Thesis Guidelines

For general guidance on BSc and MSc theses in Cognitive Science in Osnabrück, consult the IKW thesis guide. The following explains the application procedure and expectations for thesis work in the MIC lab.

If you are interested in writing a thesis with us, there are two possibilities:

1. You choose a project from a list of currently available thesis topics. You can simply request this list via email from Prof. Lilian Weber.
   • If you are interested in working on one of the projects listed, get in touch with the listed supervisor.
   • Tell them which project you’d like to work on and what relevant skills you bring.
   • If they invite you for a first meeting, make sure you have read the listed key references before the meeting.
2. You come with your own idea. In this case, please write a short abstract describing your idea and how it connects with ongoing research in the lab, and send it to your preferred supervisor from the lab.

Once you and your supervisor have agreed on starting a thesis, you will meet with them regularly, take part in lab meetings and become a member of the research team. We encourage all students who write their thesis in our lab to be physically present (you can use our HiWi room) and join our regular meetings, as this will help you pick up on relevant background information and key skills much more quickly.

During your work with us, we expect that you:

• request meetings with your supervisors as you need them (and in a frequency they agreed to).
• work independently between these meetings - therefore it is important you use the meeting time to address questions and issues that currently hold you back.
• attempt to solve problems yourself first (if you spend time in the lab you will also find that there are other lab members and fellow thesis students that you can turn to).
• be proactive - if you need something (information, material, training), ask the relevant people directly.
• present in our lab meeting at least once - this can be during the early stages of the project, when you plan your work, or once you have first results to show and are ready to take more feedback on board, or once your project is complete. We are all excited to hear what you are working on!
• manage your time with us consciously. Schedule enough time for writing (students, as well as everyone else, underestimate this). Make a rough schedule with your supervisor at the beginning and inform them about changes. Do not expect them to remind you of your deadline.

Once you are ready to submit your thesis, make sure that the analysis / simulation code you have written as well as the data and results files are in a state where other people can reuse them. Tips and best practices for that will be discussed with your supervisor. At the end, we expect that:

• your thesis reports all processing steps in a way that your work could be replicated.
• if you work with data: the raw data are stored separately from the processed data, and your analysis scripts can be run again on the raw data to produce the same results.
• your code is well documented and structured, and you upload it to our shared lab space.