Hello everyone. Welcome to the Master's Degree
in Information and Communication Technologies
applied to Language Teaching and Processing.
I am José Javier Ávila Cabrera and I am a lecturer
in the Department of Foreign Philologies and their Linguistics at UNED.
Today we'll talk about the academic and administrative procedure
for the Master's Dissertation (MAD).
We'll adress the following points: First we'll describe the subject.
Next, we'll talk about the subject requirements
and will discuss the steps to follow before, during and after the defence.
Lastly, we'll give some final recommendations.
This is a compulsory subject and amounts to 10 ECTS credits
which equal 200 hours of academic work.
It is a second term subject
and aims to reflect both the knowledge acquired during the master's degree (MA)
and a research autonomy, which will help you to complete your MA
as successfully as possible.
In order to take it, students must have passed all of the subjects
included in the modules Scientific-technological research of languages
and Basics of language technologies and their didactics.
They must also be enrolled in the modules of their specialty of choice
and in order to submit and defend their MADs
they must have passed all the subjects they have taken.
Here's the website of the MA, with all the necessary information.
Below there's a link to it.
The procedure is as follows:
First, you need to fill in the forms of the MA
which are found within the MAs of the Faculty of Philology (FP).
You have to choose both a tutor and a topic for your MAD.
You must bear in mind that there are three MAD defense sessions a year.
We'll talk about them later.
Here we have this webpage of the FP, which is very important since it's updated
allowing us to check relevant information throughout the school year.
Here's the link.
To the right there's one of the forms that must be filled in.
This one is your tutor request.
The provisional defence schedule is established as follows:
As I said before, you have the exact dates on the FP website.
The February session is held in March, the June session is held in July
and the September session is held in October.
There are different research lines in this MA.
You can check them on both the guide on the website and aLF.
The teaching teams may vary from one year to the next
but you'll have access to all of them.
We invite you to adopt the autonomy expected of MAD students
and this way you know who to address.
For example, for general academic matters you can either contact the Coordinator
or the Academic Secretary.
For administrative matters of the MA you may contact the person in charge.
For questions related to multimodal and multilingual accessibility of the MA.
For technical difficulties you have the Technical Support Service.
Here are the phone numbers
and a link to a webpage with more information in this respect.
There's an Online Support Tutor or OST.
The Coordinator of the Professional Practicum.
Also, the people in charge of the Student Mobility Program of the MA.
The Coordinator of research seminars. The MAD Coordinator.
There are also people in charge of both the administrative queries
and the Association of Former Students and Friends of the MA.
We should point out that the MAD is a compulsory subject
for all students who want to complete the MA,
be it through the professional line or the research line.
Students must request tutor allocation well in advance.
It must be done four months before the MAD defense session.
You must select three research lines.
Once you've been allocated a tutor, you must follow his/her advice
instead of starting to work without having any guidelines.
You must follow his/her guidelines.
You may request your MAD defence by videoconference
but only under exceptional circumstances, such as living in far-away countries
or living in countries with restricted internet access.
In these exceptional cases, you must submit your request four months before
the MAD defence date, using the form on aLF.
It is held on the same day as the physically present students' defense
at UNED Associated Centres, embassies, public universities, etc.
As you work on your MAD, you can access the virtual course on aLF
where there's a forum for general queries as well as a noticeboard.
Despite having a UNED email account, some students barely use it.
We advise you to forward messages to the email account you use most.
This way you'll get the messages we post on the noticeboard.
Here are links to guidance, some of which are found on the website of the FP.
And many other things. Don't neglect the virtual course on aLF.
Any queries will be answered on the forums.
You may also contact directly any of the people we saw earlier.
Format of the MAD: the minimum length is 60 pages and the maximum is 120.
Size DIN A4, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 1.5 line spacing.
This includes the bibliography.
The MAD must be submitted in a pdf file.
We recommend adopting the APA style guidelines,
the American Psychological Association.
