Research Orientation (GEO5010)

Course content

The course is meant as an introduction to one, or more, aspects of a research project. The student can do:

  1. A literature study to get familiar with a related topic/domain that is not covered in the core programme of the MSc Geomatics. The knowledge learned can then be used as a start for a graduation project (GEO2010/2020), but it may also be unrelated to the thesis topic.

  2. An implementation of concepts in a software prototype. This can be used for example to further explore one specific topic and to try to implement a prototype that will, for instance, allows us to process some datasets. This can be used to develop one’s skills in a particular programming language.

  3. A mix of 1 and 2 above.

If a literature review is carried out, the main deliverable is a scientific report summarising the problem studied, the main findings, and potentially a discussion about future work related to the topic. If an implementation is carried out, then the student will deliver a software prototype, along with instructions about what it does, how to use it, test datasets, etc.

Important note: If the research performed through GEO5010 is related to the MSc thesis, the work and output needs to be clearly distinguishable from the thesis itself, standing by its own merits. This work should neither be part of the thesis, but serve as an starting point that can be referred within the thesis bibliography.

Study goals

After the course the student should be able to:

  • formulate a clear problem definition with research questions;
  • independently carry out an assignment;
  • document the results of the assignment.

Educational method

There are no lectures scheduled for this course. Instead, an individual assignment is carried out. The assignment should be supervised by a staff of the MSc Geomatics programme at TU Delft, and has to be approved before the start by the course coordinator of GEO5010.

The coordinator should receive a copy of the proposed assignment before the actual start of the work, and of the final deliverable at the end of the assignment.

Workload

The project is 2 ECTS, thus 56h of work is required.

Assessment

The marking of an assessment is made by the supervisor of the project and the coordinator of the course (in order to guarantee uniformity of marking in relation to the level of difficulty of different assignments).

There is in theory no time limit for an assignment, that is a student can start for instance during the summer and work part-time on the project for a few months.

An assignment can be handed-in at any time during the year.

How to start a project?

  1. Find a staff of the MSc Geomatics;
  2. Agree on a topic;
  3. Send to the coordinator (Clara García-Sánchez) a half-page summary containing the following:

    • name student
    • name of the supervisor
    • title of project
    • main objectives and deliverables
    • planned start and end