The thesis report goes through Turnitin plagiarism detection. This will happen automatically after you submit your paper to Wihi for evaluation.

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection system that identifies the plagiarism of documents, such as a thesis. Once the thesis has been sent to Turnitin for analysis, the system compares it to three different source types: internet sites, publishers’ material such as books, dictionaries and scientific articles, as well as material sent by students, which has been archived in the Turnitin database as source material. The result of the comparison is an analysis report, which reveals not only the similarities between the compared documents, but also the percentage of similarities.

The result of the Turnitin analysis is expressed as a percentage. The percentage refers to the percentage of your thesis that Turnitin found a match for elsewhere. Please note that no direct conclusions can be drawn from this percentage: When Turnitin finds many matches, you need to review the report and the source references carefully with the support of your supervisor. You will always see the result of the Turnitin analysis yourself, and the supervisor will contact you if the result is abnormal.

Different fields of education have their own seminars to present the completed theses. In addition, the thesis can be presented in common seminars if the work is completed early, for example.
 
Presentation seminars in your own field of education

• The completed work is discussed in the presentation seminar, which can take the form of a webinar.
• The seminar is an open and public event.
• The student sends their thesis to the supervisor and peer reviewer at least one week before the final seminar.
• The student invites the commissioner to the presentation seminar.

 

Progress of the Master's thesis seminar

The thesis presentation seminars often follow the following structure:

• opening of the event
• presentation of the work (about 20–30 minutes)
• peer review, if used in the degree programme (approx. 10-15 minutes)
• possible speech of the commissioner
• general discussion
• supervisor’s feedback
• end of the event

 

Preparation of a seminar presentation

The focus of the presentation is on presenting the results and outputs of the thesis/ development task and assessing the thesis process. The presentation should preferably be supported by illustrations. The presentation describes:

• the summarised knowledge base, data acquisition and methodological choices of the thesis
• the results of the work

 

Peer review and discussion

After the presentation, the peer reviewer will evaluate the thesis if the degree programme uses peer reviews. The peer reviewer assesses the thesis and does not criticise it. The peer reviewer prepares a few critical questions and gives an overall assessment of the work. After the peer reviewer’s speech, there is an eventual speech by the commissioner and general discussion. Finally, the supervisor gives oral feedback on the work.

A UAS bachelor’s thesis requires a compulsory maturity test. According to the Government Decree on Universities of Applied Sciences (1129/2014), Section 8): “For the degree, the student must write a maturity test in the field of his/her thesis that demonstrates familiarity with the field and command of the Finnish or Swedish language. The university of applied sciences makes the decision on the maturity test where the student is not required to possess the language skills referred to in Section 7(1).”

 

The purpose of completing a maturity test is to demonstrate the student’s familiarity with the topic of their thesis and mastery of their mother tongue (their school language). If the student has completed their school education abroad or in a language other than Finnish or has been allowed to take the maturity test in a language other than the degree programme’s language of instruction, the expertise group manager will make the decision about the maturity test language.

 

General instructions

• A maturity test is an essay written on a topic provided by the teacher, or a media release on the results of the thesis.
• The maturity test of a UAS bachelor’s thesis is always written as an individual work even if the thesis had been done as group work.
• The maturity test is written in formal style and taking into account the general structure of an essay/media release. The maturity test thus also demonstrates competence in various text types. The maturity test of a UAS master’s thesis is written as a media release in accordance with the Media Release Instructions.
• The maturity test is titled according to the topic and subtitles are used if necessary. The main title should indicate which question is answered in the maturity test. Paragraph division is indicated by an empty line between paragraphs.
• The matter is presented in the student’s own words, i.e. the maturity test is an independent essay separate from the thesis. The content of the maturity test must be comprehensible in its entirety without the reader having seen the thesis.
• The maturity test of a UAS bachelor’s thesis is a comparable to an exam, which means that no material may be used as an aid in the test. Source material must not be paraphrased in the maturity test either, so source references are not used in it.
• The maturity test is completed timed in Moodle (web text) or in the EXAM. In both the cases, the duration of the maturity test shall not exceed 3 hours.
• The media release to be prepared as a maturity test in UAS master’s theses is written independently without a time limit, though the reasonable maximum time specified for the maturity test must be taken into consideration in it. When the media release is applied to the maturity test of a UAS bachelor’s degree, the maximum duration (3 hours) set for the maturity test must be taken into account. The student returns the media release to the supervising teacher via Wihi.
• The student can register for a maturity test when their thesis is in the finishing phase.
• The student must follow the instructions provided by the degree programme when registering and completing the test.

 

Completing a maturity test in EXAM/Moodle

The Lapland UAS uses the EXAM system to complete a maturity test , for which User instructions have been prepared. When a maturity test is completed in the EXAM, the maximum text length is 600 words or 4,500 characters.

The maturity test can also be written as web text in Moodle. In that case, too, the length of the text must be at least 600 words or 4,500 characters. For more information on completing the maturity test in Moodle, see degree programme specific learning environments.

 Evaluation of the maturity test

The content of the maturity test of a UAS bachelor’s thesis is verified by the teacher instructing the thesis and its linguistic form by the communications teacher. The maturity test is evaluated on a scale of pass – fail. The evaluation focuses on the following:

 

Content (assessed by the instructor):

• Command of the subject and process
• The content addresses the core issues concerning the title and topic.
• Correctness and reliability of processing

 

Text (assessed by the communications teacher):

• Structuring (e.g. correlation between the title and text, structure and structuring specific to the text type, titles and paragraph division)
• Comprehensibility (including the independence of the text, argumentation, statements and their justifications)
• Clarity (e.g. sentence structure, use of professional terms, choice of words, appearance according to instructions)
• Style (formal style) and language (e.g. spelling).

