Dissertation and dissertation support seminar 2

Teacher(s)

Mundschau Laurence; Patriarche Geoffroy;

Language

French

Prerequisites

The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

Competency 1 - Develop communication strategies which integrate the various aspects of digital culture.   Learning outcome 1. Critically analyse the communication of an organisation, taking into account its sector of activity and its social, cultural, technological, economic, political and legal context. Competency 4 - Mobilise and produce knowledge in communication strategy and digital culture in a substantiated and methodical manner, as part of a critical reflection or research project. Learning outcome 1. Possess thorough knowledge of the main theoretical and methodological approaches to research on communication and digital culture. 2. Based on multidisciplinary knowledge, develop a critical and substantiated reflection on digital technologies and their human and societal issues. 3. Conduct an original research project, using a variety of well-chosen theoretical, methodological and technological resources. 4. Report on research and its results in a clear, coherent and structured manner, both in writing and orally, in accordance with the requirements of academic communication. 5. Based on research findings, make recommendations for the organisation's communication strategy and/or design new communication tools or practices. 6. Update one’s knowledge and practices by implementing methods and techniques to monitor communication and digital trends and innovations.

Content

In Master 2, the seminar accompanying the master’s thesis mainly aims to explain the formal instructions for writing and defending the thesis, and to put it to the collective test in its state of progress.
Several sessions of presentation and discussion of draft theses by the students allow them to practice the oral presentation of their project and to benefit from the comments of the other students and the professors - with a view to consolidate the theoretical framework, to clarify certain methodological choices, to refine certain analyses, etc.
The content of this teaching unit is largely drawn from the reference book worked on in the accompanying seminar of Master 1 and recalled in the bibliography hereunder. In addition, a vade mecum of the master’s thesis specifies a series of formal and organisational elements relating to the writing, the submission and the defence of the dissertation.

Teaching methods

At least one lecture is devoted to training the students in the standards for producing and finalizing a quality written document that meets the formal requirements of any academic work, particularly with regard to citation and referencing rules.
At the latest on the last day of the January examn session (date to be specified), students must send their promoter an adapted and commented chronogram of their work, following (at least) one appointment with him/her.
Around spring break (exact date to be confirmed), students must also submit a progress report on their thesis. This presentation will focus on the ‘first observations from the field’. The student is therefore expected to have already completed at least some of the empirical work and ‘data analysis’. During this oral presentation, the student will exercise his/her ability to support a scientific register of discussion, to explain and argue the theoretical and methodological choices made and to develop relevant avenues of analysis. This oral presentation, which is a form of preparation for the oral defence of the thesis, does not give rise to a specific grade. However, the student is required to provide feedback on the discussions that followed this presentation to his or her promoter, as well as to the seminar organizers, within 5 days after the presentation.
For the students who are finalising their master programme in the January session and who will be submitting their master thesis in January, the “first observations from the field" seminar will take place in November.
Moodle is used for document sharing, delivery of oral presentation materials and educational communication with students.
If the health situation requires it, all or part of the sessions can be switched to distance learning.

Evaluation methods

The grading of the teaching unit Master’s thesis and accompanying seminar 2 is carried out both by the promoter of the thesis and by an external reader, on the basis of the thesis, both in its written (monograph) and oral forms (defence).
The master thesis must be submitted on the DIAL-mem platform of UCLouvain, according to the instructions provided in the vade-mecum. If the health situation requires it, the defence is done at a distance, without any impact on the evaluation criteria.
An evaluation grid for the master’s thesis (monograph and defence) specifies the evaluation criteria and weightings. It is provided to the student during the accompanying seminar 1 and is discussed in greater depth during a session of the accompanying seminar 2.
A student is in the 2nd session (mark of 0/20 in the 1st session):
- when the ‘thesis form’ and/or the research project (cf. accompanying seminar 1) are still not validated;
- when the student has not presented his or her first feedback from the field during the seminar organized before the spring break and/or when he or she has not sent his or her feedback within the required deadline;
- when she/he does not submit the dissertation on time.
The evaluation methods for the 2nd session are identical to those for the 1st session, with an adapted timeframe: presentation of the first observations from the field and feedback in May, submission of the thesis and oral defense in August.
Within 5 days after the official submission of the thesis, and in if it does not meet the minimum requirements of a university-level academic work that can be presented before a full board of examiners, the promoter must inform the student (with a copy to the presidents and secretary of the examination jury) that it is better if the thesis is not defended publicly. The reader would therefore not be called to the defence jury and only a small jury would be convened (promoter, president, student) and a mark (failure) would be given. Any student who wishes, against all odds, to organize a jury with an external reader must officially notify the promoter by return e-mail within 24 hours, with a copy to the president and secretary of the examination jury. The student must nevertheless expect a largely negative evaluation from the promoter.
Students are expected to strictly follow the rules of citation and referencing as outlined during seminar sessions, in the document Référencement des sources, citation et non-plagiat (available on Moodle), and in the Code of Ethics regulating the writing of scientific works as annexed to the implementing provisions of the General Regulations for Studies and Exams (RGEE) for the Master's degree in Communication Strategy and Digital Culture. Any failure to apply these rules may lead to academic and/or disciplinary sanctions in accordance with the General Regulations for Studies and Exams and the implementing provisions of the RGEE for the Master's degree in Communication Strategy and Digital Culture.
The master thesis is a personal production. The use of generative AI is accepted as long as it is occasional, limited and explicitly stated. Any part of the work that relies on generative AI must be clearly identified by a footnote specifying which generative AI tool was used and how it was used in the part concerned.
Finally, the student makes available to the members of the thesis jury the ‘data’ collected and analyzed in the context of the research as well as other evidence attesting to the validity and authenticity of the approach. The jury may indeed request access to (some of) these elements in order to clarify its assessment of the work provided by the student. Under no circumstances can the ‘anonymity of sources’ be used to refuse this access.

Bibliography

Lecture obligatoire (rappel du séminaire de mémoire 1)/Required reading (same as in the accompanying seminar 1): :
SEURRAT, Aude (dir.), Écrire un mémoire en sciences de l'information et de la communication. Récits de cas, démarches et méthodes, Paris, PSN, 2014.
Lectures recommandées/Recommended readings :
BEAUD Michel, L’art de la thèse, éd. rev. et augm., Paris, La Découverte, 2006.
CISLARU Georgeta, CLAUDEL Chantal, VLAD Monica, L’écrit universitaire en pratique, 2ème édition, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2011.
KLEIN Olivier, Quelques conseils et quelques astuces pour réussir sa défense de mémoire, Unité de Psychologie Sociale, Université libre de Bruxelles, non daté. Disponible en ligne à l’adresse https://cescup.ulb.be/3401-2/ (dernière consultation le 10 septembre 2020).
LAWRENCE, Olivier, BEDARD, Guy, FERRON, Julien, L’élaboration d’une problématique de recherche : Source, outils et méthode, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005.
MANGALAZA Eugène Régis, Concevoir et réaliser son mémoire de master I et master II en sciences humaines et sociales, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010.
MICHEL J.-L., Le mémoire en recherche en information-communication, 2ème édition, Paris, Ellipses, 2006.
VAN CAMPENHOUDT Luc, MARQUET Jacques, QUIVY Raymond, Manuel de recherche en sciences sociales, 5ème édition entièrement revue et augmentée, Malakoff, Dunod, 2017.

Faculty or entity

ESPB