| Thesis – Dissertation
Full-time graduate students must write a thesis. By contrast, part-time graduate students have the right to choose either a thesis or alternatively three courses. In that case, graduate students have two choices:
- They can recommend their own title associated with the business sector they plan to get a job,
or
- They can choose one of the titles recommended by the staff
Prior to their final decision, all graduate students are encouraged to discuss their potential choice with the staff members. This will also assist them to select the most suitable supervisor.
In terms of the second choice above, the regular procedure begins at the middle of the 2nd semester for the full-time students and at the middle of the 3rd semester for the part-time students; the staff members must recommend a certain number of thesis titles, along with a brief description. The Secretariat Office collects all recommended titles and next provides this information to graduate students. They have a reasonable period of time to study those titles and then can communicate with the staff members to set appointments in which they will discuss with them the details of those projects in relevance to the required methodologies, the data availability, the required literature review and so on. Finally, when they reach the final decision on a particular title, they confirm their decision to their potential supervisor and notify the Secretariat Office.
Students are free to write their thesis either in Greek or in English.
In the next level, the Coordinating Committee recommends those selections to the general Assembly which recommends the three-member committee for each thesis (including the supervisor). The supervisors must be: a) staff members (D.E.P.), special educational staff (Ε.Ε.P.), Laboratory Teaching Staff (Ε.DΙ.P.), as well as Special technical Lab Staff (Ε.Τ.Ε.P.) in the Department or in the Department of the same or other university or the Higher Military Staff of an Educational Institution (Α.S.Ε.Ι.), under payment for their offered services, b) Professors Emeritus of the same university or other universities, c) Adjunct Professors, d) Visiting Professor, e) Visting Researchers, f) Special researchers from research and technical institutions mentioned by Article 13Α of Law 4310/2014 (Α’ 258) or from the remaining Greek or overseas research centers and institutions, under the condition they are holding a doctoral degree.
The General Assembly may also decide to allow the thesis supervision to staff members who are not teaching in the Graduate Program.
The General Assembly has already approved the General Guidance Regulation of Thesis Writing which proposes certain instructions and specifications of writing a thesis. These specifications have to do with the cover of the thesis paper, the letters type and size, the min/max number of allowed words, etc. The instructions also have to do with the structure of the text, the necessary stages, the literature review, the empirical analysis design, and finally, the results, the conclusions, and the implications of the findings.
Special instructions and emphasis are also provided in relevance to plagiarism issues. In December 2020 plagiarism issues were explicitly embodied/introduced in the Ethical Code Δεοντολογίας adopted by the University of Piraeus. Staff members have full access to the associated software against plagiarism (Turnitin software).
Graduate students are informed about:
- The Guide of Writing their Graduate Thesis
- The process and application of changing the title of a thesis,
- The timetable associated with their thesis,
- Instructions on depositing their thesis to the University Depository of DIONI,
- Obligatory declaration of writing a thesis,
- Library instructions on plagiarism, copyright issues
Graduate students who write a thesis need to present their work to a three-member committee (including their supervisor). The Secretariat Office notifies the graduate students about the time and date of their presentation, with all this relevant information being uploaded on the Department’s site.
Graduate students need to prepare their Power-Point thesis presentation. The presentation lasts about 15 minutes, while 5 to 10 extra minutes are spent on a Q&A section with the audience of the presentation.
The grading system for the thesis is based on the following scaling:
- 5 – 6,49: Good
- 6,5-8,49: Very good
- 8,5-10 : Excellent
If the thesis is not submitted in time or it fails its presentation (grading 0-4,99), students need to get registered for an extra semester, while paying a re-registration fee decided by the general Assembly. Το εν λόγω τέλος έχει αποτρεπτικό σκοπό. In any case this re-registration process cannot go over two (2) semesters.
Following the Thesis presentation, as well as any potential recommended corrections by the Committee, students need to deposit their thesis to the University Depository of «DIONI» (https://dione.lib.unipi.gr/xmlui/), which collects all the copyright works generated at the University of Piraeus.