Selecting a Project
Supervisor-proposed projects
Most students select a project proposed by a staff member, often based on their specific areas of research interest. Proposals are published on the list of staff project proposals. You should identify a shortlist of projects for discussion with the corresponding supervisors. The list allows sorting based on topics, modules, and tags, but these are provided for guidance rather than being enforced, so you can consider a project if you are interested, even if your module is not explicitly listed. Recently published proposals also indicate the project type.
Contact the supervisors directly to discuss your shortlisted projects, to understand the expected 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 you have reached agreement with a supervisor, email the project coordinator to register this choice, cc to the supervisor. The allocation is not finalised until confirmed by the project coordinator.
Self-proposed projects
It’s also possible to propose your own project. This 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, feasible, 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.
If you wish to propose your own project, draft a summary of what you propose to do, how you propose to do it, and what the outcome will be. It’s sensible to do this in the form of a draft DOER to reduce later work. Then contact some potential supervisors (typically staff with expertise in the topic). If you are not sure who would might be appropriate for a particular topic, contact the project coordinator who may be able to make suggestions. You can also ask the coordinator to publish your proposal on the staff Teams channel.
Once you have agreed a project, email the coordinator (and cc the supervisor) as before.
Externally-focused projects
It’s not particularly common, but you may wish to propose a project involving collaboration with a company or some other external organisation. In such cases you need to discuss with a potential supervisor within the School as early as possible. The obvious issues for early resolution are ethics and IP arrangements. It must be made clear to the external organisation that all supervision and assessment will remain formally within the School.
There is a template agreement [MS Word, PDF] for external collaboration on student projects, which can be modified as necessary. It provides options for assigning any IP arising from the project to the student, to the University, or to the external organisation. Note that individual academic staff are not permitted to sign NDAs or other legal agreements relating to their work role. Once an agreement has been drafted, your supervisor should submit an entry to the Trusted Research Tool, and then contact the Projects Coordinator, who will liaise with Research Business Development to get the agreement signed by the University. It’s difficult to predict how long it will take to get University agreement, so this process needs to be initiated well in advance of the planned project start date.
Module-specific arrangements
CS4098, CS4099, CS5199
The allocation process typically takes place in late semester 2 and over the summer.
CS4796
The process is similar to that for single-subject projects, except you will need a supervisor from each school. Joint projects are less likely to be found on the supervisor-proposed list, so you will probably need to propose your own project. If you have an idea, by all means contact the project coordinators in both schools and ask them who to contact in each school about a possible collaboration.
Once the project has been agreed with supervisors and cleared with the project coordinator, you will need to contact the DoT (Director of Teaching) in each school and ask them to sign the Letter of Agreement. This letter will define any special arrangements for the project. Once agreed, the letter needs to be uploaded to MMS in the appropriate slot.
CS4796 is not available to students on joint degrees with Maths or Statistics (but see MT4796).
CS5098, CS5099
The allocation process typically takes place during semester 2. 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. If you want to do a group dissertation you can either form a group with other students before choosing a project, or ask the projects coordinator for help in finding other group members.