The Master's Thesis or Project forms the capstone of the M.S. program in Computer Science. It is a large body of work which you undertake independently but under the supervision of a faculty member (in most circumstances, this is a full-time member of the Computer Science Faculty; there is precedent for other individuals to chair a thesis or project committee, but this requires prior approval of the C.S. Department's Graduate Coordinator). The Project -- after it is well-defined and the proposal accepted -- should take about as much effort as that devoted to a single four-credit course; a Thesis takes substantially more effort; but, in any case, the requirements are determined by mutual agreement involving you, your committee Chairman and Reader.
A thesis has a large research component (i.e., library research) as well as a larger, more formal requirement for a written report (which will be bound and reside forever in RIT Library's archives and at least ten years in the Computer Science Department's reading room).
Computer Science theses generally have a project component, and the Masters Project is intended to be that half of a thesis.
Most students choose the project option; however, if you think you would like to do a Thesis, discuss that possibility with your principal advisor (the faculty member who would be the chairman of the committee). On a few occasions we have decided that a Project really should have been designated a Thesis, and we have encouraged the student to change the designation at the end of the process.
The purpose of a Master's Thesis or Project is to be of educational value to the student, to independently create and present a large, interesting, piece of work. (A Doctoral Thesis is supposed to advance the discipline and be publishable in a refereed journal.)
We introduced a new C.S. MS curriculum as of September, 1995. In this new curriculum, the Project is 5 credits and the Thesis is 9 credits.
In the previous curriculum the Project was 2 credits and the Thesis was 4 credits. That is the only difference; the requirements for these have not changed.
Generally, to register for Project or Thesis, you must give the office a
copy of your Proposal, signed by your Chairman and Reader.
Here is a postscript copy of the Proposal form.
Here is a pdf copy of the Proposal form.
If you sign up for the Seminar, you do not need to present a Proposal. During the Quarter, you should develop your Proposal in the Seminar.
You may also register for Project/Thesis Proposal for 0 (zero) credits. This procedure assures that you maintain your status as an active RIT student, and you retain your parking and library privileges. When your proposal is complete and approved by two members of your committee, you should then register for the 5-credit Project. If you need more than one Quarter, you will be given an incomplete ("I") grade.
No matter which of these methods you use to sign up for Project or Thesis, you should give both the Computer Science Department Office and your Committee Chairman a monthly status report. Eventually, the C.S. Office should have a copy of your Proposal on file.
If you have finished all or nearly all of your course work, you may still be considered to be a full-time student, if you have registered for zero or more Project credits. You must contact a Department secretary and complete a "full-time equivalency" form. You can do this process for a maximum of four Quarters. (This is an important consideration for students with a student visa, and it may concern students who have loans.)
If you do not finish your Project in the first Quarter in which you register for credit, you will receive a grade of "I." You should continue to attend the Seminar on a regular basis and submit monthly progress reports until you finish.
In order to register for Thesis or Project, you must obtain the signatures of two members of your committee, the chairman and the reader.
At least one of these two committee members must be a faculty member in RIT's Computer Science Department. When you are nearly done, a third committee member must be chosen to attend the defense. All three committee members must have at least a Masters degree.
By signing your proposal, your committee members commit to serving for one year; after one year, they can opt to bow out.
Some faculty advisors will specify what they require for a proposal. The guidelines given here are suggestive, but you should check with your advisor for specifics.
The proposal should be at least 2,000 words (6-7 pages). It should contain the following sections:
A one-page summary describing what you will do (200 words).An overview of the area of your project (100-150 words).
A functional specification of your project (1,000 words). This can take the form of a draft user's manual, if that is appropriate.
Architectural overview of the planned system; i.e., the design specification. This may be less well understood, hence somewhat shorter (200-300 words).
A list of the principal deliverables of your project and the form that these will be delivered, such as:
- technical paper or report (estimate the eventual word count; 30-50 pages or 10,000-50,000 words is a reasonable goal)?
- input/output examples or demonstration?
- code? (the complete system should be given to your principal advisor archived on a single file)
- user manual?
- design documentation and maintenance manual (in case a user manual or a specification are delivered, the report would be on the small side)?
Annotated references. This should include the following: previous masters projects or theses, books, papers, URLs.
Draft table of contents of your final report.
Detailed schedule, including target defense date.
Status of the work at the present time. (We encourage you to keep this up to date in a separate document or log.)
Many students are working in the computing field, and their work provides them with an opportunity to do projects that are comparable to the MS Project or Thesis, and they would like that work at their employment to qualify.
This type of thing is possible, and there is some precedent for doing it. Students can even have an advisor at their place of employment. However, the work that will be submitted as the Project or Thesis must be monitored by the faculty members on the committee (this rules out submitting a proposal for work that has already been completed). In addition, the report, and a significant portion of the other work products, must be made available for other students to read in the future. The committee might ask for some other programming or writing to be done that is outside of the requirements of the employer. It is your responsibility to assure that your employer's requirements for confidentiality are respected. Faculty committee members can sign non-disclosure agreements, if necessary, and come to the student's place of work for a demonstration.
Alternatively, you could write a research paper that complements the work you did. Remember: the Project or Thesis report always must be made public.
These types of arrangements often work quite well.
The final paperwork for a Project requires that you give each of your committee members and the C.S. Department a copy of the report, in a press-board binder (or some flat binding). Deliver software to your committee chairman according to whatever agreement you reach. You should generally put your material together in such a way that subsequent grad students can pick it up and build on it.
The report should be written using LaTeX and also put on your home page (discuss these requirements with your advisors). Tools, such as "latex2html," are available.
The final paperwork for a Thesis requires that you arrange for a bound copy of the thesis for the RIT Library, the C.S. Department, and each committee members (that makes six copies, counting your own). Give the Department secretary copies of: the thesis binding receipt, the thesis abstract, the signed cover page.
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~pga/ProjThes/how_to_project.html
Revised
Mon Feb 23 12:42:18 EST 1998