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 2012 | July 2012 | Feb 2013 | July 2013 | ||||||
| Official starting date | 1 Feb 2012 | 23 July 2012 | 1 Feb 2013 | 22 July 2013 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introductory seminar | 12 March 2012 | 6 Aug 2012 | 12 Mar 2013 | 12 Aug 2013 | |||||
| Pro-forma thesis and literature review | 30 March 2012 | 24 Aug 2012 | 29 March 2013 | 30 Aug 2013 | |||||
| Mid-term seminar | 18 June 2012 | 19 Nov 2012 | 17 Jun 2013 | 18 Nov 2013 | |||||
| Draft thesis | 30 Sep 2012 | 10 May 2013 | 4 Oct 2013 | 9 May 2014 | |||||
| Final seminar | 15 Oct 2012 | 20 May 2013 | 14 Oct 2013 | 19 May 2014 | |||||
| Thesis due | 3pm 25 Oct 2012 | 3pm 30 May 2013 | 3pm 24 Oct 2013 | 3pm 29 May 2014 |
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 Independent 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 normally takes place in week 4 of the semester.
The introductory seminar will not count towards your assessment.
Pro-forma thesis and Literature Review
By week 6 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 mere implementation work are not appropriate. Your project must, at least in part, require the application of theoretical or experimental research techniques. Some software engineering projects do have a large implementation component; in such cases there should be clear originality on the part of the student and emphasis on evaluation of the software produced.
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.
The midterm presentations take place during the exam period at the end of the first semester of your project. This is to make feedback more useful than it would be if the presentations were held over to the start of the second semester, and to allow any issues to be picked up while it is still possible to adjust the project.
Draft Thesis
Students should hand a complete draft of their thesis to their supervisor for review by three weeks before submission. It is very important to get detailed feedback on the thesis in time to make revisions.
Final Seminar
In the week before submission, 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.
The thesis submission deadline is rigid. Penalties apply for lateness, and can affect the class of your degree.
