Thesis Application and Proposal Guideline

Procedure for Thesis Advisor Application and Assignment

1. 3rd Semester students (2nd semester for KOICA) on the Thesis Track are required to apply fora thesis advisor who will give guidance to complete the thesis in 2 semesters. A list of faculty members who can serve as thesis advisors is provided by the GSIS office. First, students should submit the ‘preliminary thesis application form’ for assignment of Thesis Advisor. Students can consult with their department chairs to choose two professors from the list provided first and fill out the preliminary application form and submit it to the GSIS office. At this stage, students should consult with their department chairs in choosing professors and thesis topic. Please note that students DO NOT HAVE TO OBTAIN an APPROVAL from professors you have chosen at this stage. After collecting all preliminary application form, the GSIS will discuss with chairman of each department in order to assign a thesis advisor to each student. We will consider thesis fields and subjects in assigning a professor to the student. After this process, GSIS will notify the list of prospective thesis advisor on the homepage.
2. Students who are planning to graduate with thesis should apply for a thesis advisor during the 3rd semester and should also take ‘Research Methods’ class during the 3rd semester. Please note that students WILL NOT be able to apply for a thesis track after the 3rd semester as of 2009 spring semester. If any student has taken the Research Methods class in the undergraduate program, he/she can be exempted to take this course and should consult this matter with his/her thesis advisor. Even though student has taken Research Methods class in the undergraduate program, if thesis advisor requires to take, students should take this course during the 4th semester. Please note that the main purpose of taking research methods class is to prepare students about writing thesis properly.
3. After being informed about the assigned thesis advisor, each student should meet and receive an approval from the thesis advisor recommended and should submit the ‘Thesis Advisor Application Form’ to the GSIS office.
4. After this, each student will know his/her thesis advisor appointed and should keep consulting with the thesis advisor for your thesis plan and thesis proposal to be submitted by the end of the semester.
5. Students who are writing thesis (3rd semester) proposal, should meet their thesis advisor assigned at least 4 times per semester in order to receive ‘S’ is research credit. Failure is meeting less than 4 times will result in ‘U’ in the final result. → Students who receive ‘U’ in the 3rd semester will automatically turn to the Non-thesis track and will not be able to apply for thesis track after this period.
6. Upon submitting the Thesis proposal, your thesis advisor will give you ‘Research’ credit which is 3 credit requirement for your graduation. Research credit is normally given by ‘S’(Satisfactory), ‘U’(Unsatisfactory), ‘I’(Incomplete) and students should receive ‘S’ in order to receive 3 credits of your research.
7. If students receive “I”, students should consult with their thesis advisor to correct proposal within one month in order to change your final grade from “I” to “S”.

Students who received 'U' two times in the 3rd and 4th semesters will not be allowed to continue to write thesis to graduate, and these students should change their track from Thesis to Non-Thesis upon approval by their department chairs (to be applied as of 2008 Fall semester)**

Thesis Defense Guidelines

All students on the thesis track are required to pass the Thesis Defense before submitting the final thesis to the thesis committee members. Thesis defense is normally scheduled in the graduating semester (4th semester) and the schedule is announced in the scheduled semester by the GSIS office. The information below applies to all students on the thesis track.

Submission of Thesis Defense Application Form

4th Semester Students on the Thesis Track are supposed to apply for their thesis final defense to pass and receive approval from the Thesis Committee Members including the thesis advisor. While getting approval from the thesis advisor, students should discuss the final thesis defense date and time with the members of the committee and should include the information on the application form. The GSIS office will check the room availability and finally confirm the final thesis date and time. According to the GSIS regulation, Thesis Committee Members should consist of three faculty members, and the Thesis Advisor serves as the chairman of the Committee. When consulting for the thesis defense date, students should consult with their thesis advisor about who will be the thesis committee members for the final defense. Students are required to pay the Thesis Defense Application fee of 100,000 Won and submit the receipt with the application form.

Thesis defense application fee is subject to increase in future academic years.

Submission of Final Defense Draft

GSIS provides thesis format guidelines for the students. Students are expected to write the defense draft according to the guidelines. Students should submit it in two forms:

• MS Word file saved on CD or via Email Students should put a title of thesis, name and ID number, department, and the name of thesis advisor on the CD Label.
• Printed Version

Thesis Final Defense

All students writing a thesis should defend their thesis in front of the Thesis Committee during the defense period given on the schedule. The defense is open to the public

Submission of Final Defense Result

Final Defense Result is normally submitted by the Thesis Advisor but students sometimes could submit it with the thesis advisor’s approval. Students should note that it takes more than one week to make the printed version of the thesis and should prepare the final printed version quickly to meet the deadline.

Submission of Final Defense (Printed Version) and D-Collection Upload

Students who have passed the final defense should make copies in book form and submit 6 printed copies and 1 CD (5 copies directly to the library and 1 printed copy and the CD to the GSIS office). Among the all printed copies should include signatures from all committee members. Please refer to the thesis guideline for the final version of your thesis. D-Collection upload information, please refer to the GSIS main page banner.