If a student has asked you to supervise their Honours Thesis or to serve as a member of their advisory committee, you will be wondering about your responsibilities. A student=s Advisory Committee consists of a Supervisor and two Committee Members. A Course Coordinator provides general advise, gives lectures, arranges for guest speakers, and deals with concerns of students, their supervisors, and committee members. Off-campus individuals frequently serve as Supervisors and Committee Members. In such cases at least one individual must belong to the University of Winnipeg Biology Department. Several points need to be borne in mind.

Supervising or advising an undergraduate differs from supervising or advising a graduate student. Undergraduates need more assistance and do not enjoy the luxury of an open-ended completion date. University of Winnipeg Biology Students can begin research for their thesis as early as April or May however many do not begin until September. Whatever the starting date, the completed thesis must be handed in the following April. There is a severe penalty ( a drop of one letter grade) for missing this deadline.

The Honours thesis at the University of Winnipeg is conducted within the framework of a course. Thesis students are obligated to make two oral presentations, provide a research proposal, a progress report, and undergo an oral defense of the thesis. Each of these events is scheduled for a particular date and a student will need assistance in preparing for these requirements. Many also choose to participate in an optional symposium which occurs in late February at one of the prairie universities. Dates for these events are shown in the Course Outline at http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~moodie/bio4111.htm

Supervisors and Committee Members participate in the grading of their student. The student=s final oral presentation, usually delivered on a Saturday in late March, is worth 10%. It is graded by the two Committee Members, the Chairman of the Biology Department and the Coordinator. The Thesis defense is scheduled for the convenience of all concerned. It occurs between mid-April and early May. The defense is an oral exam which lasts 45-60 minutes, and is worth 15%. It is graded by the two Committee Members, the Chairman of the Biology Department, the Supervisor, and the Coordinator. The Thesis itself, worth 45%, is graded immediately after the oral defense, by the two Committee Members and the Coordinator. Each person contributes equally to the marks for these components of the course. The Supervisor's alone allocates 30% of the overall grade on the basis of his/her experience with the student throughout the research. The evaluations of the Coordinator and Department Chair help to provide a level playing field for all thesis students and compensate for first-time evaluators= unfamiliarity with grading standards.

Students who collect data for their thesis while employed as a Research Assistant. The investigation should concern a self-contained i.e. a relatively independent study. A good test of whether or not the project is really their "own" is whether or not the Supervisor or employer would be agreeable to the Student publishing the results under the student's name. Projects  based on data collected by someone else and which don't involve testing of a hypothesis are discouraged.

The student should have a fall-back built into the research plan. In order to avoid the stress induced by a project going "off the rails" due to an unanticipated calamity such as equipment breakdown, loss of  data, failure to secure samples that it was expected would be easy to get, or any number of other possibilities, a "Plan B" should be built into the project. This is simply a fall-back alternative project, related to the original investigation but which is viewed by the Supervisor as close to a completely sure thing. In the event of a major problem with the planned study it will then be possible to switch over to the alternative one and still come up with a satisfactory thesis at the end of the course.

Supervisors and Committee Members usually find their work with our Thesis students rewarding. Honours thesis students are highly motivated and many become graduate students of their undergrad thesis supervisor. A significant number win NSERC Post-Graduate Scholarships, and about 10% of Honours theses are eventually published. If you would like to look at theses produced by previous students, you can click here.

The Course Description provides additional information. If you would like to discuss possible participation in the course with the Coordinator, feel free to contact Ric Moodie at r.moodie@uwinnipeg.ca or call 786-9434. Additional course information can be found in the Student Manual at: www.uwinnipeg.ca/~moodie/thesis_manual/cover.htm

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