Thesis

The TIL final master’s thesis projects are valued at 30 EC (half year) and relate or combine at least two fields typically from faculties participating in the MSc TIL programme. Hey are subject-wise organised – to the degree this is possible and necessary - along the specialisations. For each of these specialisations a team of professors are designated with fields of expertise associated within these specialisations. Obviously, one professor may be involved in (and hence suited to supervise students from) more than one specialization. Students have various opportunities to shape their thesis projects to their tastes, ambitions and possibilities:

• students may choose to do their thesis work as an intern at a company or a public organisation (e.g. RWS, TomTom, Port of Rotterdam, engineering consultants, project developers, technology industry, etc). In practice, many students choose this option.
• students may also choose a thesis project within our university or (partially) as an intern at a foreign university.
• students may do their thesis projects in one of the 'edulabs', e.g. www.its-edulab.nl  (sponsored by DVS and from 2011 onwards by Traffic-Quest - www.traffic-quest.nl), the infrastructure and environment edulab, which is currently set up and sponsored by KIM/Ministry of Transport & Environment, or the very successful 'edulab' set up by Schiphol airport in collaboration with both TU Delft and other educational institutes (SIM).

The thesis graduation work will result in a thesis report or a design that the student defends before a thesis examination committee. Based on the work, the students are encouraged to write a draft paper for scientific publication. The MSc TIL thesis project is supervised by at least two supervisors not belonging to the same faculty. The TIL thesis committee consists of the supervising professor, a daily supervisor from his/her team and another daily supervisor from another participating TIL faculty. The involvement of two “daily” supervisors from within the TIL community intrinsically guarantees that TIL thesis subjects (at the onset) have – to the degree this is possible - an interdisciplinary character. The purpose, however, is not to “force” upon the student subjects or methodological approaches from more than one faculty. Additionally the committee may consist of an external supervisor from a company or organisation involved.

Within the thesis project four meetings are mandatory: a kick-off meeting, at least one mid-term meeting, a green-light meeting and the final thesis defence, which consists of a public defence open to every one and a closed defence with the graduation committee only. The precise order of both is at the discretion of the supervising professor. As a basic rule, students are entitled to a motivation of their final score along three criteria: (1) thesis contents (scientific quality & innovation, results and applicability); (2) thesis report & presentation; and (3) thesis process (independence, amount of work, cooperation, etc). It depends on the subject how these factors are weighted in the final score.