TIES501 Seminar


SPRING 2017

Course information

A mandatory master level seminar directly related to the master's thesis work. Before the seminar, participants should have selected a thesis topic together with their supervisor(s), and thus have supervisors assigned.

During the seminar, a student typically advances thesis work through the stages of literature review and analysis, selection and formulation of the research method, and design of the constructive/empirical part of the thesis. Lectures will consider conducting scientific research.

In addition to attending (voluntary) lectures, the students must present and peer review their thesis in the four group sessions. There will be own group for English speaking students, of which M.Sc Mariia Gavriushenko will be responsible. As well, distant students will present and peer review their topics online.

Teacher

M.Sc. Ari Tuhkala
PHD Researcher
Website
Office: AgC523.2

Prerequisites

Important, you will be working on your Thesis from the day one. There is no point participating in to the Seminar if you have not figured out at all what you are planning to do as Thesis.

  • Bachelor's degree and master studies in near end phase.
  • Initial thesis title and supervisor
  • Reserve enough time to work on thesis and seminar during autumn.

What to do

  • Participate to the lectures (not compulsory)
  • Make the tasks in Group sessions page
  • Present and peer review tasks in group sessions (compulsory)

How to return the tasks

The tasks are returned using website template:

  • Make sure that your www-directory (W:) is active in salasana.jyu.fi
    • First choose the password change service
    • Log in with your university credentials
    • Make sure that WWW directory is ACTIVATED
    • If not, click Activate WWW
  • Unzip the package TIES501 to your W:
    • Save the file to your W: root
    • Uncompress it (right click and extract all...)
    • You should have now W:/TIES501 folder
  • Use Notepad++ or any other decent text editor and
  • Edit index.html
    • Change 'Template for the group sessions' as your initial Thesis title
    • Change 'first name, surname, and supervisor'

To make your tasks, you need to edit the body.md file, which is automatically converted as website content. When you need to include references, add the reference to the file references.md

Both files are written using Markdown's formatting syntax. We will keep it simple and basically use headings, paragraphs, lists and links. For more information, here is a guide for Markdown.

I recommend using APA citation style. A good guide to APA can be found here

Don't change the names of the files, because the converter will break.

Make sure that your website works. Open browser and go to the address users.jyu.fi/~yourdomain/TIES501

  • Update the 'opiskelijan tiedot' form in Korppi
  • Double check that the link in 'WWW-osoite' works!
  • Update the appropriate fields

Collaboration

We are going to use Slack for group discussions

  1. Go to: https://graduseminaari-k2017.slack.com
  2. Domains with @student.jyu.fi and @jyu.fi can automatically join
  3. Fill your firstname and surname

Instructions for distant students

Mariia Gavriushenko is responsible for distant students, therefore you need to accomplish the given tasks in English.

The seminar is possible to made completely away, but it will need active participation. If you intend to participate from distance you need to do the same tasks as everyone else. The seminar lectures are not compulsory, but you need to learn the discussed topics by yourself. I will provide some references in the slides.

The group sessions are compulsory, because they replace the traditional seminar presentation. So, instead of having a single presentation you need to explain your progress in four steps (sessions). Peer review is made using Slack collaboration environment.

Step by step guide for distant students:

  1. Register to the TIES501 course in Korppi
  2. Register to the international students and distant group in Korppi.
  3. Register to Slack. I will add you to the #distant channel to participate
  4. Every week, read through the slides and given references
  5. BEFORE the group session day, you need to make the tasks given in the group sessions page
  6. INSTEAD of coming to the group session, the discussion and peer feedback are made in Slack #distant channel.
  7. The discussion and feedback continues until the NEXT group session.
  8. Mariia will be responsible to organise discussion and make sure that you have accomplished your tasks

Last year's wishes for the seminar

  • Help with finding references/literature 7
  • Scientific/academic writing 7
  • Focusing the topic / making research questions 5
  • Motivational kicks for the thesis process 5
  • Help with finding a good research topic 3
  • Research methods 2
  • What are the thesis requirements in MIT discipline 2
  • Reference management 1
  • Peer review 1
  • How to write discussion about system development 1
  • How to combine theoretical knowledge with empirical knowledge 1
  • Writing a research plan 1
  • Analysing (test) data 1
  • Making a survey research 1