 

The maturity test of a UAS master’s thesis is assessed for all of the above-mentioned aspects only by the teacher instructing the thesis.

In accordance with the degree regulations of Lapland UAS, theses are public documents, and their appendices may contain other public or non-public documents related to the thesis. The existence of attached material must be verified in the public part. Only the public part can be taken into account when evaluating the thesis.

Your work will be evaluated by the content supervisor(s) and language reviewer. In addition, you may receive an assessment from the commissioner of your work. The thesis evaluation covers competencies required for the thesis, i.e. learning skills, innovation competence and written reporting. 

The evaluation is based on the evaluation criteria that you can find separately for bachelor’s and master’s programmes. In addition, the student fills in a self-assessment form  and asks the commissioner for feedback using the feedback form. The thesis is evaluated on a scale of Excellent (5), Good (4 or 3), Satisfactory (2 or 1) or Fail.

Sub-areas of evaluation and grade weighting (bachelor)

The evaluation shall be based on the evaluation criteria.

Learning skills: (40%)

• the goals and scope of the work
  
• the knowledge base and justifications, concepts and definitions, use and quality of sources
  
• methods and working practices/tools
  
• systematic planning
  
• time management
  
• ethics and reliability.

Knowledge of innovation: (40%)

• collaboration
  
• performing a specialist assignment
  
• creative problem-solving and development of work methods
  
• end result/output
  
• usability of results/outputs
• oral presentation

Written reporting (20%)

• The targets of evaluation will be evaluated on a scale of Excellent (5), Good (4 or 3) or Satisfactory (2 or 1), which will form the overall grade.

 

Evaluation subareas (master)

The evaluation shall be based on evaluation criteria.

Request for rectification

According to the degree regulation, a student dissatisfied with the grading of their study attainment may request the teacher who performed the evaluation for rectification within 14 days of the publication of the grading results. The student has the opportunity to submit a written rectification request to the board of examiners within 14 days of receiving a written response from the teacher in question. The request for rectification is submitted to Lapland UAS’s Board of Examiners.

The student is responsible for publishing their thesis in Theseus

 Theseus is primarily an open publication archive, in which theses are saved as open access publications. This means that theses are made openly available on the internet so that anyone can read them. Before publishing your thesis, contact your thesis partner for permission for an open publication if you did not agree on it when entering into the thesis agreement.

Lapland UAS provides its students with the opportunity to save their thesis in the open or restricted collection (more information on collections).

• If you save your thesis in the open collection, you also give permission to make your thesis openly available on the internet for reading, browsing and printing free of charge.
• If you save your thesis in the restricted collection, search engines will find the description and abstract of your thesis, and they can be read by anyone. The PDF file of a work saved in the restricted collection can only be accessed from IP addresses specified by Lapland UAS.

In both collections, the metadata and abstract of your thesis will be openly available for reading and can be found by the library’s Finna service and other search services.

Theses are public documents, and Lapland UAS recommends that you save your thesis in the open collection in Theseus. You can link your open-access thesis directly to your CV or personal portfolio.

Once the supervisor has given you permission to publish your thesis in electronic format, you can publish it in Theseus, the online publishing service of the UASs.

1. Ensure that your thesis is accessible. Before saving your thesis in Theseus, make sure that it meets the accessibility criteria. Instructions for checking accessibility are available in Theseus.
2. Save your thesis as a PDF/A file in accordance with the instructions before saving it in Theseus. PDF/A is an ISO standardised file format for long-term retention and archiving, which Theseus uses to store theses and publications, so a regular PDF file is not sufficient. Also remember to hide the contact information shown in any attachments.
3. Save your thesis in Theseus. When saving, follow the instructions available in Theseus or the Lapland UAS Theseus guide. When you save your thesis, you will receive a URN identifier. Copy it or write it down. The URN identifier must be saved in Wihi for the final thesis evaluation.
4. Please notice that it may take 2-3 days for your library to publish your thesis, on rush hours about a week.

 

Other publishing channels

The most significant theses can also be published in publication series B or D of Lapland UAS. The publication process is launched with the student’s consent by the supervising teacher. The final decision on adoption to the publication series and its level is made by the publication workgroup of Lapland UAS.

If the thesis was commissioned, the student must hand over their thesis to the commissioner.

When your thesis has been evaluated successfully, you will need to archive your thesis. The student must save an electronic version of their thesis in pdf format to the YKSA archive service in accordance with the instructions of the archive department. You can find archiving instructions on the YKSA archive service’s website.

A student cannot obtain a degree certificate until they have archived the approved version of their completed thesis.
The theses stored in the archive can be browsed using various search functions.

If you wish, you can bind the thesis for yourself, for example:

• Student Union Rotko
  
• Rovaniemen insinööriopiskelijat RovIO ry
  

• Instructions for the Board of Examiners
• Lapland UAS’s request for rectification
• Media release instructions
• Assessment criteria - Bachelor
  
• Assessment criteria - Master
• Assessment criteria - Master August 2022
  
• Self-evaluation of Bachelor thesis
  
• Self-evaluation of the Master thesis
• Self-evaluation of the Master thesis 2022
• Commissioner’s feedback
• Peer feedback on the thesis