Project Dissertation

Introduction

A major distinguishing feature of the Masters Programme is the project for which you are required to write a dissertation. The project represents an important component of the MSc Programme. It is a major piece of work with significant elements of research and innovation. The aim of the project is:

• to develop the students ability to carry out research, plan, execute and report in depth on a major investigation.

Meetings: weekly online
The MSc project is referred to as `Module CMPDLM005` in the MSc Programme. In terms of the complete Masters Programme, the project represents a significant component:

• 60 credits (out of 180 for the complete MSc Programme)

The students will be required to submit copies of a Project Dissertation and undertake online oral presentations of their work.  In order to gain the Masters award, a student must satisfy the examiners and the assessment board in respect of this module.

To carry out the project, the students will be expected to:

1. Work independently. The supervisor's role is a mentor rather than a tutor.  This means that the supervisor will be able to offer advice concerning the level, structure and content of the project but will not define detailed aspects of the work. The supervisor will normally offer advice in the form of objectives rather than actions.  You will be given a considerable degree of independence in the execution of your project and it is your responsibility to seek academic advice from the supervisor when you feel appropriate.
2. Analyse problems and implement solutions using experiences and skills gained during the MSc Programme.  However, you should be willing to learn and practice, on your own initiatives, new experiences and skills as necessary. This situation is most likely to emerge during the conduct of MSc projects.
3. Research the particular domain or topic in which the investigation takes place. This is to emphasise that MSc projects should involve a research element.
4. Structure and write a major dissertation, mainly to report on all your findings, results and conclusions.
5. Develop the ability to explain and defend the dissertation both during its formulation and drafting, and during the viva (online presentation) on completion.

To guide students in aspects of the level, structure and content of their project, they will be allocated a Project Supervisor who will act as the Mentor.  Whilst students are assigned project supervisors, their role is one of mentor rather than tutor; offering academic advice and support where appropriate and assessing the end result. Hence the degree of independence associated with the project is considerable. An important point to understand about projects and project supervision from the outset is that you are responsible for your project and its progress. Your supervisor provides help and guidance, but ultimate responsibility for your performance, particularly in terms of ensuring that you work steadily and sensibly on your project in an organised way over the academic year, rests with you.

Like other components of the MSc Programme, the project will be assessed. The exact nature of the assessment will, to some extent, depend on the project.  But despite this degree of variability, the assessment will be made up from the following components:

• 90% from the project dissertation
• 5% from the interim report
• 5% from the final online oral presentation

Assessment will be carried out by the supervisor, a designated moderator and/or the MSc Project tutor and, where appropriate, the External Examiner.

The Academic Staff

MSc project tutor:	The project tutor co-ordinates and organises the MSc projects. The project tutor allocates students to projects and supervisors and organises the schedule for online presentations.
Supervisor:	The supervisor is the person who oversees your particular project. You should meet (online) your supervisor regularly to discuss your progress. The supervisor is there to give advice and to help sort out problems with your project as they arise. The supervisor is the principal assessor of your work.
Moderator:	The moderator, who will be appointed by the supervisor and the project tutor, is the 'second marker' of your project. The moderator ensures that the mark awarded by the supervisor is an accurate reflection of the quality of the work presented. In the event of a dispute over marks, the project tutor will determine a mark in consultation with the supervisor and moderator, and the matter will be reported to the Assessment Board.

Project Selection Procedure

A project may originate from three possible sources:

1. A member of staff at the school.
2. Student’s place of work.
3. The student’s own ideas (based upon their work experience, as appropriate).

In the case of (1) above, the supervisor will normally be the member of staff who defined the initial `Project briefs'. Project briefs will be circulated prior to the project approval process. In cases (2) and (3), a supervisor must be selected by the student, in consultation with the project tutor and/or the programme leader, and the staff member concerned. In projects with a significant industrial component (i.e. carried out largely or wholly in an industrial environment) there will also be a designated industrial supervisor.

When selecting a project, two conditions apply:

1. Make sure you think of your strengths, interests and maybe future plans. These three factors will help to ensure that your project is not only a useful learning experience but also a pleasant one.
2. You should not have executed the project before either at work or previous studies. You can build on previous work or others' ideas, in which case, you are expected to acknowledge this in your final thesis. Failure to do so may result in convictions of plagiarism which may lead to not being awarded an MSc degree.

You are required to fill in a copy of the Project Proposal Form that is given in Appendix 1 plus a copy of project specifications, and email them back to the MSc project tutor.

