Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour

Criteria for Examining a Thesis

Does the thesis demonstrate the student's abilities wrt to:
- identification of unsolved problem
- status of research in direction of solution
- relevant background material find a solution: theory
- demonstration that it is a solution
- assess the suitability of the solution
- assess the importance of the solution
- identify directions for future work
In what direction is work: theory, experiment, synthesis, analysis, critique
How well was it done?
How is it improvement on previous work? What unsolved problem solved? Does the student identify this improvement explicitly? Is there a contribution to knowledge beyond one experiment?
Has student identified explicitly a problem?
How thorough was the experiments? How well designed and implemented?
Did experimental results support claims?
Assess engineering: is implementation faithful to theory?
How big of a contribution to knowledge?
What criteria does student think he should be evaluated on?
what do you think was the weakest aspect of the work?
Knowing my research viewpoint, what do you think I should criticise?
What other experiments could you have done (random or systematic variation to determine sensitivity)
Explain the intuition of equation X
Purpose of oral:
- a) to clarify confusions on the part of the examiner
- b) to verify that all main criteria satisfied
- c) to explore possible errors
What assumptions are implicit in the work? Are they listed explicitly anywhere? What happens if all assumptions are at the limit? Isn't X an assumption?
What if you applied your results to domain X? How would/could you adapt your results for domain X?
What aspects of your work are more-or-less similar to previous work (and who's done it)?
What aspects of your work are based on other people in your laboratory, or associates elsewhere.
What are the key contributions of your work?
How do you hope that your work will influence the research community.
Olin Shivers's advice to students on dissertations and defence:
- http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/shivers/diss-advice.html
- http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/shivers/grad-advice.html

Institute of Perception, Action, and Behaviour © 2006
(*) Images show the Honda Asimo robot, DLR-LWR arm, Sony AIBO, Koala and Khepera robots.