Entry requirements

30 credits at Master's level in language technology, including Advanced Programming for Language Technologists and Language Technology: Research and Development.

Learning outcomes

For the grade passed the student, upon completion of the course, can show that he/she is able to carry out a scientific study in the field of language technology and present it in the form of an academic thesis, i.e. 

1. independently take responsibility for the planning and time management of the thesis work
2. define a research problem in the field of language technology and state the corresponding research questions
3. produce an overview of previous research in the form of a chapter providing necessary and relevant background to the other parts of the study
4. decide on, describe, and motivate a setup of specific methods and materials to be used to address the research questions, and, if relevant, discuss ethical issues raised by the design of the study
5. apply appropriate evaluation techniques to the methods and materials
6. present and analyze the results using a combination of text, tables, and figures as approporiate to support the reader's understanding
7. discuss and highlight the most important conclusions that can be drawn from the outcome of the work in relation to the specific research questions, as well as in the wider context of the research area, including making a critical assessment of the strength of the conclusions
8. produce scientific writing with a well structured and coherent argumentation, stringent and appropriate terminology, and for the genre appropriate style, respecting relevant conventions
9. defend the thesis in a public seminar and critically discuss a similar work (act as opponent) in another seminar, in both cases addressing an audience of student peers
10. to the extent applicable, carry out the study using well-structured and commented code, which is comprehensible and possible to use by other people working in the field.

Content

The course consists of an independently completed scientific study, which is presented in the form of an academic essay.

Instruction

The teaching consists of tutorials and seminars.

Assessment

The assessment of the degree to which the student has achieved the learning outcomes is based on (1) an assessment of all relevant aspects of the thesis, which is the main "product" of the course project, and (2) the supervisor's assessment of how the student has worked on the project and to what extent the text of the thesis actually reflects the student's individual skills. The student must also make available (3) code, scripts and data produced in connection with the thesis work. Furthermore, the assessment will take into account the student's ability to (during seminars) (4) defend their own paper and (5) lead a critical discussion of another paper. The essay must follow formal instructions that have been decided and communicated by the examiners before each course session.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.