I have sabbatical SS 2013 and will not be advising theses.

What is a bachelor's thesis?

• A topic from your internship that you work on, for example the company had a horrible database or XML structure, and you sort it out on your own to show them how it could look.
• A topic from your project that you continue, for example I have someone taking the e-learning unit we produced and making it accessable for blind users.
• A new topic that you agree on with an IMI professor.

The following topics, more or less diffuse, are on my current wishlist (and are possible for IC or as the basis for a Master's Thesis area). In general, I am interested in web topics, Android programming, and E-Learning.

• Collusion Finder
  The general case of finding plagiarisms on the open internet is a difficult one, but finding collusions (multiple students submitting the same or similar paper) is somewhat easier. There are a number of systems available, but none are easy to use. There in an open algorithm that is relatively good at finding common parts, but quite difficult to use and interpret. I would like to have a good interface for this system, and some additional bells and whistles. The software needs to be an open software, so that it can be used in schools (who don't have money for systems like this).
• Visualizations
  With all this data floating around, much of it open, we are now able to produce visualizations that suggest new information or connections to other people. How can we automate the production of such visualizations? Flash is dead, so this has to be in HTML5. There are numerous possible theses here.
• The Wikipedia Admin Game
  The admins in the German Wikipedia see themselves as warriors, fighting against the evil bands of trolls that try to deface the Wikipedia. In this game, you are an admin who is trying to save the Wikipedia from fake edits, edit wars, teenagers, and the like. School lets out, and you have to be on your guard, as the bored kids fire up their computers and see what they can deface today. Are you quick enough to keep the Wikipedia running?
• Animating BlueJ
  BlueJ is a fantastic environment for teaching object oriented programming. I would like to continue to use it for algorithms and data structures, but how can I visualize the more complicated data structures? How can the animation of algorithms be included into BlueJ? I would like for someone to look into this.
• Searching Project Gutenberg
  I just looked for something in the Project Gutenberg, and found the navigation and search capabilities sorely lacking. There needs to be much better ways of finding specific material, and there needs to be a tagging system made for it. The results of this thesis should be donated to Project Gutenberg.

Old stuff

• Nibbler
  Check out the Nibbler site - We need all sorts of stuff here. For example, a way to import and convert OGG files. Anything else missing? Fine, we need it!
• Wikipedia-Version-Tool
  I need a tool that will display for me what the Wikipedia entry (and all links I follow) was on a particular date at a particular time, a sort of Way-Back machine for the Wikipedia. This will help me so that when people say "The Wikipedia said thus and such on day X" I can check it out. You will use the history data which is available to determine what the page actually displayed on that day. When I follow links with your tool I will see what the page linked to.
  
• Moodle Book
  Moodle Book is quite a good authoring system, but there are problems. Some have been determined in a thesis done last semester, others are my personal pet peeves. So I want you to upgrade the Moodle Book module to make it more useful for real-life E-Learning! For example, all subchapters remain collapsed until the chapter opens, not all subchapters open at the same time. This will involve using PHP and CSS.
• Games on the XO
  I have an XO called Froggy. Can you make number games that don't require reading for the XO? Maybe you can port some Lingo games we have! Anything else a child in a developing country might need? Flash is not an option.
• Anything on the Fedora-XO wish list: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WishList#OLPC_Wishlist
  
• SCORM Test
  This is the standard for import and export of E-Learning materials. Except that it doesn't work. Everyone can import the SCORM that *they* export, but not necessarily the work of others. In this thesis I want the author to take a number of different kinds of E-Learning materials, export them from CLIX, Blackboard, Moodle, etc. and import them in other systems. I want a module for Moodle to be set up that can cope with all of the different SCORM problems.
• Anonymous computing
  I am very interested in the "Free Haven Project". The project leader, Roger Dingledine, explains: "The Free Haven Project aims to deploy a system for distributed, anonymous, persistent data storage which is robust against attempts by powerful adversaries to find and destroy any stored data. This model of decentralized system has been classified as peer-to-peer by recent popular media." He has a number of projects that are suitable for diploma theses, and I am interested in participating in this project. Well, the project ended up turning into "TOR", so you missed out on that. But he still has topics! And I would like to see if we can run a Tor server here. What are the problems? Is this legal? What are the technical obstacles?
  

Really old stuff

• Wikipedia User Survey
  The Wikimedia Research Network wants to conduct a user survey. I would like a thesis to conduct a pilot survey, constructing the survey software which will have to be easily localizable in many languages. The Wikimedia Research Network Privacy Policy must be respected during this work.
• Diff for InDesign
  In Wikis or in programming it is trivial to find the difference between two texts and report on the difference. It is also easy to record the history of edits and set up "reverts". InDesign also has a history, but I am not aware of a possibility to analyze the difference between two projects, save snapshots of the history, and revert changes back to a checkpoint. I would like for someone to investigate making a diff for InDesign (or Photoshop).
• Wikipedia
  There are any number of enhancements possible for Wikipedia, perhaps working through a taging mechanism for articles. You must be willing to have your results subject to Gnu Public Licence.
• Wiki RSS-Reader
  One can set a watchlist for single pages in the Wikipedia, and other Wikis offer a "last changes" RSS feed. But I have to visit all of these Wikis in order to see if anything I am interested in has changed. I would like to have a tool, similar to Awasu, that sucks in the RSS feeds, lets me know what is new, and if I click on a link, puts me in direct contact with that particular Wiki. I want this tool to work with many different kind of Wikis, and to cope with all sorts of RSS descriptions.
• Wikis for Teaching
  Wikis seem to me to be an ideal basis for constructing a learning management system. Can a synchronous service such as Chat systems in the Flash Communication Server be integrated into a Wiki-Collaboration and Annotation system? What does a Wiki for teaching really need?
• What else interests me? E-Learning, Web 2.0, social computing, gender questions, e-voting

I only take about 6-8 students as thesis students, as I want to have the time to advise you properly. Please ask as soon as possible, if you are interested in any of the topics. I will also sign for 3-4 external projects, but cannot offer to advise you. I will now stop taking reservations, it is first come, first served. I find it irritating when people "reserve" a position, and then give it up at the last minute. I pay for this by having to teach an extra class every few semesters to fill up the negative teaching hours I get assigned if I do not take enough students.

Students who do their thesis with me should expect to come to my office every week with results from the previous week. We will spend time in a group on questions, and my terrible red pen will mark up what you bring with you for me to read. It is hard work, but tends to bring results, i.e. a finished thesis inside of the deadline.

I have some links about topics having to do with writing a thesis.

Last change: 2013-01-15 10:13