Public presentation

Information on submitting and presenting the thesis project for doctoral students in Social Sciences and Economics

During the first year, the thesis exposé must be presented to the doctorate advisory committee for the thesis field at a presentation open to all staff and students at the university.

Process

The thesis proposal acceptance form (DISS1) incl. research proposal and the thesis agreement (DISS2) must be submitted electronically via the Student Portal prior to your presentation. Please note that your electronic application must be submitted before the set registration deadline.

Ad thesis agreement:

a) Proof of coursework: As part of your doctoral programme, you must complete coursework amounting to between 24 and 80 ECTS credits. Presentations at international conferences, workshops, teaching activities and publications can all count towards these credits as long as they are related to your thesis. You must complete at least one course in the Faculty of Management and Economics at AAU. The accepted proof of achievement is to be agreed with your supervisor in your thesis agreement.

b) The research proposal must be submitted in written form and shall contain between 8 and 16 pages. The exposé must cover the status of research, objectives, methodology and a schedule.

The open presentation consists of two parts:

• Presentation of your exposé (duration: max. 20 minutes)
• Open discussion with the doctorate advisory committee

Following the presentation, the doctorate advisory committee approves the thesis project or provides a reason for rejecting it. After the presentation, the doctorate advisory committee sends the DISS1 form to the Office of Academic Affairs for approval. This form is accompanied by the DISS2 thesis agreement, which is prepared with your supervisor. The Office of Academic Affairs makes the decision to approve or reject the application.

Information for submission and presentation of the dissertation proposal for the thesis areas Informatics, Information and Communications Engineering and Technical Mathematics

The dissertation proposal must be presented in a university public presentation in front of the responsible doctoral advisory committee within the first year of study. The doctoral advisory committee recommends presentation of the dissertation proposal only if research problem, research questions, goals and expected innovation can be clearly addressed.

The current presentation dates and submission deadlines can be found at  deadlines and dates.

Submission

You must submit the thesis proposal acceptance form (DISS1) including the research proposal (exposé) and the chosen presentation date as well as the thesis agreement (DISS2) electronically via the study portal in due time. Please note that submissions after the specified deadline cannot be considered.

The exposé must include the current state of the art, the objectives, the planned research methods and the work plan of the proposed dissertation. It should have a length of 3-5 DIN A4 pages.

The abstract (about 250 words) should comprehensively describe the proposed dissertation topic for the members of the Faculty of Technical Sciences.

Thesis agreement (DISS2)

The doctoral program in technical sciences requires coursework (examinations and other activities) of at least 16 ECTS and at most 32 ECTS credits.

The following coursework can be allocated to examinations (§3 2a):

–    subject-related courses that are not part of a bachelor‘s degree programm,

–    courses for doctoral degree programmes,

–    privatissima and

–    seminars.

At least 14 ECTS credits must be included in the thesis agreement for examinations.

The following coursework can be allocated to other activities (§3 2b) provided that they relate to the topic of the dissertation:

–    summer schools,

–    publications,

–    own teaching activities, and

–    activities completed at other universities.

At least 2 ECTS credits must be included in the thesis agreement for other activities.

Certificates of achievement of other activities must be defined with the supervising and advising persons in the thesis agreement. For publications, the thematic relevance to the dissertation must be documented with the help of keywords or exemplarily enlisted publication media. Furthermore, the type of publication and the desired quality indicator must be specified.

The following table gives some examples of a suitable description for publications:

Publications that are part of a publication-based (cumulative) doctoral thesis cannot be included in the doctoral thesis agreement.

At most 12 ECTS credits can be allocated to seminars and privatissima, and at most 2 ECTS credits can be allocated to summer schools. At least 1 seminar must be included in the thesis agreement.

If the dissertation is part of a thematic doctoral program, the coursework must be stated in accordance with the requirements of the thematic doctoral program.

Presentation

The duration of the dissertation proposal presentation should be 15 minutes. The presentation should discuss the relevant state of research, the goals and research questions as well as the (planned) methods of the dissertation proposal. The presentation will be followed by a 5-minute discussion.

Supervisors and advisors should attend the presentations and can comment on the dissertation proposal in the non-public part of the doctoral advisory committee meeting.

Additional Informationen

–     Information about doctoral degree programs at University of Klagenfurt

–     Guidelines issued by the rector of studies on coursework to be completed in doctoral programmes

–     Guidelines issued by the rector of studies on cumulative doctoral theses

Contact

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernhard Rinner (bernhard [dot] rinner [at] aau [dot] at)

Heidelies Aschbacher (heidelies [dot] aschbacher [at] aau [dot] at)

Notes on submitting DISS1 and DISS1 forms for thesis students in Natural Sciences

Please read the following guidance from the Doctorate Advisory Committee for Natural Sciences before submitting your thesis proposal acceptance form (DISS1) and doctoral thesis agreement (DISS2).

DISS1 – doctoral thesis proposal acceptance form

Please make sure your research proposal is no longer than five pages (incl. title page, text, literature, schedule, etc.) Important: Exposés longer than this will not be accepted by the doctorate advisory committee.

Please refer to the guidance on writing a research proposal.

Please provide a summary of your exposé (max. 250 words) that can be used in the invitation for the public presentation. The summary should be written in a way that makes the project easy for everyone to understand (the exposé, on the other hand, is written with the ‘scientific community’ in mind).

DISS2 – thesis agreement

Please note that courses that go beyond the scope of doctoral seminars and private tutorials are also listed under 2a. The content of the courses should be relevant to your thesis project.

For achievements listed under 2b:

Participation in conferences must be ‘active’, i.e. you must present a paper or a poster. Attendance alone is not sufficient. Please choose a relevant phrase to describe the activity (e.g. “presentation at conferences, e.g. …”). In general, participation in a conference awards 2 ECTS credits.

It is helpful if you provide the precise number of conferences you have participated in, but you do not need to list the exact conferences – simply indicate selected examples. (Example: “Active participation in three conferences, e.g. conference A, conference B and conference C”.)

In accordance with the requirements of AAU, teaching activities award 2 ECTS credits/semester hours.

Good luck with your thesis!