Introduction
Contents
Introduction¶
The guidelines presented here cover important aspects of the Master’s Thesis at the cooperative educational degree program Engineering and Production Management (ENP), beginning with the proposal of the Master’s Thesis topic at the start through the defensio at the end.
What is the Master’s Thesis at ENP?¶
The Master’s Thesis is a piece of work written in an academic style that demonstrates a student’s ability to solve a problem using research and scientific working methods. It is written on behalf of the student’s company, with supervision provided by both the company and academic advisor. Besides acquiring deeper knowledge on a subject in a specific field, writing the Master’s Thesis gives students the chance to make contributions to the scientific community.
Objective of the Master’s Thesis¶
According to the Studien- und Prüfungsordnung v1.5 §35 the student must demonstrate the success of the studies through an independent work in a subject area relevant to the Master’s degree program:
“Der_die Studierende hat im Rahmen der Masterarbeit durch die selbstständige Erarbeitung eines Themas auf einem für den Studiengang bzw. Masterlehrgang relevanten Fachgebiet den Erfolg der Ausbildung auf wissenschaftlicher und allenfalls gestalterischer Grundlage darzulegen.”
In more detail, the Master’s Thesis proves the
in-depth knowledge of the student in the field of study and
the ability to solve a technical or organizational problem based on established methods considering scientific integrity.
The field of study is specified by the research questions.
The in-depth knowledge of the student in the field of study is expressed through the concise description of relevant theories and the state of the art. It is of utmost importance to deal with current theories in the field of study and to interconnect these with the methods to answer the respective research questions. The state of the art describes important theories and published methods and applications in the more general field of study. While basic theories are available mainly from textbooks, the state of the art in the field of study is further available from up-to-date publications (research papers, theses) which should be in the form peer-reviewed sources to guarantee a good quality of the published information.
The field of study is specified by the research questions.