Students should produce a Project Specification for their project in agreement with their supervisors. Irrespective of the origin of the project, students will be required to seek approval for the project from the Project Monitoring Panel. If the Project Specification does not meet the required standards, the Project Tutor can reject it and ask for revisions before it can be approved.

Note that All students should submit a Project Proposal Form, together with a specification for their project by the first deadline. These forms should be emailed to the MSc project tutor (contact details as specified on the form of Appendix 1).

Normally, the following time schedule should be followed:

	2 Years	3 Years	4 Years	Items to be Submitted
Second Year Modules	1 Core, 2 Option & Project	2 Core, 2 Option	2 Core, 1 Option	A copy of the Project Proposal Form (given in Appendix 1) together with a copy of Project Specification* (confirmation by email from the Supervisor)
Third Year Modules		Project	2 Option & Project
Fourth Year Modules			Project
Descriptor	Fast	Standard	Moderate

* The following describes what should be included in the Project Specification.

Project Specification

This should cover details of the planned project, which will consist of the following essential points. You may add other points as you think appropriate to your particular project. This should be completed in consultation with your supervisor, and, if in any doubt, the Project Tutor can be consulted. Points to cover are:

1. A Project Overview describing the aims of the project, its major functions and its operational context.
2. Specification of anticipated project final Deliverables, i.e. what you are expected to do and hand in. If you are expected to develop a system or tool, you can describe its expected features and functionalities.
3. A Project Work Plan showing a programme of work with associated staged deliverables and time schedule. It is very important to set yourself a time schedule using short time scales like one week or two weeks at most. Please include: starting date/tasks to do/end date/deliverables expected at the end date. This will help you monitor your progress.
4. Resources needed: specific hardware/software or other project specific requirements.
5. A Vision of what the final dissertation will consist of:  an outline of its possible main chapters, sections and subsections (suggesting some headings and titles will be useful).

Project Execution

Students will normally be offered advice in the form of `objectives’ rather than `actions’. They will be given considerable degree of independence in the execution of their project and it is their responsibility to seek academic advice from the Supervisor when they feel it is appropriate.

In order to carry out this supervisory role, the Supervisor will require the student to agree to a Project Specification (as explained in Sections 3 and 4), and set up regular online meetings. After completing the Project Proposal Form and the Project Specification in agreement with your supervisor, they should be agreed by both you and your supervisor. A copy should be emailed to both your supervisor and project tutor. To ensure that students make satisfactory progress during the execution of their project, they should ensure that they maintain regular contact with their Supervisor. The frequency of these meetings should be sufficient to ensure that satisfactory progress against the Project Plan is maintained.

Changing the project, in any way, from this agreed Specification may only be done with the written permission of your supervisor. This written permission should take the form of an amended specification signed by you and your supervisor.

Project Duration

Your project duration seems like a long time but is actually a short period of time to produce such a significant piece of work as your project. Consider the competition for all your other work, and then you can feel the pressures that your project will be under. The time you will be able to allocate for your project will be limited. It is vital that you work steadily at your project over the year/s. There is great temptation to feel that you can leave your project work until later. Doing this will inevitably cause serious problems Plan your work, so that all of the technical work should be completed within a reasonable time. Give an appropriate time allowance to writing up your final dissertation (also called thesis). Depending on your writing skills, this varies from one student to another, but on average, you will need at least what is equivalent to six weeks of full time hours. During this period of time, until the hand in date, you will be writing up your final thesis and, if needed, filling in any gaps as necessary.

In total, you are expected to spend 800 hours work to complete your project, from start of project to submitting your dissertation, which is equivalent to at least 6 months of full-time effort.

Project Assessment

The exact nature of the assessment will, to some extent, depend on the nature of the project. However, marks for the project break down as follows:

Content	Mark
Interim Report	5%
Project Dissertation**	90%
Final Online Presentation	5%

**This is an assessment of the overall technical and research progress achieved, and the overall write-up of the final dissertation.

Interim Report

The interim report describes the state of your project, for the period that covers the start of the project until the submission of the interim report. It should include:

1. a copy of the Project Proposal Form and the Project Specification with a more detailed project plan. If needed, the drafts initially submitted may be revised at this stage for the inclusion in the interim report.
2. a literature review to survey  relevant research work that is related to your project.
3. progress made to date (a review of work undertaken to date, any results obtained, problems and solutions).
4. specific and general difficulties encountered,
5. anticipated progress
6. plan (with a time schedule) of how you intend to proceed next, remaining work, risks, etc.

