Jump to main content Hotkeys
Distributed and Self-organizing Systems
Distributed and Self-organizing Systems

Guideline for the conduct of final theses


General

Welcome to the VSR

We are excited that you have chosen us for your bachelor's, master's or practical course's thesis and that you would like to contribute to the success of the VSR Group through your work. We have summarised the most important experiences and tips in these guidelines so that you can quickly get along in the group, help shape the life and success of the VSR and make it easier for you to get started. We know that not all questions can be answered with these guidelines! With the right self-conception and the will to contribute to our mission and to share the same values - we will be able to overcome problems and find solutions together.

A few words about us

The VSR has the vision to help people and organizations to develop their potential through innovative forms of cooperation. In the center of the solutions are the web as omnipresent support medium as well as evolution and self-organisation through environmental awareness. The web as a ubiquitous support medium as well as evolution and self-organisation through environmental awareness are at the heart of our solutions.

Organizational matters

Topic search and definition

The task description is usually not available in written form, but is specified in the first phase by the student and his advisor. Proposals for current topics for final theses and practical courses can be found at our proposed topics list. If you are interested in a topic, please contact the responsible advisor.
You may also choose your own topic that matches the orientation of the professorship. In this case, please send an e-mail with a short description of the topic to vsr-edu@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de.

After selecting the topic, you can draft your own proposal for the task description in form of a vision document and coordinate it with the advisor. Following the confirmation by Prof. Gaedke, the official working time begins (usually 3-6 months as stated in your study regulations).

Vision document

After a certain period of orientation, the student creates a short document about the vision of his project. This should include the task description as understood from the student's point of view. Through consultation with the advisor, the description is refined until the individual perspectives overlap sufficiently. It will later be used to formulate the final task description. The vision document should include the following points:

Internal registration

Development

Version control

Source code written in the VSR is generally maintained using the version control system Git.

Students can use the repository to access existing code of the group and maintain their own code there.

Using Git has the advantage that there is more control over the developing code. Older versions can be used at any time. In addition, the collaboration between advisor and student is simplified.

To work with Git you need a client program, for example:

  • Git (Binaries for using Git in the terminal)
  • SmartGit (Graphical Git client for on Windows, macOS and Linux)
  • TortoiseGit (Windows Shell Interface to Git)

Instructions for Git can be found e.g. under:

The main git repository of the VSR uses GitLab hosted by the URZ and is located at: https://gitlab.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de/vsr

Access is granted using your URZ account. You will be able to create your own project and assign your advisor as a "Maintainer" or the advisor will create a project for you within the VSR group.

If your work will contribute to already existing code, you will get appropriate access rights after the internal registration.

Code quality & Documentation

Copyright on developed code

According to the guidelines of the Chemnitz University of Technology, as the author of your bachelor's, master's, practical course's thesis, you generally hold the rights to the programs developed by you. In order to ensure both academic use by the group and continued use of the code by you at the end of your thesis, the VSR usually grants the FreeBSD license to the code produced.

Naming conventions

Implementation delivery

Your final implementation has to be delivered as an "out-of-the-box" working product. Therefore, we will provide you with a virtual machine of your choice (Windows, Linux) where you can install and configure your software. At the end of your work, a virtual machine image has to be prepared that can be started and provides your solution without any installation or configuration.

Research

Written part

Length

Formatting

Content and style

Quoting correctly

A complete and uniform bibliography is essential!

There must be (at least) one reference to all sources in the bibliography from the appropriate text passage.

Web pages can also be used as sources. However, the bibliography should not contain "generic URLs" (e.g. https://www.heise.de), but specific pages. Author, title, creation date and date of last access should be listed (see examples below).

In general, every statement that does not belong to general knowledge and does not originate from the author himself must be supported by a literature reference. In the case of introductory texts (imparting basic knowledge in an area), the references to a paragraph can be given grouped together at the end of the paragraph.

Although Wikipedia is a good source for initial information, it is only suitable for referencing to a limited extent due to its constantly alterable content.

If you are unsure, whether you should cite a source, please have a look at this great overview by Princeton University: "When to Cite Sources"

For literature references it is recommended to use the IEEE citation style.

Formatting examples for literature references:

  • L. Stein, "Random patterns," in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed. New York: Wiley, 1994, pp. 55-70
  • D.B. Payne and H.G. Gunhold. "Digital sundials and broadband technology," in Proc. IOOC-ECOC, 1986, pp. 557-998.
  • M. Nottingham and R. Sayre, "The Atom Syndication Format - Request for Comments: 4287", 2005. [Online]. Available: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4287.txt [Accessed: Feb. 18, 2008].
  • Microsoft, "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Homepage", 2007. [Online]. Available: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/ [Accessed: Jan. 02, 2007].

Footnotes

Special indexes

A list of abbreviations should be included in every extended scientific thesis.

Tables, figures and program listings should be included in corresponding indexes. However, all figures and tables have to be referenced in the text, e.g. "... (see figure 3.2) ...".

A list of keywords is useful for longer theses.

Appendices

Schemas, source code fragments and evaluation materials can be attached to the work as appendices.

Proofreading

Submission

Please hand in the thesis in printed form (two-sided) and in bound form (in the case of practical courses, a clip folder is also sufficient).

Reports of practical courses must be submitted directly to the advisor, Bachelor's and Master's theses to examination office (please refer to the respective examination regulations for the number of copies to be submitted).

Self-developed software as well as the electronic version of the thesis (PDF) must be provided on a portable storage medium (CD, DVD, USB) and attached to the thesis.

Comparison work

Please use the chance to take a look at previously submitted theses available at the professorship.

Furthermore, we recommend attending defenses of other students in order to get some insights on how such a presentation should be like.

Templates

You can use the following templates for the written part:

Oral presentation

Press Articles