Theses

When considering writing a thesis at the DBIS group, please have a look at the available Bachelor and Master theses. You can also suggest a topic that fits in the research field of DBIS yourself.

The general workflow of applying, writing and submitting a thesis as well as all deadlines and dates can be found at the Institute's homepage:

If you have detailed questions about any of these steps, please feel free to ask us.

Hints for writing

  • The abstract is a short summary of the paper and should motivate readers to continue reading.
  • The abstract should not contain a detailed overview of the paper or references to other papers.
  • The introduction introduces a topic and contains no general phrases like "The internet contains a lot of information". Furthermore, the problem to be solved has to be made clear at the end of the introduction section.
  • The structure of the paper should be explained at the end of the introduction chapter
  • Do not use general phrases in the summary (e.g., "There is still a lot of work to do"). Summarize the most important facts of the paper and give an outlook.
  • Introduction and summary (or conclusion)  are indepentend chapters.
  • Use the so-called "bonbon scheme" for your paper, which splits up each chapter into an introduction, a main part and a conclusion.
  • "I", "we" are not used in scientific publications.
  • Please do not make use of "could","should", etc.
  • When presenting algorithms, the complexity of these algorithms has to be estimated.
  • Reference and explain every diagram and figure in the paper.
  • All facts must be reasoned, do not assume. Prove all facts mentioned in the paper by yourself or by referencing papers which do provide evidence for the mentioned fact.
  • Do not use imprecise language, like e.g., "a little more", "few", "some" - please use precise formulations (e.g. the percentage of improvement of a certain algorithm in regards to runtime).
  • Please state your personal opinion - if necessary at all - only in the summary chapter.
  • For websites please specify the title, URL as well as the most recent date you accessed the website. If you refer to books, please make sure to refer to the correct pages in the book.

Hints for presenting

  • Time limit for the presentation according to the target set.
  • Normally a slide is sufficient from 90sec to 3minutes.
  • Outline of the presentation:
    • Introduction: 1-2 slides to motivate the problem. After the introduction, the audience has to be aware of what the thesis' goal was.
    • Own Approach: presentation of your own approach. Please pick our one specificly interesting and challenging part and describe it in depth. 
    • Evaluation of the approach: easily comprehensible presentation of the evaluation results (e.g. by using charts).
    • Conclusion: recapitules the most important facts. 
  • Please make clear what your own contribution was (e.g. which parts you implemented by yourself).
  • After the conclusion slide you can add so-called backup-slides. These can contain further evaluation details, algorithms, architectural diagrams, etc. These slides are intended to help you when answering queries during your defense by providing visual support. 
  • Identify the take-away-message of your presentation: what is the central point of your presentation that you want to get across?

Presentation Slides

  • Please test the technical equipment prior to your presentation (beamer, presenter, laserpointer).
  • Take care of the minimal font size, your text has to be readable even in the back of the room.
  • Figures and charts have to be easily readable and clear.
  • Take care of contrasts, colors look different on the beamer than on your display.
  • Title slide has to mention the title of the thesis, your name, advisor's name, institute and university.
  • Pagenumber on every slide 

Hints for Submission

Bachelor Thesis

  • Make sure that your latex sources are compilable on the linux latex versions installed at the computer rooms
  • Please use the provided style for LaTeX (in the Download-Section)
    • Language: talk to your supervisior
    • Final presentation of bachelor seminar can only be held after the final submission

    Final print version

    • Please print two copies for submission to DBIS. No printed version is required for the "Prüfungsreferat".
    • Two sided print (in color, if figures contain colors)
    • Please provide a dark blue glued binding. No book or spiral binding.
    • Title page: 160g (carton cover) paper (color: white), please copy title pape of the pdf on carton cover (in color)
    • Back page: 160g paper (color: white)

    if you are in doubt, feel free to lend a sample copy from the dbis secretaryand take it with you to the Studia copy center

    Data Submission

    In addition to the printed version, please include all required data for your thesis on either a CD, a USB drive or a memory card. The contents should be structured as follows:

