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ILLC

Master of Logic / ILLC

Step-by-Step Guide

The following is a 9-step plan to graduate in the Master of Logic. It takes 8 to 10 months to execute. You should start preparing at the beginning of your second year.

Please note that you can only defend your thesis once you have completed all course and project elements of your programme and all corresponding grades have been officially registered.

 

  • Step 1:  10 to 6 months before the thesis defense

    Getting a supervisor

    You start discussing potential thesis supervisors with your academic mentor. You talk to these potential supervisors and discuss possible topics. See also our hints on: 

    how to find a supervisor

  • Step 2:  4 to 3 months before the thesis defense

    Approval of thesis project and academic plan

    Approval Thesis Project
    You reach an agreement with your supervisor. Together you write a short description of the project and you request the Examinations Board Logic (EB) for approval of this thesis project in DataNose, your main page, ‘Projects’. DataNose will ask your ILLC supervisor to confirm the thesis project before the request is received by the EB.

    https://datanose.nl/#yourprojects

    Once the EB Logic has approved your thesis project, it is fixed. Meaning, this is the project you will graduate with. Of course changes that are inherent to doing research are fully acceptable. Changes in the supervision team, however, or a switch to a different topic, will require the official approval of the EB Logic again. Please contact  , should this be the case.

    Approval Academic Plan
    After you requested for the approval of your thesis project, you should also request for the approval of the list of courses and projects you want to graduate with (your academic plan, in short AcadPlan). Also this is done in DataNose, your main page, ‘Academic plan’.

    https://acadplan.datanose.nl

    See a more detailed explanation on:

    how to prepare your academic plan

    Make sure that all individual research projects you want to graduate with, completed or not, are registered in DataNose by the lecturer of the project by the time you submit your academic plan.

    And again, once the EB Logic has approved your academic plan, which includes your research project(s) and thesis, it is fixed. This will be the list of courses, projects and thesis you must finish in order to graduate, but if you do finish everything, you can be sure to get permission to apply for your diploma.

    All changes in courses or projects will require the approval of the EB Logic. Please contact , should this be the case.

    Please note:

    • You cannot request for approval of either the thesis project or the academic plan, unless you have completed at least 72 EC worth of coursework (and preferably the full 90 EC).
    • To defend between 1 June and 30 September of a given year, you must submit the request for approval of both the thesis project and the academic plan before 1 March of the same year.
    • The courses that you list in the academic plan in DataNose are the ones that appear on your diploma supplement. If you forget to list a course or project, it will not appear on your diploma supplement.
    • Extra courses and projects, that go beyond the 120 EC that are required for graduation, can (but don’t have to) be put in the extracurricular section. These components will appear in a separate section of the diploma-supplement, but will not contribute to your GPA, neither will these be taken into account in any decision with respect to a cum laude qualification.
      However, on any official transcript you apply for, these components will appear in the main list and they will contribute to the GPA.

  • Step 3:  5 to 1 month(s) before the thesis defense

    Writing and presenting your thesis

    You write the thesis and you present your thesis project during one of the plenary MoL thesis presentation events. MoL thesis presentation events are organised in April (for students graduating in the summer) and October-November (for students graduating in the winter). If you cannot present your thesis during any of these events you are required to discuss your project once with an ILLC staff member outside of your supervisory team. To do so you need to prepare a one page abstract of your thesis project, send it to the chosen ILLC member with an invitation to meet, meet and after the meeting send an email to to inform the Examinations Board that the meeting took place (with the thesis abstract in attachment and the chosen ILLC member in cc).

  • Step 4:  At least 5 to 6 weeks before the thesis defense

    Contacting the examinations board

    As soon as you have an approximate date for the defense, your supervisor should contact the Examinations Board (at with a cc to ) to request the assignment of a chair for your thesis committee. If there is a canonical candidate among the members of the Examinations Board, your supervisor can mention this person in the e-mail.

    Note that as the examinee, you should not be involved in the selection of the members of your committee. You can, of course, give your preferences to your supervisor.

    After a chair for your thesis committee is assigned, your supervisor will make suggestions for the committee members to the chair who will then appoint the committee members and inform you who is in the committee.

    The end of the academic year (the months of June, July and August) is the standard graduation period and about 60% of our students will graduate in these months. In order to coordinate the defenses in this period, we have a special procedure.

