly make suggestions and pose questions related to your proposed work as well as critically reviewing the proposal. Often their suggestions are valuable in helping you produce a better MSc thesis more expediently.

COMP 677 Thesis II (Research Stage I) is the second element of the thesis work. Students can register in this course after they have successfully completed COMP 676. Upon completion of COMP 677, one-third of the research should be done. Data collection and/or solution design should be completed by this stage. Generally, a student taking this course will continue to work with the same supervisor as in COMP 676.

COMP 678 Thesis III (Research Stage II) is the third element of the thesis work. Students should register in COMP 678 when their thesis work is well underway, and they have passed COMP 677. Upon completion of COMP 678, the student should have completed two-thirds of the research. Data analysis and/or solution implementation should be completed by this stage. Generally, a student taking this course will continue to work with the same supervisor as in COMP 677.

COMP 679 Thesis IV (Research Stage III) is the fourth element of the thesis work. Students should register in this course when their thesis work is well underway, and they have passed COMP 678. Upon completion of COMP 679, the student should have completed at least 90% of the research work. Experimental evaluations and results interpretation should be completed by this stage. Generally, a student taking this course will continue to work with the same supervisor as in COMP 678.

COMP 680 Thesis V (Thesis Writing and Defence) is the final element of the thesis work. Students should register in this course when they have passed COMP 679 and anticipate completing the thesis work. In COMP 680 course contract, they will finish their thesis, take the oral exam, and complete the final thesis revision. Generally, a student taking this course will continue to work with the same supervisor as in COMP 679.

The aim of COMP 680 is to produce a final thesis that satisfies the requirements of the program and of the university and to ensure that the student has completed all the requirements for completion of the degree and graduation. The student must produce a thesis that conforms to the university’s format for theses and dissertations.

While writing the thesis, the student with the help of the supervisor should ensure that all copyright issues have been resolved. Please check Appendix D for information about copyright permissions. For more information about intellectual property, please refer to the FGS intellectual property guidelines.

Once the written thesis is ready, the student should submit it to the supervisory committee, who will review the submission and provide their preliminary acceptance. They will indicate that the thesis is ready to be reviewed by the examination committee and that the student is ready to proceed by submitting the Preliminary Acceptance of Thesis Prior to Final Examination form.

Once the supervisory committee provides their preliminary acceptance, the supervisor should work with FGS to set up the examination committee and arrange for the final thesis examination. For more details about the final thesis examination, please refer to the Graduate Handbook.

Important: Once the thesis has been submitted for examination, the student must not make any changes to the thesis unless requested by the examination committee.

For details about the formation of examination committee, thesis oral defence, and thesis submission, please see the Graduate Handbook.

Where applicable, the student is responsible for revising their submitted thesis to satisfy the examination committee’s request for changes. If the committee requests changes, a copy of the revised thesis should be submitted to the supervisor for validation of the revisions before the student submits the revised thesis. Please refer to the Graduate Handbook for information about the submission of the final thesis. The student will not be recommended for graduation at Academic Council if the revised thesis is not validated.

Once the program requirements have been met, students must apply to graduate through the Office of the Registrar. For questions regarding graduation procedures, please contact the Office of the Registrar.

The purpose of having thesis proposals is twofold:

• First, it helps ensure that students are prepared to undertake the work they are proposing.
• Second, it helps ensure that the work being proposed is of appropriate scope and depth for an MSc degree and has value to the community.

The proposal must ensure that these two points are clearly addressed so that the committee can approve the thesis proposal.

The proposal must be a complete, self-contained description of the proposed research work. Any important details omitted will suggest that the student lacks mastery of the area. Having said that, the committee realizes that, at the stage of a thesis proposal, it is not possible for the student to have reviewed all background material (and thus have perfect mastery), nor is it possible to present all the details of the proposed work. The committee will, however, look to see that the student has covered reasonable breadth in their review of the area and that their solution methodology is clear and well thought out. These criteria will give the committee confidence that the student will have mastery by the time the thesis is complete.

