The thesis process begins with a discussion on the topic and negotiations between the commissioning party and the student. The student prepares a topic proposal on Wihi, which is either approved by the thesis coordinator of the degree programme or the student is asked to supplement the proposal. The thesis coordinator proposes the thesis to a supervisor or directly appoints a supervisor, possible additional supervisors and examiners for the thesis. The supervisor continues working on the topic proposal with the student and contacts the commissioning party.

The student fills in the topic proposal with the thesis title, the planned start and end dates of thesis, type of the thesis (implementation method), description of thesis content, objectives and outcomes. Commissioning information is not mandatory, but it is highly recommended to add the information at an early stage of the thesis. A commitment to follow good scientific practices is mandatory. The topic proposal can be saved as a draft and it can be edited via Wihi’s front page, even after it has been sent and approved. More detailed instructions for creating a topic proposal can be found in the Wihi instructions for student’s.

A thesis agreement is drawn up before starting the thesis process and signed by a representative of the commissioning party, a degree programme representative and the student. You may find the thesis agreement in the link below. Save the base of the thesis agreement for yourself and fill in the details. Make the signature request using AtomiSign and select “Sequential” as the signature order.

The signature order is as follows:

1. The first signatory is the thesis supervisor
2. The second signatory is the student himself
3. The third signatory is the representative of commissioning party

When all the specified persons have signed the agreement, download the signed agreement from AtomiSign and save it to the Wihi. You find the technical guidelines in HAMK Digipedagogical Guidelines

Before starting the thesis or at the latest at the planning stage, you must complete the Thesis Open Badge. After completing the Open Badge, you are familiar with the progress of the thesis process, responsible conduct of research and principles of sustainable development at the level required by HAMK’s thesis guidelines. You are not allowed to collect research material for your thesis before the badge has been successfully completed.

The badge includes an auto-check exam in Learn-Moodle, where you will also find instructions and links to supporting materials. You will find the exam link in Wihi, under the “Thesis Plan” phase. Once you have completed the badge in Learn-Moodle, the information about your achievement will appear in Wihi, where your supervisor will process your completion. You cannot proceed with your Wihi project until the badge has been successfully completed.

The student formulates a thesis plan that is consistent with the selected implementation method. The sudent writes down some of the knowledge base, perceives and describes the work as a whole, draws up a provisional table of contents, and plans the research method(s) that they will use. In a practice-based thesis, the implementation of the operating process is also planned.

The thesis and the thesis plan are written based on HAMK’s official, accessible document template for theses.

If research data is collected in the thesis, the student must draw up a data management plan in connection with the thesis plan, which describes the processing of the research data during the thesis process. The data management plan ensures that the collection, processing, storage and destruction of data have been carefully planned and implemented. The plan must be drawn up and saved on Wihi before starting the collection of research data.

The data management plan is saved as an attachment to the completed thesis. If something changes in the collection or processing of data during the thesis process, the plan must be updated. The content of the data management plan is described in more detail in the instructions for the data management plan.

Responsible conduct of research also includes taking care of research permits. This must be done at the planning stage before starting the collection of research data.

A planning seminar is organised when the student has written down some of the knowledge base, perceived and described the work as a whole, drawn up a provisional table of contents, and planned the research method(s) that they will use. In a practice-based thesis, the implementation of the operating process is also planned. The student presents these topics at the planning seminar and receives feedback, based on which they complement the thesis plan if necessary and upload it to Wihi.