Forschungspraxis | Research Internship Information

Description

The research internship is intended to prepare students for their later scientific activities in research and development by providing them with insight into current research topics during their master’s studies. The research internship takes the form of project work. Each student in the master’s program works on an individual project assigned by a professor/supervisor from the respective Chair (cf. Procedure) within the scope of the research internship. Upon successful completion of the internship students will be able to draw up (apply learned concepts) and plan a project with an engineering character, to define milestones, as well as to document the progress and results of the project and to present them to an audience.

Duration

The research internship covers a workload of 9 weeks of full-time work (equivalent to 12 ECTS). In the MSEI program, the research internship can be completed as a single unit or divided into two units of 6 credits each (equivalent to 4.5 weeks of full time work). The units may be supervised by two different professors and may be completed in different semesters.

Completion

The final document must fulfill all criteria of a formal paper as it would be handed in on a conference. The desired scope are 4-6 pages Double Column IEEE Format. (See Template)

A successful completion of the research internship also includes writing a Wiki-Page. You should summarize the main results of your paper.

Content

In general, the structure of your report can be as follows.

Introduction – Motivation – Context
1. Draw a picture of the context within which your work is embedded.
2. Describe what would be the ultimate long-term goal that we try to reach eventually.
State of the art – Previous work
1. Describe the state-of-the-art (SOTA)
2. Where is technology/science with regards to the long-term goal ?
3. Who are the contributors in the past, what have their contributions been and why is the SOTA still not a solution to achieve the ultimate goal.
4. Make visible the technological/knowledge/research gap between the ultimate goal and the SOTA
Problem statement – Unsolved issues/Objectives/Goals (SMART)
1. Pick a topic/question that lies in research gap and formulate a question or a problem that you intend to work on/solve
2. Specify your contribution to reducing the size of the gap (closing the gap might be too ambitious)
3. Specify the scope of your work. Describe which constraints/considerations/ assumptions you will include and which you will exclude from your work.
4. Create a list of questions (not less than three and not more than 5 points).
Methodology
1. Inform the reader about your scientific methodology. Is it an experimental work? Is it a theoretical analysis? Is it conceptual work (this is often the case for engineering thesis).
2. Explain how you build up your argument to substantiate your claims given before.
Experiments
Discussion
Conclusion

For individual cases, the contents can vary (on agreement with your supervisor).

Detailed and official information can be found on the faculties page. See Section Forschungspraxis.

Procedure / Checklist

Brainstorm and research topics you are interested in
Contact your (potential) supervisor and ask for available thesis work
Craft a research proposal (see project plan template)
After both parties (you and your supervisor) agree on your research proposal, your research internship officially starts
Work hard
Submit your report in paper format (4-6 pages Double Column IEEE Format)

It is a good practice to print this part or copy them to your project space in the wiki. Make sure all relevant points are tackled before you plan to complete your document or presentation.