Required components

Key components of the thesis proposal include

• an abstract of the proposed work.
• a clearly specified problem statement (where problem is taken in the broadest sense).
• an introduction to the problem and a proposed solution.
• a review of related work describing how it relates to the proposed work (this review is not intended to be exhaustive but rather representative of existing work in the area).
• a statement of how the student proposes to solve the problem, including sufficient methodology to convince the committee that the proposed solution is likely to be successful.
• a description of precisely how the student will evaluate the success of their work.
• a statement of the resources required to complete the work and how they will gain access to them.
• a description of the results they expect to obtain and why these results are of interest to the field.
• a timeline for the completion of the thesis, providing realistic dates for finishing milestone events.
• if appropriate, a statement of how they will manage any sensitive data (i.e., information of a personal nature) that they might have access to or create during the course of their research.
• a brief summary of what they have just proposed.
• a detailed, quality bibliography of work related to the proposed thesis research.

Length and structure

The length of a proposal often varies somewhat depending on the area of the proposed work and the topic itself. In general, a proposal is normally between 10 and 20 letter-size pages, single column, with 1.5 line spacing, 12-point font, and 2.54-centimetre margins. This page count includes figures and references. Be aware, however, that excessively lengthy documents may be sent back unread for revision to provide better focus. An upper bound of close to 20 pages is a good limit in practice.

Appendix C provides a template for the thesis proposal. While the exact structure and organization of a thesis proposal may vary from the following suggested structure, all the material discussed in each item described below should be included somewhere in the proposal and should be presented in a logical order.

MSc CIS Thesis Proposal Template

Copyright permission is required when you want to include a substantial amount of someone else’s work in your MSc thesis.

Copyright permission is required for a chapter or substantial excerpt from a book or journal, material copied from a website, screen captures from a website, charts and tables, images, and audio or video clips.

Copyright permission is NOT required for anything you write or create, short passages or quotes, items in the public domain, links to websites, ideas, and titles. For a more comprehensive description of what copyrighted material is and when permission should be sought, see the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) resource A Guide to Copyright.

Note: Open-access materials, such as items licensed under a GNU General Public License or a Creative Commons License, are usually less restrictive and can often be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided you acknowledge the source. Carefully review any such license or agreement attached to the works, as copyright requirements can vary. If in doubt, contact the rights holder of the work.

Expediting copyright permission requests

• For works from published books, journals, online journals, or e-books, submit your permission request to the publisher. Publisher contact information can be found using an online search or a print directory.
• For materials taken from a website, submit your permission request to the website administrator.
• For unpublished works, submit your request to the author.
• For photographs, submit your request to the photographer.
• For artistic works, submit your request to the museum or archive that houses it. You may need to obtain permission from the artist as well.
• For video clips or audio clips: submit your request to the producer or distributor of the work. 

If you have difficulty locating a rights holder, contact a Copyright Collective or the Copyright Board of Canada.

Requesting copyright permission

If available, complete and submit the copyright permission form provided on the publisher’s website. Fill out the form as completely as possible; incomplete forms or missing information will delay your request. If you are submitting a copyright permission form online, remember to make and keep a copy for your files. If no online form is available, use the following copyright permission form as your template:

Pending copyright permission requests

Before you can include the cited material in your thesis, you must receive written consent from the rights holder via fax, mail, or email. Obtaining rights holder permission can be a lengthy process. Ensure that you allow sufficient time to complete your thesis with or without the material you want to reproduce. Following up on your initial request often helps to expedite a response from the rights holder. Keep in mind that many publishing houses may not respond to requests for several weeks.

Note: If you are adapting the rights holder’s material in any way, your permission request form must describe how you intend to modify the material.

If you are denied permission to reproduce the requested material, you may want to follow up with the rights holder by requesting further details, elaborating your intended use, or offering to provide a draft for review. If the denial is absolute, you must remove the item from your thesis.

Inserting copyright acknowledgments

All copyright permission statements (credit lines) must appear on the first page where the reproduced material appears in your thesis. If the rights holder has not provided a preferred acknowledgement statement (credit line), then include a complete bibliographic citation, plus the phrase, “Reproduced with permission.”

Submitting copyright agreements

All written responses from copyright holders granting permission for the inclusion of their materials in your thesis must be submitted to the MSc CIS administrative assistant along with the final version of your thesis. Ensure that you make and keep copies of all permission agreements for your files.