Final thesis (complement)

Duration

Number of credits

Lecturer

Denis Baurain, Collégialité

Coordinator

Claire Périlleux

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

All year long

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

Students enrolled in Block 2 of M-BBMC must complete a final thesis. The final thesis is produced under the scientific supervision of (i) a promoter or (ii) a promoter and a co-promoter. The promoter must hold a PhD and be a teacher or a scientist of the Life Sciecnes Department (appointed permanently, or for a fixed term, such as the postdoctorat researchers funded by the FRS-FNRS).
With the prior approval of the Jury of the M-BBMC, the thesis project can be carried out in the research department of a private company or in a research laboratory of another Department, whose head will be co-promoter. The thesis project can not be done in the same laboratory as the one where the student would have done an internship for the course SSTG0044-1 of Block 2. Any proposition of thesis project must be submitted beforehand to the approval of the BBMC Master Jury, which remains sovereign to rule on any special cases.
The thesis projects are proposed by the teachers. The proposals, which describe the topic and methods, are grouped in a file that will be distributed to students. The choice of the host laboratories by the students must be transmitted to the President of the Jury at the latest at the end of October. A form has to be filled in with a provisional title and summary. The jury establishes the reading committee, based on suggestions from the promotor.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Organisational adjustments related to the current health context

Recommended or required readings

Assessment methods and criteria

Below you will find information on the evaluation methods planned for in-person and remote exams as well as those planned for hybrid sessions. Depending on how the health crisis evolves, the chosen method will be communicated to you no later than one month before the start of the exam session.

1. Written dissertation
The dissertations must be clear and concise; their length must not exceed 65 pages of text (75 for the didactic specialty) (1.5 line spacing, at least 11 in character size), including the figures. The table of contents, the list of abbreviations, the bibliographic list and any annexes (see below) are not paginated and do not count in the calculation of the number of pages. The dissertations may include certain appendices such as sequences (DNA, proteins), sequence alignments, vector/promoter schemes, as well as complementary figures illustrating certain important results and for which certain figures/illustrations already exist in the body of the text. They must contain an introduction/purpose of the work, a survey of the literature, materials and methods, results/discussion and a bibliography to find the cited references (complete references with titles of articles and works cited). Each dissertation must also include a one-page summary of the title of the dissertation, the name of the student, the year and laboratory in which the work was done, and the name of the promoter (and co-promoter, if applicable). This summary describes the objectives, the main results obtained, as well as the general conclusions that can be drawn from the work done.
The cover page of the dissertation includes the following indications:

• University of Liège and its logo
• Department of Life Sciences
• Faculty of Sciences
• Title of the dissertation
• Name of the student
• Grade concerned and orientation / option, + date (month, year)
• The host laboratory (s) and the name of the sponsor (or promoter and co-promoter) may be included.

• A note is given by the promoter for the day-to-day laboratory work corresponding to the course BBMC0020-1 Final thesis (complement).
• A note is given by the reading committee for the written dissertation and the respect of the related instructions (10/20), while two notes are awarded by the reading committee and the moderators for the presentation (5/20) and the defense (5/20). These last two notes are likely to be smoothed at the end of the day by the moderators to ensure the homogeneity of the grading. The sum of these three notes corresponds to the final note of the final thesis (SMEM0019-1).

• One note is given by the promoter for the daily work, another by the reading committee for the written dissertation and a note is given by the reading committee and the moderators for the oral performance (presentation and defense). The note of the final thesis is calculated by summing these three notes after having respectively multiplied them by 0.2, 0.4 and 0.4.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

The final thesis must normally be presented during an exam session of Block 2. An out-of-session presentation is only possible for exceptional reasons, with the agreement of the Faculty of Sciences. The choice of the presentation session must be submitted no later than 1 May; the presentation schedule is established before May 15th.
A reading committee is composed of 3 members in addition to the promoter and co-promoter (if any), holders of a PhD (or titles deemed equivalent). It can not include more than 2 members of the same laboratory or more than 3 members of the 2 laboratories hosting the student. The members of the reading committee each receive a copy of the dissertation to be judged.
On the scheduled date, between 8:30 and 17:00, the student sends an electronic copy to the administrative secretary of the Department (Stéphanie Hanson, s.hanson@uliege.be) as well as to the members of the reading committee, and deposits it on the MatheO platform. A printed copy might be requested by the members of the reading committee.

Contacts

Head of the Jury:
Prof. Claire Périlleux Institut de Botanique B22 (P70) cperilleux@uliege.be
Head of the Department:
Prof. Denis Baurain Institut de Botanique B22 (P70) denis.baurain@uliege.be