Master's thesis

Regulations for the Master’s Thesis

Master’s Degree in Bioinformatics for Health Sciences (MUBICS)

*Approved by the Academic Committee on 27 May 2025

1. Nature of the Master’s Thesis (TFM) for the Master’s Degree in Bioinformatics for Health Sciences (MUBICS)

   • Article 1.1: The Master’s Degree in Bioinformatics for Health Sciences concludes with the preparation and defence of a Master’s Thesis (MT). In accordance with UDC regulations, in order to defend the MT, students must have successfully completed the credits for all other modules, including those for supplementary modules.
   • Article 1.2: The MTh will be an original piece of work, carried out individually, defended before a university panel, and will consist of a comprehensive project in the field of bioinformatics of a research or professional nature. This project will build upon the course content covered and synthesise the skills acquired during the programme.

2. Objectives and scope of the regulations

   • Article 2.1: The purpose of these regulations is to establish the rules governing the definition, allocation, completion, defence, assessment and administrative processing of Master’s theses within official Master’s degree programmes.
   • Article 2.2: Responsibility for these regulations lies with the Academic Committee of the Master’s in Bioinformatics, which shall ensure compliance with them and resolve any issues that may arise in their implementation.
   • Article 2.3: The content of these regulations is supplemented by other current regulations and procedures.

3. Master's Thesis Management Committee

   • Article 3.1: In order to streamline procedures relating to the Master’s Thesis, the Academic Committee may delegate to a Master’s Thesis Management Committee the tasks of assigning proposals, deciding on preliminary draft applications, appointing examination boards, authorising defences, and any other tasks the Academic Committee deems appropriate.

   • Article 3.2: The Master’s Thesis Management Committee shall consist of:

      

     1. Chair: the MUBICS coordinator.

     2. Secretary: the committee secretary.

     3. Members: the person coordinating the Work Placement module within MUBICS and up to four individuals appointed by the Academic Committee who are members of the teaching staff for the degree programme’s compulsory modules.

     4. The Management Committee may seek external advice when it deems it appropriate.

         

4. Enrolment and allocation conditions for the Master’s thesis

   • Article 4.1: The Master’s Thesis is scheduled within the curriculum for the second year of the MUBICS programme, so that students may undertake it after completing the majority of the credits for the other modules.
   • Article 4.2: A Master’s Thesis will only be authorised when the student has a maximum of 66 ECTS credits remaining to complete the MUBICS programme.

5. Address

   • Article 5.1: The supervision of a Master’s Thesis may be carried out by a maximum of three individuals holding a Master’s degree (or equivalent) or higher who meet any of the following conditions:
     1. That they are part of a department offering teaching within MUBICS.
     2. That they belong to a company, an organisation or a technology centre that collaborates with the organisation or teaching activities of MUBICS.
   • Article 5.2: At least one of the persons supervising a Master’s thesis must be a member of the teaching and research staff of any department teaching at MUBICS, in order to perform the duties of academic co-supervision.
   • Article 5.3: The duties of those supervising a Master’s Thesis are as follows:
     1. To explain the nature of the work to the student and guide them in its development.
     2. To monitor the progress of the Master’s Thesis and ensure that the set objectives are met.
     3. To authorise the defence of the Master’s Thesis when it is deemed to be complete and to meet the required academic standards.

    

6. Proposals, tender and award of the Master’s thesis

   • Article 6.1: Partner organisations, lecturers and students may propose Master’s Thesis projects. All such proposals constitute the range of Master’s Thesis projects on offer. Partner organisations are defined as those institutions, companies and technology centres that collaborate in the organisation or teaching of the Master’s programme. Each proposal shall include the title, a brief description and the details of the persons who will supervise the project, and may be accompanied by a more detailed description of the work. The Management Committee shall establish a timetable ensuring that the list of available projects is published sufficiently in advance to allow students the necessary time to complete and defend their work within the scheduled period.
   • Article 6.2: Proposals from lecturers and collaborating entities shall form the open call. The allocation of proposals from this call shall be made according to students’ preferences and, in the event of a conflict, according to academic record. Allocation must ensure equal opportunities among students to apply for proposals and among lecturers to offer topics and take on supervision. 
   • Article 6.3: The Management Committee shall ensure that the range of options is sufficient to meet the demand from students who meet the conditions required to apply for the allocation of a Master’s Thesis. 

