Guidelines for Graduate Thesis Submission

 

Thesis Proposal (6151CIS-1)

Students enrolled at MS in Information Systems program are required to complete a 7 credit hours research thesis related to information systems, spanning over the second year of the program. This will enhance their research and design skills by taking courses such as Research methodology (6171-CCS-2) prior to Thesis Proposal registration. First, students are required to enrol in 1 credit-hour Thesis Proposal (6151CIS-1) where they will prepare a detailed research proposal including problem statement, literature review and proposed methodology.

Students start enrolling Thesis proposal at the second year of the program (third semester). At the beginning, students explore research interest of faculty members in the department, and the student and the faculty member will meet and discuss about the proposal title and find out how they can work together. Next, a faculty member will be assigned to a student as an advisor to supervise the student’s progress during proposal semester (not yet the official supervisor of the thesis) by filling Form PG-4-1. Proposal advising should be then approved by the Information System’s Department Council within first three weeks of the second year. 

            The proposal has the following millstones:

 

Download Supervision Approval Form

 

After finishing the presentation, the advisor should submit progress report (as well evaluation rubric) , and it includes milestones achieved so far, student’s commitment to meetings attendance, and student’s commitment to deliver proposal requirements by the stated deadlines.

 

By the end week 15, The student should submit the proposal report that has the following contents:

• Research Title
• Proposal Summary: (Approximately 250-500 words)
• Introduction
• Literature Survey
• Provisional Research methodology that is intended to be employed in the
• Provisional Thesis Outline: Highlighting the main sections that will be investigated in the dissertation.
• Research Timetable: Detailing how the dissertation will be completed.

 

Student should defense his proposal in week 16 by presenting his/her work drafted in the final report. the presentation should include research aim and objectives, questions, challenges, literature survey themes, literature critical review that led to and justify the research questions and objectives and provisional research methodology and the justification of its selection.

 

After finishing the proposal defense, the advisor should submit final progress report (as well evaluation rubric), and it includes the following: 

• Milestones achieved so far.
• Student’s commitment to meetings attendance.
• Student’s commitment to deliver proposal requirements by the stated deadlines.
• Student’s ability to conduct research via the following criteria:
  1. Comprehensive understanding of the target research area
  2. Ability to critically review research area.
  3. Intuitive thinking and taking the initiative in leading the research.
• Challenges or problems they may have encountered.

 

PG-4-2 Thesis Proposal Approval Form will be submitted to the Head of Department along with Supervisor progress reports and Panel Evaluation Forms. Who in turn will submit the documents to the following councils:

• Department Postgraduate and Scientific Research Committee
• Department Council
• College Council

 

Download Thesis Proposal Approval Form (PG-4-2)

 

Final Thesis (6152CIS-6) 

in the subsequent semester, the students build up on the work proposal defended in 6151CIS-1, and perform original research work, compile, and publish the results of the research work in form of thesis and research paper and defend it in front of a jury. Students are required to complete 6 credit hours research-based study under the guidance of a senior faculty member. This course is designed to help students to move forward towards the goal of a successful writing of the thesis by crafting a project that is accepted by the department committee and completing a working all chapters of the thesis document by the close of this semester.

Master Thesis should have the following parts:

• Thesis time plan
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Methodology,  Experiments
• Results and Analysis
• Conclusion 
• Final Thesis and defense 

 

Forming Thesis Committee:

Student start forming thesis defense committee after completing and finalizing the thesis. The selection of faculty member must be related to the research interest for both of student and advisor.  Typically, members read the thesis only in its final form before the defense, although they can be available for consultation throughout the process and may be more closely involved in sections or chapters in which they have particular expertise. 

The committee members are preferred to be from Information Systems Department or from the college of Computer Science. In addition, student and advisor can choose faculty members outside the college or the University. Proposed Thesis committee should be then approved by Department and College councils prior the defense session. All rules and regulation are documented  and constituted in the General Regulations Governing Postgraduate Studies here. 

After Defending the thesis, the committee members review the thesis, fill the defense rubric, and send the recommendations and changes to student and advisor to edit the document and update the final version of the thesis before submitting it prior graduation.  Committee members may decide to fail thesis for some reasons such as lack of understanding of the research field, lack of originality or plagiarism. They may also postpone the defense to complete some major changes. 

 

Awarding of the Degree

When the student completes the changes and recommendation reported by the thesis committee after passing the defense, the advisor should submit to the Head of department the following documents: original copy of the thesis, plagiarism report via online plagiarism detection service such as iThenticate, awarding degree from and evaluation rubric forms. All thesis documents must be approved by the department and College councils, and then send an official request to the deanship of Postgraduate Studies to award the degree to the student and issue the official certificate.