Masterthesis

The last part of your Master's programme is the Master thesis. You will make a research proposal, collect your own data, analyze them and describe your findings. The thesis process is completed with the thesis defense.

Information

The most important information regarding the Master thesis can be found: 

1. In the E- Prospectus: in the course description you will find important requirements such as the global planning per cohort, codes, and the number of credits you receive for the thesis. 
2. On the Blackboard page for the master thesis: here you find the exact deadlines, a list of areas of expertise of supervisors, information about capstone projects, contact details of coordinators, supervisors manuals, and additional useful information.
3. The thesis manual: in the blackboard page for master thesis a thesis manual is published. Please read it carefully! All necessary steps, procedures and information about guidance and thesis requirements are addressed in this document.  

Graduation

When you have completed your thesis and also obtained  the rest of your credits you can apply for graduation.

Fraud and plagiarism

Instances of fraud and plagiarism are taken very seriously by the institute of Security and Global Affairs and will be subject to sanctions.

Fraud constitutes cheating on exams or falsifying research data. Plagiarism is a form of fraud and entails violating the intellectual property of someone else. Plagiarism means you take words, thoughts, analyses, reasoning, images, techniques, computer programs etc. that belong to someone else and present them (knowingly or not) as your own.

Since plagiarism is cheating, and because plagiarism by definition undermines the scientific enterprise, cases of plagiarism are taken very seriously by the university community and are punishable by sanctions. The maximum sanction for students amounts to a definite expulsion from the programme. When a student has doubts about what constitutes plagiarism, he or she can always consult with an instructor. Some general guidelines of the do's and don'ts of plagiarism can be found on the University website on regulations.  

Rules regarding fraud & plagiarism

• ISGA has adopted rules and procedures regarding fraud and plagiarism in the Rules and Regulations, chapter 6.
• ISGA uses the program Usis to systematically check plagiarism. Work will therefore have to be submitted electronically as well as in hard-copy (see below).
• In a case in which fraudulent practice is suspected, the board of examiners will suspend the assignment of a grade pending investigation of the suspicion. The board of examiners will appoint a review committee consisting of three members that does not include those who have had direct supervision of the administration of the examination or the grading of written material from a course.
• The review committee will solicit testimony from all relevant parties, but will in any case hear testimony from those who had the respective supervision and from the student who is suspected of fraudulent practice.
• If the review committee determines that a fraudulent practice has taken place, the results of a test or of written work will be declared invalid. There are various sanctions which can be applied based on the gravity of the committed offence. These can be found in the Rules and Regulations chapter 6.
• Students have a right to appeal to a decision by the Board of Examiners. See Rules and Regulations chapter 8.

Turnitin & Repository

Leiden University uses the application Turnitin to enable instructors to systematically detect plagiarism in students’ written work. Turnitin is integrated into Blackboard as a plug-in. Turnitin compares texts submitted by students with an extensive database of source documents, including papers and theses of other students and sources on the internet.  Texts are evaluated and scanned  for similarities. For each text submitted by a student Turnitin generates a similarity report.  If necessary an instructor can take appropriate measures based on this report. In the near future Bachelor and Master theses will also be submitted in the digital Repository of the University.  

Submitting documents with Turnitin

• When an instructor creates a Turnitin assignment within the context of a Blackboard course, all documents that are submitted to this assignment are checked for similarities against sources from the Turnitin database.
• A detailed description of how to submit documents  is available on the Turnitin.
• After successfully completing a submission students recieve a digital receipt.

Course and Examination Regulations

The Course and Examination Regulations (CER) are a part of the student charter and contains information on, i.e., admission criteria, programmes and graduation.

The CER per master is to be found on this page. The Rules & Regulations of the examination board contains the most important rights and obligations of students regarding issues such as:

• Content of the programme
• Exams
• Admissions criteria
• Study support

The Rules and Regulations are to be found on the page of the Board of Examiners.