Guidelines

In the following, we describe what to expect when writing your thesis in our group.

For general information, please also check out the general thesis guidelines by the study center for computer science.

Overview

1. Find a thesis topic and an advisor
2. Write a proposal
3. Present your proposal to the group
4. Officially register your thesis with the central examination office
5. Continue your research
6. Write your thesis (be aware of the official deadline)
7. Present your thesis to the group

Finding a topic (and an advisor)

There are multiple ways to find a topic and an advisor:

1. Check the list of open topics whether there is any topic that sounds interesting to you
2. If there is no suitable topic on the list, contact thesis@ml.rwth-aachen.de and ask for any open topics.
3. If you already know someone in the group (e.g., because you are a student assistant), ask them whether they have any topic that is not advertised.

In all cases, please provide a short CV and an academic transcript and mention any relevant courses you have taken, in particular courses offered by us. This helps us to understand what kinds of topics may be suitable for you. If you have a particular topic in mind, please also briefly describe your idea. You can also check out our publications to get an understanding of the topics that we are working on.

Prerequisites

• We usually expect that you are familiar with the basics of our research, i.e., you should have taken at least one of our or related courses.
• We expect that you dedicate enough time to your thesis. Writing a thesis is usually a full-time job for 4 months (Bachelor’s) or 6 months (Master’s) and preparing the proposal requires some additional time. Please plan accordingly. If you have other obligations, mention them when you contact us.

Proposal

The proposal should focus on the following aspects:

• What is the problem you want to investigate?
• What is the state of the art, i.e., what other methods exist that solve similar problems?
• What is the core idea of your approach?

While working on the proposal, you should get familiar with the research problem at hand and develop ideas on how to solve it. Usually, this happens in a dialogue with your advisor, i.e., you should meet them frequently to discuss your ideas. Depending on the topic, the focus of your thesis may slightly shift or you may even decide to pursue the problem from an entirely different angle. Once you have finished the proposal, it should be clear what exactly you are going to work on.

The proposal should be no longer than 10 pages for Bachelor’s theses and 15 pages for Master’s theses. We provide a LaTeX template.

Before you can present your proposal to the group, another member of our group (a PhD student or Postdoc) needs to confirm that your proposal is ready for presentation. In order to do so, please ask your advisor who you should send your proposal to. Once you have the confirmation from another group member, you can schedule the proposal talk, with the help of your advisor.

Proposal Talk

The goals of the proposal talk are:

• informing the rest of the group of ongoing research, and
• getting additional input on your research problem and approach.

Therefore, focus on the problem at hand and the core ideas of your approach, but also discuss relevant related work if that helps understanding your approach.

The proposal talk should be (excluding time for questions)

• 15 minutes for Bachelor’s theses,
• 20 minutes for Master’s theses.

Please bring the prepared thesis registration form to your proposal talk so we can directly register your thesis afterwards.

Do your research

After you registered the thesis, continue working on your topic, while keeping your advisor in the loop. How this exactly looks like highly depends on you, your topic, and your advisor.

Plan enough time before the deadline for writing the thesis.

Final Thesis

When writing up your research results, make sure that you describe

• your research problem,
• the state of the art for your problem and related work,
• the main findings of your research.

Usually, your advisor will give you more detailed help with what to write and they will also give you feedback on your thesis draft. You may reuse material from your thesis proposal for the final thesis.

Formal requirements for the thesis follow your respective examination regulations. We provide a LaTeX template.

Make sure to submit the thesis in time to the central examination office (see general thesis guidelines).

Final Presentation

After you have submitted your thesis, schedule a final presentation with the help of your advisor. Note that this does not need to be before the official thesis deadline. The final presentation should be:

• 25 minutes for Bachelor’s thesis (+ 10 minutes for questions),
• 35 minutes for Master’s thesis (+ 10 minutes for questions).

In the final presentation, you should again

• describe the research problem you have investigated,
• the main conceptual ideas of your approach,
• positive and negative results.

Grading

The final grade depends on the quality of your thesis and your presentation, following the examination regulations of your study programme. Your research process may also influence the grade. All regulations regarding plagiarism and proper citation apply to the final thesis, the proposal, and any draft that you send to your advisor.