Phase 3: Assessment and wrap-up

The process described on this page follows after the process in Phase 2: Thesis Project.

You're almost done! Follow these steps to complete your Thesis Project.

Step 1: Thesis defence

On 27 June, a student conference will be held, where students are invited to present their work, in the presence of their peers and supervisors. Students will prepare a poster to present their work. Students will be allocated timeslots by the ADS thesis coordinator.

The poster presentations given during this conference will account for the percentage of the grade awarded to the final presentation. A typical poster presentation would consist of a 5-minute presentation and 10 minutes for discussion and questions. 

What should your poster look like? 

You are expected to create your poster. A poster may be hand-drawn or printed and it can consist of several A4s or a single A1/A0. Please see here for some useful guidelines from the Human Geography and Spatial Planning department. Be sure to discuss the contents of your poster with your examiners.

What if I, my group or my supervisors can't attend?

In that case, an individual defence can be organised, whereby supervisors and students agree on a specific date for a presentation. Ideally, this should take place within the first two weeks of July, though this is subject to your availability. An individual defence will still follow the poster presentation format.

Step 2: Final submission and assessment

With the consent of the supervisors, the final report can be submitted for grading one week after the conference at the latest. Please keep in mind that after submission examiners have 10 days to for their assessment. Grades then need to be input to Osiris Zaak.

If the supervisors do not think the thesis is good enough to receive a passing grade, the student will need to hand in a new version, and their defence (and therefore graduation) might be delayed. In such cases, the thesis coordinator should be contacted immediately, and will typically seek resolution with the Board of Examiners.

Step 3: Upload and archive thesis

  1. Once your second examiner has approved your assessment, you will be asked to upload a copy of your final thesis in Osiris.
  2. The Student Desk will register your grade.
  3. Once your grade is registered, a separate (Osiris) case will be started automatically. In this case you: 

↬ Archive your thesis (mandatory)

Your programme is required to archive your thesis for a period of 7 years for i.a. accreditation purposes. During this period your thesis will be confidentially stored within the Osiris environment. You might be asked to re-upload your thesis.

↬ Publish your thesis (optional but highly encouraged)

You can choose to publish your thesis, but you should discuss this with your project supervisor/first examiner and second examiner, and also the company in situations where an external research project/internship took place.

Discuss with your supervisors whether you want to publish your thesis in the thesis repository of the University library. Your collective decision should be recorded both by your supervisor during the assessment of your thesis as by you in the Osiris Case Thesis archiving & publication. 

When publishing, you have the option to: 

  1. Publish your thesis in full or upload a publication version
    A publication version should be considered if for instance, your thesis contains privacy-sensitive data. This can be within your result section but also within your acknowledgements. 
     
  2. Publish your thesis right away or establish an embargo period 
    By placing your thesis under embargo, the publication within the repository is delayed until a date of your choosing. This can be useful if you are for instance in the process of submitting a paper or you want to continue the work and do not want to publish the data yet.

If you completed the above steps, along with all other courses and exams of your programme, then proceed to the Graduation checklist ⋙