    • Each year there will be fixed defense slots that you can choose from. Most of these slots will be between 15 June and 15 July and some in the last week of August. Between these periods there will be no possibility to defend.
    • The website with the slots in June and July will be made available in April ('defenses'in the header of this page).
    • The slots in August will be made available in May and are primarily reserved for students who have urgent reasons not to defend in June, July or September, e.g. not being able to finish in time, but having to pay the high tuition fee, or starting a PhD on 1 September.
    • The ILLC supervisor requests a slot by sending an email to . The member of the Examinations Board linked to this slot will then contact the supervisor about the composition of the defense committee.
      In case of an August slot, the supervisor will justify this request with arguments. The Examinations Board will decide whether this is granted.

    Note that if you do not defend on or before 31 August of a year, you will have to re-enroll for the next academic year.

  • Step 5:  1 month before the thesis defense

    Arranging your thesis defense in DataNose

    You arrange your thesis defense in DataNose:

    https://datanose.nl/#yourproject

    Before it reaches the MoL administration, the chair of your defense committee will be asked for confirmation of date, time and composition of the committee. Please make sure to double check the location of your defense by asking your supervisor and the ILLC office at . 

    Then a room is arranged, the committee members are informed, and the defense is added to the News and Events section of the ILLC website. 

    At this point it is important that you yourself check your Academic Plan again. Bugs in the system and other mistakes can happen, and you want them to be corrected before your defense. Are all courses and projects still in there with the proper title? Are all grades registered? If not, contact the secretary of the Examinations Board at .

  • Step 6:  3 weeks before the thesis defense

    Uploading your thesis in DataNose

    At least three weeks before the defense date (until 23:59 on the 21st day before your defense date), you upload the final version of your thesis in DataNose, including an abstract and the official title page.

    https://datanose.nl/#yourprojects

    This version will automatically be sent to all members of your defense committee and it will be scanned for plagiarism, of which the report will be evaluated by the chair of your committee.

  • Step 7:  The public thesis defense

    Public thesis defense

    You present your thesis for 20 minutes and the committee asks questions for 30 minutes. After that the committee retires for typically around 30 minutes to discuss the grade and write the grade report. They then call you in to inform you of their decision and to give you the opportunity to ask a few short questions. After that, you and the committee return to the defense room, where there is opportunity for your supervisor to congratulate you and give a short speech. The process is described in more detail in:

    the MoL Thesis Defense Guidelines

  • Step 8:  After the thesis defense

    Requesting your diploma

    1. Please note that you must be enrolled at the UvA for the Master of Logic on the date of requesting the diploma.
    2. The chair of your defense committee will register the grade and the grade report in DataNose.
    3. You apply for your diploma through a graduation request in: 
      https://datanose.nl/#graduation
    4. After a check of the graduation request, a thorough comparison of your  academic plan with your grades and credits in SIS, the Service Desk ESC will take care of the further processing of your diploma application. The graduation date on your diploma will be the day that they received your graduation request.
    5. When filling in the graduation request you choose whether you will pick up your diploma at the Service Desk ESC yourself, whether you want to authorize someone else to pick it up or whether the diploma has to be sent to your home address (75 euro).
      Please note that the option for a graduation ceremony does not apply to the Master of Logic.
    6. If you need a document to confirm your graduation before you receive the diploma (for applications for instance), please contact the  or pass by their desk in SP 904.
    7. Only after you received confirmation that the submission of your graduation request was successful, you deregister from the UvA using Studielink. Please make sure to do so before the end of the month in which you submitted your graduation request. Please be aware that you will not be reimbursed when you deregister per June 1 or later.
    8. Because your opinion is highly appreciated and will help us keep the quality of the programme at a high standard, we ask you to fill in two evaluation forms.
      One form deals with the thesis project. This one you are required to upload in your graduation request in DataNose (see point 3).
      The other form deals with the programme as a whole and the link to an online form will be sent to you by email after you applied for your diploma. Your answers will be completely anonymous, and very valuable. 
      Currently the evaluation forms are under construction. A link to the forms will be  published here.
    9. Please don't forget: Hand in your drop key at the ILLC Office! You can keep your student card.

  • Step 9:  Up to 1 month after the thesis defense

    Publishing your thesis on the ILLC website

    All MoL theses are published online.

    In general, the published version is the one submitted to the committee. As a courtesy to our students, we give you 4 weeks after the defense to make necessary, but minor changes, in line with the feedback received from the committee during your defense. Please send your revised manuscript to uva.nl or let us know that the originally submitted version can be published online.