Information for supervisors (English)

• As part of the ‘Afstudeerproject’, the student writes a literature thesis. This thesis is a well thought-over scientific opinion paper based on mainly primary scientific literature that comprises as a rule of thumb about 20-25 pages (6000-8000 words), however quality is leading! In the thesis a research question is posed and answered based exclusively on (mainly primary) scientific literature. The end product should exceed the level of a literature summary and a critical perspective is required.

 

• As part of the ‘Afstudeerproject’, the student must spend a minimum of 5 weeks (200 hours) and a maximum of 7 weeks(280 hours) (full-time equivalent) on the thesis component. In addition, the student performs an internship component, which lasts a minimum of 3 weeks (120 hours, in the case of a 7-week thesis) and a maximum of 5 weeks (200 hours, in case of a 5-week thesis). A 4-week internship / 6-week thesis division is also allowed. Writing the thesis and doing the internship may intertwine. For example, students can efficiently use waiting steps during experiments for thesis writing, as long as the overall time division is correct in the end. Example time divisions can be found here. 

 

• Two lectures about course requirements and writing a thesis are mandatory for the students. These lectures are organized in the beginning of the course period.

 

• The student hands-in a compulsory thesis/writing plan (the so called ‘Scriptieplan'), which is a rough version of the main question(s) and ideas, on the set deadline date (depends on in which period does the course). This plan should be discussed with the supervisor shortly before or shortly after this deadline and should be send by the students to the course coordinators. A writing plan is handed to just the supervisor within 3-4 weeks. The supervisor may decide otherwise (regarding the writing plan) if desired.

• During the internship component of the ‘Afstudeerproject’ course, the student gains practical experience on a biological subject that is in line with the thesis topic. A ‘biological subject’ may be interpreted in the broadest context. For example, a fieldwork internship, a policy internship, or lab work may be done. But also, for example, educational research or statistical analyses of existing (biological) datasets is usually sufficient as internship component. Of course, the internship must be of sufficient (scientific) level. The intention is that the student experiences the research cycle at least once, either independently or by accompanying the daily supervisor or an (experienced) master's student, so that the student learns to master (basic) research techniques and apply them. If it is too complicated to familiarize your student sufficiently with the techniques within the limited number of weeks available to be able to independently conduct a relevant experiment, it is also sufficient if the student is involved in an ongoing experiment. If the student can contribute ideas, follow the experiment and/or can partially perform/analyse the data, a large number of elements of the course are met.

 

• The internship component of the 'Afstudeerproject' course is completed with a (short and concise) internship report (only if the student does not also follow the 'Research internship PLUS' course). If also the Research internship PLUS course is followed, a separate and extensive internship report must be submitted, instead of the short and concise report. If the student is only following the 'Afstudeerproject', the short and concise internship report may be submitted as a separate document, but it may also be part of the thesis. If part of the thesis, an additional requirement is that it must be explicitly clear which part of the thesis contains the students’ own research, and therefore falls under the internship component, and which part is the literature thesis component. This is because the student will receive separate marks for both components and thus need to be assessed independently. We recommend that the internship results are not interwoven with the text of the literature thesis, but rather describe the internship in a separate chapter. It is thus emphatically not the intention that the literature thesis is 'just' an introduction for the research part. Both components should stand on their own.

 

• The internship component report of the 'Afstudeerproject' course may be a ‘standard’ short, research report or can be in the form of an extended lab journal, diary, or notebook, in which at least the performed experiments are (shortly) introduced, the research question is formulated, and the methodology, analysis and conclusions are described. How the report looks like is dependent on the habits of your field/discipline. It is important that is described what is done by the student, how the experimental cycle is fulfilled, and it should be clear that the student understands what has been done. We advise to include an appendix with a record of the work done per day for clarity. Note again that an extensive report is required when your student is following the 'Research internship PLUS' course.

 

• From the work performed, and the written internship report, it must be clear that the student is able to translate a scientific problem into an (experimental) research plan and to analyse and interpret the results in relation to the relevant literature and societal context. The primary supervisor (you) monitors the quality and helps the student in his/her learning efforts.

• The 'Research internship PLUS' course (7.5 EC, 200 hours study load) is an elective course supplementing the 'Afstudeerproject/Graduation project' course and is followed in a subsequent (or preceding) education period. You do not have to offer the 'Research Internship PLUS' course, but offering a long(er) internship may be interesting for you and the student.

 

• During the 'Research Internship PLUS' course, the student gains additional practical experience on top of the short internship component of the ‘Afstudeerproject’, by deepening and expanding this internship. It is explicitly NOT allowed to offer an entirely different project than in the internship component of the 'Graduation project' course. If the student follows the 'Research Internship PLUS' course, he/she thus spends in total 8-10 weeks (full-time equivalent) on the internship, spread over a maximum of 20 weeks (two 10-week education periods).

 

• In principle, the grade awarded for 'Research internship PLUS' is equal to the partial grade for the internship component of the compulsory ‘Afstudeerproject’ course. It is only allowed to deviate from this in justified cases.

 

• Writing an internship plan is mandatory for the 'Research Internship PLUS' course. The student submits this to the supervisor and the course coordinators approximately one week after the start of the internship (component).

 

• As also indicated above, an extensive and separate research report must be written if the student follows the 'Research internship PLUS' course. It is not allowed in this case that the is an integral part of the thesis (as is allowed if the student only does a short internship as part of the ‘Afstudeerproject’ course'). The extensive report must contain a so-called 'utilization section', in which the student discusses the (societal) implications of the research.

• The thesis and internship report are delivered in two versions: a concept version and a final version. The student receives feedback on both versions. You may want to use the progress form for this.

 

• Assessment of the practical work and the appearance/content of the internship report is in line with the criteria of the hosting organization and needs to be confirmed by a formal examiner (see below). The final version of the literature thesis, internship report and practical work is assessed with the aid of a compulsory rubric. Assessment of this type of course contains subjective elements, like how spelling and grammar errors are judged. Moreover, the learning gain and/or progress may be judged differently by different assessors. The rubric describes criteria for all parts of the thesis, each with an outcome of insufficient – sufficient – good. It is a tool for the assessment of many aspects and has the advantage that all students are assessed in the same manner. Additionally, it makes clear to the student how the assessment came into being. A rubric is not a calculation table; ultimately, the grade is the judgement and the responsibility of the assessor and 2nd reviewer who is mainly taking content and structure into account.

 

• The supervisor and student timely ask a second assessor for the assessments of the thesis and internship. The second assessor/examiner should spend maximally 2 to 3 hours to read the thesis and report and to grade it, independent of the main/daily supervisor. The two assessors discuss - and agree on - the final mark, as the second assessor/examiner of course cannot assess the learning curve and motivation of the student. The role of the 2nd assessor is in general affirmative. If the assessor and supervisor disagree strongly, the matter should be handed over to the Board of Exams after consulting and mediation by the coordinators.

 

• Most UU biology course coordinators and permanent staff members are qualified as examiner. If you are in doubt, please ask the person you have in mind directly or contact us via Scriptie.bio@uu.nl. The formal examiner can be the primary supervisor, or the 2nd reviewer. Daily supervision may be done by an experienced PhD student or postdoc. The PhD student or postdoc may also grade the student and sign the assessment, but in all cases the signing examiner is ultimately responsible for the grade. In practice, if one of the persons signing the assessment form on either the left or right side of the form is a qualified examiner for the course, it is fine.

 

• The student is informed that his/her final work needs to be checked for plagiarism. This check is the responsibility of the supervisor and examiner, but the student needs to upload the thesis to Urkund / Ouriginal. You as supervisor/examiner have to provide your Urkund / Ouriginal 'Receiver address' to the student. For more information see the Urkund / Ouriginal infosite; https://urkund.sites.uu.nl/en/. Please note that you need Two-factor authentication (2FA) next to your SolisID to login to Urkund / Ouriginal. After reviewing the plagiarism score you need to declare that the report has been checked – and no plagiarism was detected - on the assessment form. If you do not have access to Urkund /Ouriginal (as external supervisor) the UU examiner is responsible for the plagiarism check.

 

• It is in principle allowed that students perform the internship(component) in couples. In this case the internship report can be the same for these two students. The literature thesis, however, is always unique for each student. If two students submit a research report together, it must be made explicitly clear what the individual contribution was to the internship and report. If not clear, no credits shall be awarded. It is for this reason strongly advised that both students attach an overview of the work performed per day (a diary/logbook).

• a signed and filled-in assessment form,
• filled-in rubris,
• a digital final version of the thesis and internship report,

are handed to the coordinators by mailing it to scriptie.bio@uu.nl.

 

• A student who has not registered in OSIRIS for B-B3AFSPT (and B-B3PLONS, if applicable), is not allowed to start the course(s). If this nonetheless happens, no final score and credit points will be assigned.

 

• An insufficient grade (<5.5) for the internship component may not be compensated for with a sufficient grade of the thesis component or vice versa (despite the fact that both may be presented in the same written document in the case of the 'Afstudeerproject').

 

• The Bachelor thesis and internship report will in principle not be published or shared by the bachelor programme/faculty/university (with the exception of confidential sharing with internal- and external committees for reasons of quality control). The thesis however will be centrally archived in ‘Osiris Zaak’ (thesis) and a secure cloud (thesis and internship report). The student will has to upload the thesis to Osiris Zaak after the course coordinators approved and administered the grade to receive the definite mark. It goes without saying that if the internship report is part of the thesis, it will also be archived on Osiris Zaak.

 

• Nevertheless, a supervisor/faculty/or the bachelor program may see reasons for publication. Do you want to publish the thesis? Then we ask you to contact Study affairs: science.bio.ba@uu.nl. If in exceptional cases publication is considered by the faculty or bachelor programme, then you will of course be consulted in advance to discuss this.