Frequently Asked Questions

Are you writing your thesis in English or German?

• As we are a very international chair, we expect the theses to be written in English.

How to choose a topic?

• Subject to remaining capacities, we supervise Bachelor's and Master's theses on our research topics.
• You can either (1) formulate your own initial proposals related to the general topics mentioned on our website or (2) apply for the published topics on our website.

When will the topics be published on our website?

• Under “offered subjects” you will find the listed topics.

Whom to contact?

• First, we ask students to contact Prof. Nadj or a research assistant of the chair to ask for available capacities and narrow down a topic of interest.
• Once, a topic of interest has been found, students formulate a 5-page exposé on their topic.

How should the exposé look like?

• Exposés usually have a length of 5 pages. References and appendices are not part of the 5-page limit.
• The exposé is to be structured as follows:
  1. Introduction, consisting of research motivation (e.g. “put $ on it”, use statistics), brief 360-degree overview of related work, derivation of the research gap(s), formulation of the research question, formulation of the research method, explanation of the theoretical and practical contribution
  2. Foundations, consisting of definition basis and introduction of concepts, frameworks or theories
  3. Related work, consisting of the current state of research (further details compared to the related work in the introduction) offered in tabular and written form
  4. Research Method
  5. Project Plan (via a Gantt Chart)
  6. References
  7. Appendix (if needed)

How long does the exposé writing process usually take?

• Writing and iterating an exposé may take 4-6 weeks. 

How to write a thesis?

• The formal requirements for the structure and design of qualification theses are set out in a Leitfaden zur Erstellung wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten in der Wirtschaftsinformatik (German, English version follows).
• Around half time of their thesis editing time, we expect students to hand-in a structure of their work (main headlines with approximated page numbers) to have a half time consultation with their supervisor. 
• Please, consider the formal requirements for a thesis as laid out here: https://www.uni-due.de/verwaltung/pruefungswesen/e_wirtschinf_startseite.php 

Where do you find literature?

• In general, we suggest that you conduct a literature review on the topic of interest. Ideally, students find central articles while producing their exposé, and engage in a representative literature search during their thesis development.
• In case you are conducting a systematic literature review, please consider this step-by-step guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8R6ScVauXQ&t=487s
• Either way, we strongly advise students to make sure that their literature search covers leading journals in information systems, human-computer interaction, and AI (see Go to Studies as starting point).

Which databases can you use?

As starting point, we suggest the the following databases: