1. General recommendations
The workload of the bachelor project is 15 ECTS
In the first half of the semester you are expected to spend 15 hours per week
In the second half of the semester you are expected to spend 30 hours per week
Projects should be as "safe" as possible
There should only be 3-4 work tasks
Most of them should be "safe" – in the sense that the students are unlikely to fail if they use the expected time
For a "good" group one of the tasks can be more demanding
Ongoing progress
Each work task should produce a draft of the corresponding section
At the end the group "only" have to put things together (including abstract, introduction, summary etc.)
Use the bachelor contracts to "measure" the progress
We recommend to have weekly seminars for all members of your groups
You can give information which is needed by all groups once without repeating it for each group
Students can present their ongoing work and receive comments from you and other students
If you make such seminars, you have to fix the time and reserve a room (or ask a secretary to do it)
All students should be free Monday 11-13
The seminars may span the groups of several advisors

2. Bachelor "contract"
Within the first week of the semester each group will have to make a bachelor contract, which is a 1-3 page document containing
Provisional title, advisor, group members, language, word processing tool and other tools to be used in the project
A short description of the project (10-20 lines, which may be a slightly modified version of the project proposal)
Provisional table of contents with a number of sections (corresponding to work tasks), and the proposed number of pages for each section
A time plan describing when the different work tasks should be finished
The contract will help the students (and the advisors)
organise the work in a suitable way, so that you achieve a good final result
adjust expectations between individual group members, and between the group and the advisor
make an informed judgement of how much can be done within your project
Having 4½ months may seem as "infinite time"
But with 4 work tasks and time to write the introduction and summary, plus time to collect existing drafts of sections into the final report, you actually have at most 2 full time weeks per work task
The contract should be updated with regular intervals during your project

3. Formation of groups etc
The coupling between project groups and research groups is a one-step process
Last year each project groups had to make three priorities (however, no load balancing was performed)
Groups with more than 3 persons are not allowed and you should only allow 1-person groups under exceptional circumstances
With 106 students we will have groups (if we avoid 1-person groups)
With an even distribution between the 9 research groups, we will have 4-6 project groups per research group
As a default each research group will have up to 8 bachelor groups
If you want fewer groups please let me know before December 8
All groups must make a 1-2 page bachelor contract
Please support this initiative by taking it serious
We have very good experiences using similar contracts for Master's thesis groups
More common activities
I have added a lecture on "How to make a good oral presentation"
If you have proposals for other common lectures / activities, please let me know

4. Discussion forum and webpage
Each research group has its own webpage (under the course)
Here you can place different kinds of material, such as example of bachelor reports, and other general resource related to the research group
The page is accessible to Guests, and can e.g. be seen next year by students looking for a research group
You are not allowed to put copyrighted-material on this page
Each research group has its own discussion forum
The postings can be read by all students at the course
Postings can be used to distribute copyrighted materials (since the forum is password protected)
Non-copyrighted material is usually put on the webpage mentioned above

5. Other Blackboard facilities
There is a Staff Discussion forum (which cannot be seen by students)
Use this forum for all messages/questions to other advisors and to me
In this way others can benefit from the discussions / information
There is a number of "common" fora for different things
Lectures and common activities, Formation of groups, Bachelor contracts, Bachelor reports, Oral exam and Miscellaneous
All advisors are invited to make and answers postings om these fora
The bachelor contract and the final report is submitted via Blackboard
It is possible to make multiple submissions (revisions)
You access them via the grade centre (using a pre-defined "smart view" to filter out your students)
The grade centre can also be used to send mails to selected students
All advisors must be added to the course to have access to fora and grade centre
When there is a new advisor in your group, please send me a mail then I will add him/her

6. Beginning of December
Each research group must produce 4-8 proposals for bachelor projects
Each project proposal should be ½-1 page
See the examples and remember to list the intended advisor
Several bachelor groups may choose and conduct the same project
If a project proposal spans two or more research groups, the proposal should be listed under all groups
All project proposals from you group should be gathered in a single PDF file, which is sent to me no later than Saturday December 8 at 22.00
Information meeting for all students
Monday December 10 at in Store Aud
At least one member form your group should participate
Please prepare a 5 minutes presentation of your group and your projects
Slides are sent to me no later than Sunday December 9 at 16.00
After the information meeting students should be able to talk to a representative of your group

7. Beginning of semester Monday January 28
How to make a useful bachelor contract
Followed by a meeting with your advisor
Monday February 4: Deadline for first version of bachelor contract
Monday February 11
Publication traditions and literature search
Monday February 18
How to write an academic paper
Monday May 6,
How to make proper charts and graphs (by Hans-Jörg Schulz)
You do not have to attend the lectures
But it may be a good idea to skim through the slide sets, which are available on the Blackboard page Lectures and common activities
Proposals for additional lectures are welcome

8. End of semester Saturday June 15: Deadline for final report
Monday June 17
Lecture on "How to make a good oral presentation"
Followed by a "Poster presentation" of all projects (from 13-15)
June 24-28: Oral examination
Each research group must find censors and make the necessary arrangements with them
Nygaard-184 og Nygaard-192 have been reserved for his pupose (the two teaching rooms next to the library)
If necessary it may be possible to have a few exams in the next week