It must include the following sections: the introduction, the objectives,
the methodology used must be clear, the appropriate theoretical framework,
the description and analysis of the data/results, the conclusions,
and finally, the bibliography.
There's always room for annexes and appendices if any.
Key aspects. It's important that your topic is innovative,
that you try to find a new approach to your research topic.
Before starting any research work, you have to answer these questions
or WH- questions: What do you want to do?
When do you want to do it? Why do you want to do it?
How are you going to do it?
Once you as researchers answer such questions
new pathways to guide your research in the best possible way will open.
When describing something, you must go from the general to the specific.
You must use a well-defined methodology and explain all the steps clearly.
The theoretical framework doesn't restrict itself to describing or quoting
but it's about shaping those ideas and showing your critical eye.
When quoting, keep the quotations of up to three lines in the paragraph
but set longer quotations off the paragraph with a smaller size font.
Figures and tables must both be numbered and have a title or legend.
The analysis is a fundamental part of any experimental research work.
Thus, everything must be very clearly shown, analysed, etc.
The conclusions should open new horizons and assess future prospects.
The bibliography must appear at the end, never as footnotes.
Let's see, for example, the schedule of a defense in July.
The second term starts on 10th February.
Thus, you should contact your tutor and start planning your MAD in March.
In April you should tackle the objectives, methodology and theoretical framework.
In May you should gather and discuss the data, but, and this must be made clear
if you carry out a experimental research with data from your students
you should start collecting it at the beginning of the school year.
You'll gather the quantitative and qualitative data
and it's by the end of May when you can analyse it.
The first part of June should be devoted to the introduction, the conclusions...
It does seem that the introduction is what you should do first
but since a research work keeps changing along the way
it makes sense to leave it for the end, when you wrap up your MAD.
Conclusions and final revision.
Once you complete your MAD, the tutor must give his/her consent to its submission.
A month before the defense, a copy of the MAD must be submitted to Secretariat.
We must be strict. The submission could even be a bit before a month to the defence.
The dates are published online.
This period of time is set for administrative reasons
because a series of updates regarding your personal data need to be done.
A fortnight before the defense you'll receive the official summons.
To conclude.
As we said, once you complete your MAD, the tutor will send you his/her consent
and 30 days before the defence you'll send a PDF copy
to tfmfilologia@flog.uned.es
as well as three hard copies of your MAD.
Obviously, you'll also send a PDF copy to your tutor.
Once it's received in Teaching Support, they check that you passed all the credits
so that you can defend it.
A fortnight before the defence students are summoned by an email
specifying the date and time.
The day of the defense. It takes place in UNED's headquarters in Madrid.
The defense sessions. The February session is held in March,
the June session is held in July, and the September session in October.
The Board is made up of a chair, a secretary and a third member
who is the tutor. Three people in total.
There's a PowerPoint presentation.
It's 30 min. long, 20 for the presentation and 10 min. of questions.
It usually includes some 15 slides.
All requirements must be met in order to access any of the defence sessions.
After the defense, the minutes are issued, with the grades,
and you'll also get the MAD certificates.
Final recommendations.
It's important you have an interest in research, a wish to learn and research.
After all, you are the main actors of your research.
The figure of the tutor is very important because he/she'll guide you
but you are ultimately responsible for both the research and planning
as well as for asking any queries you may have about different matters.
This way it's you who directly address the right people in charge.
Again, the figure of the tutor is very important.
From the start, once he/she agrees to supervise your MAD
you should follow his/her advice.
You also need to follow style guidelines, preferably APA's.
Finally, don't leave your MAD for the end. You must meet the deadlines
set by your tutor and avoid submitting it on the last day.
It might be the case that, with the impending deadline looming
the tutor didn't give his/her consent to its submission
if it doesn't meet the minimum requirements for a MAD of the MA.
Thank you for your attention. We hope this videolecture has proved helpful.