Honours projects
Half of your time as an honours student is spent working on a project. Your project work will be supervised by someone who can offer you both general guidance on project work and advice more specific to the nature of the project.
Project topics are described on the Topics web page.
Project Milestones
There are various project milestones and deliverables that are due at different points during the year.
Note: The dates given below are subject to change.
| Feb 2011 | July 2011 | Feb 2012 | July 2012 | ||||||
| Official starting date | 1 Feb 2011 | 25 July 2011 | 1 Feb 2012 | 23 July 2012 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introductory seminar | 28 March 2011 | 12 Sep 2011 | 12 March 2012 | 6 Aug 2012 | |||||
| Pro-forma thesis and literature review | 28 March 2011 | 12 Sep 2011 | 30 March 2012 | 24 Aug 2012 | |||||
| Mid-term seminar | 19 Aug 2011 | 5 March 2012 | 18 June 2012 | 19 Nov 2012 | |||||
| Draft thesis | 30 Sep 2011 | 4 May 2012 | 30 Sep 2012 | 3 May 2013 | |||||
| Final seminar | 7 Oct 2011 | 21 May 2012 | 8 Oct 2012 | 13 May 2013 | |||||
| Thesis due | 3pm 27 Oct 2011 | 3pm 31 May 2012 | 3pm 25 Oct 2012 | 3pm 30 May 2013 |
BSc honours students are bound by conditions laid down from time to time by the Science Faculty Honours Committee (of which the DCS Honours Convener is a member). See the Science Honours Working Rules.
Official starting date
At the start of the semester, all intending honours students should review the available project topics, agree a proposal with the intended supervisor and submit to the convener a completed Individual Studies Contract (ISC). The ISC contains a short description of the proposed project and details the arrangements for supervision and assessment. The absolute deadline for late applications is the second Friday of the ordinary teaching semester, but it is strongly recommended that you complete the ISC formalities earlier if possible.
Introductory Seminar
Students will present a ten minute seminar introducing themselves, their projected area and their topic. The audience will mostly consist of their fellow students and supervisors.
This seminar will not count towards your assessment.
Pro-forma thesis and Literature Review
By this date all honours students should have formulated a detailed project proposal in collaboration with their supervisor, and completed a literature review.
The project proposal should consist of the following:
- A description of your project topic. This need be only half a page to a page of text.
- A project plan outlining the various steps you intend to take along the way to completing your project, and the dates by which you expect to accomplish them. You should also outline contingency plans outlining how the scope of the project might change if various steps prove to be significantly harder or easier than you anticipate.
- A one paragraph description of the research content of the project. Honours projects are expected to prepare the student for more challenging research tasks. As such, projects that purely based on literature surveys or implementation work are not appropriate. Your project must, at least in part, require the application of theoretical or experimental research techniques.
Your literature review must demonstrate an awareness of the major research efforts in the area of your topic and how they compare with what you propose to do. You should think of your literature survey as the first draft of the "background" section of your thesis.
Students should hand a printed pro-forma thesis to their supervisor at the same time as the project proposal. The document should use the supplied LaTeX thesis package and include relevant chapter headings as well as your literature review. It can be changed later, of course, but forms a useful framework for the eventual thesis.
Neither the project proposal nor the literature survey will contribute directly towards your final grade, but they will allow your supervisor to gauge your progress thus far and give you appropriate feedback. They are also valuable in setting the framework for your later work.
Mid-Term Seminar
Students will present a twenty minute seminar describing their topic in some detail and the progress they have made to date. The seminar is assessed for content and presentation.
Note that from 2012 the mid-term seminar date has been brought forward to the end of Semester 1 whereas previously it had been delayed until well into semester 2. This is to make feedback more useful and to allow any issues to be picked up while it is still possible to adjust the project. Students starting in July especially should note that this change means their "mid-term" will be November rather than the following March.
Draft Thesis
Students should hand a complete draft of their thesis to their supervisor for review by this date. It is very important to get detailed feedback on the thesis in time to make revisions.
Final Seminar
In this week students will present a twenty-five minute seminar describing their achievements during the year. The final seminar is assessed.
Thesis Due
Four copies, double-side printed, of your thesis must be submitted to the School secretary by 3:00 pm on this date for all types of Honours (BIT, BCS, BSeng, BSc Hons and MComp). We will take care of the binding and distribution of the copies. We also request that you email the PDF version of your thesis to the Honours convenor, as it may assist examiners in some cases. The BSc Honours students are required to submit their theses additionally in PDF through the Faculty of Sciences (honours Wattle page) by 5:00pm on this date.
