The Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science has asked AU to take extra steps to ensure that students gain approval of their thesis statement before starting their thesis (at the Faculty of Arts, this will be done in connection with the supervision plan).

Reason for the changes

Section 27 subsection (8) of the Degree Programme Order (Uddannelsesbekendtgørelsen) states that submission deadlines cannot be set until students have gained approval of their thesis statement. In a number of cases, AU has been forced to prevent a student from writing their thesis because the university had no proof that the student had gained approval of their supervision plan. In this connection, the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science has underlined the following demands in relation to handling theses at AU:

• All students must draw up and gain approval of a supervision plan including a thesis statement prior to their first, second and third attempts to write their thesis.
• Students who fail an attempt to pass the thesis exam must be given some time before their next attempt to draw up a revised supervision plan including an amended thesis statement.

New initiatives

To help the students gain approval of their supervision plan before starting the thesis period, and to ensure that submission deadlines can still be set for students who do not gain approval of their supervision plan, the following initiatives will be taken at the Faculty of Arts:

• Arts Studies Administration will contact the students who fail to submit a provisional thesis statement for their first attempt to write their thesis (or a revised thesis statement for other attempts) by the set deadlines (see below).
• Students who have not gained advance approval of their thesis statement will be advised that they have started their thesis without gaining approval of their thesis statement.
• All the students must upload their approved supervision plan as an appendix when they submit their thesis. If students do not gain advance approval of their supervision plan, this will be regarded as a failed attempt to pass the exam, and their thesis will not be assessed if they fail to upload the plan as an appendix when submitting their thesis.
• Students who fail to submit their thesis will start their second and third attempts to pass this exam 14 days after the submission deadline for the previous attempt. These 14 days must be used to draw up a revised thesis statement in collaboration with the supervisor. The submission deadline for the new attempt is three months after these 14 days have elapsed (see list of deadlines below).

Date of commencement and target group

The new framework will affect all students starting their thesis after 1 June 2022. Arts Studies Administration will inform them all of the new framework.

Changing the thesis statement for second/third attempts

Owing to the demands underlined by the agency and the increased focus on the supervision plan, it is also important to remember that the thesis statement must be changed for the second and third attempts to pass the thesis exam. According to section 27 subsection (8) of the Degree Programme Order (Uddannelsesbekendtgørelsen), the supervision plan must contain an amended thesis statement which must be within the same topic area as the original thesis statement. Owing to the increased demands regarding supervision plans, the directors of studies at the Faculty of Arts will be contacting each department to discuss the framework for changing thesis statements when students do not pass the thesis exam at the first attempt.

In this connection, the template for supervision plans for second and third attempts to pass the exam will be updated, so this is where students should state their previous and amended thesis statements.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about all this, please fee free to contact the UVAEKA team for your subject area in Arts Studies Administration. You will find their contact information here.