    • Labeling:
      • University of Innsbruck, Institut für Informatik, DBIS
      • "Bachelor Thesis", Title, Name, Date
    • Content:
      • readme.txt: a plain text file containing information about the content of the CD/USB drive/memory card as well as a description on how to use software, if applicable.
      • docs: a directory containing detailed information about submitted software, if applicable. This could be, for example, a compiled JavaDoc documentation.
      • binary: a directory containing binary versions of your software, if applicable.
      • source: a directory containing the source code of your software, if applicable.
      • thesis.pdf: the final version of your thesis in PDF format.
      • thesis_source: a directory containing the latex sources of your thesis. The sources must be compilable and its output must match the submitted thesis PDF file.
      • thesis_presentation.[pdf/pptx]: the final presentation slides. These can be in either latex beamer style or Powerpoint. If you submit your slides in latex, please also include a directory thesis_presentation_source that contains the latex sources.
      • literature: a directory containing all of your sources that you have cited in your paper and presentation. These can be in PDF or stored as HTML.
      • If your project requires other files that are not listed (e.g. detailed results in Excel speadsheets that are not fully covered in your thesis), please include them in a suitable directory and add its description in the readme.txt file.

    Master Thesis

    • Make sure that your latex sources are compilable on the linux latex versions installed at the computer rooms 
    • Please use the provided style for LaTeX (in the Download-Section)
      • Language: English

      Final print version

      • 1 copy DBIS + 2 copies for the "Prüfungsreferat".
      • Two sided print (in color, if figures contain colors)
      • Please provide a dark blue glued binding. No book or spiral binding.
      • Title page: 160g (carton cover) paper (color: white), please copy title pape of the pdf on carton cover (in color)
      • Back page: 160g paper (color: white)
      • if you are in doubt, feel free to lend a sample copy from the dbis secretaryand take it with you to the Studia copy center

      Data Submission

      In addition to the printed version, please include all required data for your thesis on either a CD, a USB drive or a memory card. The contents should be structured as follows:

      • Labeling:
        • University of Innsbruck, Institut für Informatik, DBIS
        • "Master Thesis", Title, Name, Date
      • Content:
        • readme.txt: a plain text file containing information about the content of the CD/USB drive/memory card as well as a description on how to use software, if applicable.
        • docs: a directory containing detailed information about submitted software, if applicable. This could be, for example, a compiled JavaDoc documentation.
        • binary: a directory containing binary versions of your software, if applicable.
        • source: a directory containing the source code of your software, if applicable.
        • thesis.pdf: the final version of your thesis in PDF format.
        • thesis_source: a directory containing the latex sources of your thesis. The sources must be compilable and its output must match the submitted thesis PDF file.
        • thesis_presentation.[pdf/pptx]: the final presentation slides. These can be in either latex beamer style or Powerpoint. If you submit your slides in latex, please also include a directory thesis_presentation_source that contains the latex sources.
        • literature: a directory containing all of your sources that you have cited in your paper and presentation. These can be in PDF or stored as HTML.
        • If your project requires other files that are not listed (e.g. detailed results in Excel speadsheets that are not fully covered in your thesis), please include them in a suitable directory and add its description in the readme.txt file.

      Seminar Thesis

      Please make use of the provided LaTeX-Style (see Download section).

      The structure of the submitted data should be as follows:

      Number-Title
Number-Title/images
Number-Title/literature
Number-Title/sources

      Example of a accepted compositon structure  (Example for topic "Schema Mapping")

      01-Schema-Mapping
01-Schema-Mapping/images
01-Schema-Mapping/literature
01-Schema-Mapping/sources
01-Schema-Mapping/presentation
01-Schema-Mapping/01-Schema-Mapping.pdf
01-Schema-Mapping/01-Schema-Mapping-presentation.pdf

      Content of the folders:

      • images: a directory that contains all used images and diagrams. Please make sure that images are compressed and under 1 MB each.
      • literature: a directory containing referenced pdfs and further literature. Please rename the files like: Title--Author-Year.pdf . Choose keywords instead of the title of a paper if the name gets too long.
      • sources: a directory that contains the latex sources.
      • presentation: if you submit your presentation slides in latex, add this directory containing the latex beamer files necessary for compiling the presentation.

      The root folder should contain: 

      • 01-Schema-Mapping.pdf: the final thesis submission
      • 01-Schema-Mapping.ppt(x) or 01-Schema-Mapping-presentation.pdf: The final presentation slides

      Important:

      • Delete all unnecessary files (.aux,.toc,...) in the sources folder
      • Sources must be compileable
      • Minimize overhead in your presentation file. Be sure to keep the filesize small (by using image compression, ...)

      Due to restrictions when compiling the papers to a collection, please refrain from using following LaTeX packages:

      • hyperref ("url" can be used)
      • srcextend

      Downloads