MSc Project

Overview

As part of their MSc studies, all students undertake a substantial Computer Science project, resulting in a dissertation. The projects are guided by at least one supervisor from the School.

Dissertation projects will involve various sets of skills and explore various areas of computer science. They may be very technical, or very mathematical, or involve design and interviews, focus on system building, or involve detailed analysis of existing solutions. However, they are all expected to be equally difficult, and of equal quality.

The dissertation also has to be clearly related to the specific MSc programme, e.g. an MSc AI dissertation has to fall broadly into the area of AI, and an MSc HCI dissertation should be related to human-computer interaction.

The development and supervision process is decided by the student and supervisor but will involve regular meetings to decide direction and monitor progress. Each student is responsible for managing and completing their project.

There are deliverables due at fixed points throughout the project, but marking is holistic. The outcome will be an artifact such as a product, software, or a formal system. Although many projects involve software development, this is not a requirement.

Although many dissertations create exciting new results, the projects are not expected to advance the state of the art the way PhD theses are. However, there has to be a novel element to the work, not simply repeating existing work. It is important that it is challenging enough and demonstrates your ability to apply CS skills gained through your degree to a large, complex problem.

Most of the information on MSc project modules is common to other modules: make sure you read carefully the generic projects page.

MSc dissertation modules

CS5099 - Dissertation in computer science (60 credits)

Individual project carried out over the summer (May-Aug).

CS5098 - Group project and dissertation in computer science (60 credits)

Group project carried out over the summer (May-Aug).
Project work involves collaboration with other students, but dissertation is written individually.

For information on CS5199 see the MSci project page. For information on CS4099, CS4098 and CS4796 see the SH project page.

Location of studies

The policy on Location of Studies applies for the entire duration of the MSc programme, including the summer dissertation period.

Under the policy, you must live within “commutable distance from St Andrews” over the dissertation period, which is loosely defined as you being able to attend the School on a daily basis if required, and more formally as within 75 miles of St Andrews.

If you wish to be further away from St Andrews for more than 10 consecutive days, you must obtain formal approval in advance via the Director of Postgraduate Teaching, having first obtained the approval of your supervisor.

Note also that the policy states that “Overseas students must seek expert advice on the conditions of their visa prior to leaving the UK for any reason”.

Project allocation process

Allocation for CS5099/CS5098 typically takes place in early S2. Your dissertation project may be completed individually (CS5099), or may be part of a larger project which involves group work (CS5098). In both cases, you will write an individual dissertation, which is marked individually. Allocation centres around the project proposals list.

Staff advertise projects on the list and students can look for interesting projects. Students should come up with a shortlist of projects and contact the supervisors directly to discuss the project, the requirements (background knowledge and experience, what is expected in terms of programming or maths, supervision style, etc.). Keep in mind that some supervisors get many requests from students and that there is a limit per supervisor. Typically the mean number of students per supervisor is around three.

Once both the supervisor and the student agree, the student should email the project coordinator (and CC all supervisors) to register this choice. The final allocation is done by the project coordinator. The allocation is not finalised until the project coordinator confirms the allocation.

The list allows sorting based on topics, modules, and tags, but these are meant mostly for guidance, so do approach a supervisor if you are interested in a topic even if your module is not explicitly listed.

Self-proposed projects

A small but significant number of students choose to propose their own project. This is fine, but is a bit more involved because the original idea often needs to be refined together with a potential supervisor to make sure that it is relevant, doable, and challenging. Make sure to leave some extra time if you decide to go down this route – don’t leave it to the last moment! There is no automatic right to do a self-proposed project; a project can only be done if a supervisor agrees to supervise it.

In this case, the student writes a 1-2 page summary of what they propose to do, how they propose to do it, and what the outcome will be. Then they can contact a potential supervisor (typically someone with expertise in the topic) asking them to supervise. If you are not sure who would make the best supervisor for a particular topic, contact the project coordinator to make some suggestions.

Once the project is agreed, email the coordinator (and CC the supervisors) as before.

Supervision meetings

You must attend regular supervision meetings with your supervisor, starting at the beginning of the dissertation period (week beginning 26th May). Usually meetings will be held every week in the early stages of the project, and again toward the end of the dissertation period. In the middle part, meetings may be a little less frequent if you and your supervisor both agree, but should still be held at least every two weeks.

At least four of the supervision meetings, well spaced over the dissertation period, must be held in-person, as part of the School’s engagement monitoring process. Beyond this, supervisors have discretion to meet online if they consider it appropriate, or to require students to meet in-person.

Staff are strongly encouraged to take holiday leave during the summer, and may also travel for research purposes, so it’s likely that your supervisor will be away for parts of the period. If necessary they will arrange for another staff member or a research student to provide informal supervision during their absence.

Supervisors will record meeting attendance in MMS. These records will be monitored and academic alerts will be issued for unapproved absences.

It’s your responsibility to arrange supervision meetings. Failure to do so will be recorded as unapproved absence. The compulsory elements for the MSc project modules (CS5098, CS5099) include missing no more than two supervision meetings without approval.

Project deliverables

The deadlines for these are specified on MMS:

Description, Objectives, Ethics & Resources/Risks (DOER)
Plan & context survey
Interim demo
Final dissertation & materials
Final demo

All deliverables are mandatory and you may be issued an academic alert if you miss them. Regular supervision meetings are also mandatory.

DOER

See guidance on generic projects page.

Plan and context survey

This deliverable consists of a very early draft of your dissertation, as a single PDF document. This should include three elements:

Table of contents with all the chapter and section headings. These will form the skeleton of your dissertation and ensure that it is properly structured;
Largely complete review of related work (literature review). This is normally 5-10 pages long and will include citations to most important papers on this topic and explain how they relate to the task;
Work plan for the rest of your dissertation period (week-by-week) indicating the main tasks and objectives you will need to tackle and when you will be doing this. This is usually in the form of a table, a Gantt chart, or similar.

Interim demo

See guidance on generic projects page.

Final dissertation

See general guidance on generic projects page. Note also that if you are doing a group project, this should be indicated explicitly, with the names of the other students, on the title page.

There is a hard 15,000 word limit on all MSc dissertations. This is a maximum, not a target to be aimed for. The word limit includes everything except the title page, declaration/acknowledgements, table of contents and bibliography.

Group project dissertations must be written independently by each group member. Such dissertations are processed via Turnitin in the normal way, and any similarities with dissertations of other group members will be treated in the same way as for individual projects. If you wish, you can include jointly-written material that is clearly and explicitly identified as such in the dissertation, but keep in mind that the fact that it was jointly-written will be taken into account by your markers.

Submission

See information on submission and extension requests on generic projects page.

Final demo

See information on generic projects page.

Students doing a group project should give a single combined demo.

Assessment