The report may be around 20 double spaced pages in length. Make sure that you write a good interim report and take it as an opportunity to build up information for the final dissertation. It helps you organise your thoughts which will facilitate a smoother continuation of the work.

You should submit by email a copy of the interim report to the Project Tutor. Make sure to obtain a confirmation by email of receiving the report by the Project Tutor. This should be submitted within six months of enrolling on the programme as follows:

(Fast Mode) 2 Years	(Standard Mode) 3 Years	(Moderate Mode) 4 Years	Items to be Submitted
Within six months	Within nine months	Within twelve months	A copy of the Project Proposal Form (given in Appendix 1) together with a copy of Project Specification (confirmation by email from the Supervisor)

Note: that your supervisor is entitled to request that you submit regular short progress reports. This should be seen as a good opportunity to build up for writing the final dissertation. It will help you organise your thoughts and link all parts of your research cohesively. It is advisable that even if the lecturer does not request these regular reports, you should be self-motivated to do so.

Final Dissertation

This should describe the research, design, implementation, findings, and conclusions of the Project. The students will be required to submit a project dissertation and undertake online presentations of their work. The dissertation should describe your entire project including all results and conclusions.  The dissertation’s content is the main means by which the technical work and research conducted are assessed. The dissertation writing up is very important too and should give a good impression of your effort for the whole year. Your dissertation should conform to JMU standards and good technical writing practice. Guidelines to dissertation writing-up is attached to help you in this task (see Part-2 of this document).

You should complete your work and submit your dissertation for final assessment following this time schedule:

• Fast mode of study: students should submit within 24 months of initial registration on the MSc Programme.
• Standard mode of study: students should submit within 36 months of initial registration on the MSc Programme.
• Moderate mode of study: students should submit within 48 months of initial registration on the MSc Programme.

These regulations apply in regard to dissertation submissions:

• If no submission has been made within these deadlines, normally, the student will then have failed the project module. This will prevent the award of the MSc degree.
• These deadlines may be extended only when the project supervisor and project tutor agree on a new deadline due to justifiable circumstances.
• Projects submitted outside these dates because of legitimate circumstances (e.g. a project submitted early, or with an extended deadline approved by the supervisor and project tutor) will be considered by the next planned Module Assessment Board.

receiving your dissertation.

Important Note: Please note that it is very important that you should show the final dissertation to your supervisor for his/her approval before you submit it. It is important too that you should give it to the supervisor two weeks at least before it is due for final submission, to allow him/her enough time to read it and approve it, and suggest changes before it is too late. Remember that the final dissertation is a reflection on your efforts, and therefore, it is in your best interest to get the supervisor’s advice and approval on this matter.If you do not do that, the supervisor can object to your submission which will cause everybody concerned unnecessary problems.

Final Presentation

After completing your project, you will be expected to prepare PowerPoint slides and give an online oral presentation. You will be given a 15 minutes time slot to describe your project and 5-10 minutes to answer questions about your work. The presentation is an opportunity to tell a small group of staff about your project (normally the Programme Leader, your Supervisor, Moderator and may be External Examiners). Marks are awarded for the quality of the presentation. At the end of your online presentation you will be asked questions about the presentation. The presentation marks are awarded for the quality of your talk and how well you answer questions.

These are some guidelines for the presentation:

• Slide-1: Project Title, Student Name, your Supervisor Name (When you present this Slide, you may introduce yourself and the motivation for selecting the project).
• Slide-2: Outline of the talk. On this Slide, just show a list of the headings that you intend to cover in your talk. This varies from one project to another. Normally, a list of these points in this sequence is recommended:
  • a) Project main aims and objectives,
  • b) Literature Reviewed and main Findings,
  • c) Theory or Model, d) Analysis and Design,
  • e) Development or Implementation,
  • f) Evaluation,
  • g) Main Contribution to Knowledge,
  • h) Possible Future Work,
  • i) Evaluation of the Experience as a Whole (*Lessons Learned, *Difficulties faced).
• 10 more Slides.  For each of the heading listed on Slide-2

Final Advice

The project is a chance for you to work on something that interests you; take the opportunity to enjoy the work. The golden rules for good projects are:

• consult your supervisor regularly,
• work steadily throughout the duration of your programme,
• make notes, small essays or reports,
• read research articles in scientific journals for efforts similar to your work and the latest in the field. Keep copies of the articles you find useful and reference your sources,
• talk to someone early if you have difficulties.