Master thesis

Before you can start your Master's thesis, you must have achieved 55 credit points in your Master's degree program.
It is strongly recommended that you do not start your Master's thesis until you have successfully completed all compulsory modules. If you have any questions about your requirements, please contact the Examinations Office.

Your Master's thesis should reflect the focus of your studies. Use the content of your elective modules and the topic of your project group to incorporate your personal interests and strengths!

If you have an idea for a topic for your Master's thesis:

• Check the websites of the chairs to find out which professors are suitable for supervising your thesis.
• Decide who you would like to contact regarding your thesis. Check the website of the relevant chair to see whether you need to observe any specific requirements (e.g. whether the chair has any application deadlines for thesis supervision). Your thesis will be reviewed and assessed by 2 people.
  • First assessor (usually a professor; if it is a member of the academic staff, the second assessor must be a professor)
  • Second reviewer (academic staff member or external supervisor, e.g. a person from another department or company). In most cases, you do not have to explicitly take care of the second reviewer.

If the second assessment of your thesis is carried out by a person from among the academic staff, another department or a person from the business world, an application for supervision must be submitted to the Examination Board of the Department of Computer Science. In most cases, this application is automatically submitted by the supervising chair. If this is not the case, you can find the form on the website of the examination board.

• The application must be signed by the first and second supervisor of your Master's thesis.
• If the examination board approves the application, the examination administration will be informed (important for step 5). Only after this notification can the examination administration issue a so-called “routing slip” for your thesis (see below).

Once you have decided on the specific topic and both reviewers for your thesis, you can get started!

• Register your Master's thesis by sending an email to the examination administration team responsible for you. If the requirements for starting your thesis have been met (see step 0 above), you will receive a so-called "routing slip" by email after you have registered.
• Fill in the routing slip: Your name, title of the thesis, the names of the reviewers, the start date and the submission date of your thesis. The reviewers of your thesis will usually help you with this.
• Submit the signed routing slip to the examinations office within one week. In some cases, the reviewers of your thesis will do this for you. Please clarify this with the first reviewer.
• After submitting the routing slip, you will receive all the instructions for "ExaBase" from the examination administration, which you will later use to submit your thesis digitally.

The processing time for Master's theses is 6 months.

• Please note your examination regulations. Only in justified exceptions are extensions of the processing periods possible. Incorrect scheduling is not a justified exception. If necessary, you can find help and support with time management in the Department of Computer Science's competence program.
• Discuss with the reviewers of your thesis how the supervision of your thesis should look in concrete terms (e.g. at what intervals are meetings useful?). Contact the reviewers of your thesis at an early stage , especially if problems arise.
• You can find help and support with writing or searching for literature at the writing workshop w.space or at the university library.
• Specific regulations must be observed for teacher training courses.
• If you have any legal questions, please contact the Examinations Office.

Congratulations! You have almost made it.

• Your thesis will be submitted digitally via ExaBase.
• You can find all the information about the submission procedure in the "Checklist for digital theses" on the Examination Administration website.
• Please note that the thesis must be submitted on time.

After submitting your Master's thesis, you demonstrate that you have the ability to present and defend the results of your work appropriately in a presentation. You can find out what this looks like in your case from the assessors of your thesis.

The review of your Master's thesis may take some time. So please be patient. The grade of your thesis will be entered in the BOSS system.
If you have successfully completed all examinations in your degree program and urgently need proof of your degree, but the review of your thesis has not yet been completed: Contact the reviewers of your thesis in good time and clarify whether a provisional certificate (a so-called "4.0 certificate") can be issued.