7. Preliminary draft

   Submission of the preliminary thesis proposal

   • Article 7.1. Students shall submit a preliminary Master’s thesis proposal to the Management Committee, within the specified timeframe, which must include:
     1. The student’s details and signature.
     2. The names, affiliations and consent of the individuals who will act as supervisors.
     3. The email addresses of both the student and the individuals signing as supervisors of the preliminary proposal.
     4. The title of the Master’s Thesis in English, Spanish and Galician.
     5. A summary of the work to be carried out, including a description, the rationale, the objectives to be achieved and the tools to be used.
   • Article 7.2: There shall be three deadlines for the submission of preliminary proposals, which shall be approved annually.

   Approval of the preliminary project

   • Article 7.3: The Management Committee must ensure that students meet the required administrative conditions and that the preliminary proposals are of a professional or research nature, correspond to the skills acquired during the course, are of sufficient substance to cover the allocated ECTS credits, and are sufficiently distinct from other work carried out during the degree programme, particularly that undertaken in the ‘Work Placement’ module.

   The Management Committee may accept a preliminary proposal, in which case the Master’s Thesis will acquire academic and administrative validity, request clarifications or amendments to it, or reject it.

   If a preliminary proposal is not accepted, the Management Committee shall state the reasons and open a period for submissions to present either additional documentation or another proposal.

   If a preliminary proposal is not approved after the period for submitting comments, the student may only submit another one during that same semester, which may be a modification of the previous one.

   Validity period of the preliminary draft

   • Article 7.4: A preliminary draft accepted by the Management Committee shall remain valid for two academic years. Thus, if it is approved in a given academic year, it shall remain valid for that academic year and the following one.

   Amendments to the preliminary proposal

   • Article 7.5: A student may request the Management Committee to replace the supervisor of their Master’s thesis, without altering the other aspects of the proposal that have already been approved, citing the reasons they deem appropriate. If approved, the validity period of the preliminary proposal shall remain unchanged.
   • Article 7.6: A student may request the Management Committee, with the endorsement of the supervisors, to amend the characteristics of a preliminary proposal that has already been accepted. If the amendment is not considered a significant change, such as a change to the title, the validity period shall remain unchanged. If the request involves a substantial modification of the characteristics or objectives of the preliminary project, it shall be considered a new preliminary project for all purposes.
   • Article 7.7: A person supervising a Master’s Thesis may resign from this role by writing to the Management Committee, setting out the reasons for the decision. The student must then initiate the process of applying for a new project.

   Withdrawal from the preliminary project

   •    Article 7.8: A student may request to withdraw from a preliminary project by writing to the Management Committee, which will decide on the request.

8. Courts

   • Article 8.1: The Academic Committee shall appoint an examination board for each call for applications, comprising members of the teaching staff who are currently teaching on the MUBICS programme or who taught on it during the two previous academic years. Each examination board shall consist of three full members and three alternate members.

   The examination board shall be divided into assessment panels of three members, which shall act as the examining body for a set of Master’s Theses, with the roles of chair – the person of highest academic rank and seniority – secretary – the person of lowest seniority – and member.

   • Article 8.2: A person supervising a Master’s Thesis may not form part of the assessment panel evaluating that thesis.
   • Article 8.3: The minimum number of panel members required to assess a Master’s Thesis is three; therefore, in exceptional circumstances, any member of a panel appointed for that call for applications or any lecturer on the degree programme may form part of any assessment group to constitute a panel, should the necessary full or substitute members fail to attend.

9. Submission of the Master's thesis

   Deadlines and conditions for submitting the Master’s Thesis

   • Article 9.1: The Academic Committee shall approve the deadlines for each submission period for Master’s Theses in accordance with the academic calendar.

   To submit the Master’s Thesis, the student must have passed the credits corresponding to the remaining modules, as indicated in Article 1.1 and in accordance with UDC regulations.

   As the Master’s Thesis is a first-semester module, there will be a submission period at the end of that semester, and another at the end of the second semester.

   To facilitate the completion of the degree and provided it is compatible with UDC academic regulations, there will be a third submission period for the Master’s Thesis, preferably in September.

   Submission Procedure

   • Article 9.2: During one of the periods set aside for this purpose, the student shall submit an application to submit their Master’s Thesis, accompanied by:
     1. Authorisation for the defence, in accordance with the procedures established by the Faculty of Computer Science.
     2.  The thesis in electronic format.
     3. Any other documents deemed necessary by the Management Committee, in the format specified by the Committee.
   • Article 9.3: Once the period for submitting deposit applications has ended, the centre’s administration or the degree coordinator shall hand over the documentation to the secretary of the relevant examination board, who shall keep it in safekeeping until it is returned to the administration, and shall forward a copy of the electronic version to the other members of the examination board.

   Master’s Thesis

   • Article 9.4: The thesis constitutes the main body of the Master’s Thesis. It may be submitted in Galician, Spanish or English.

   The structure of the thesis follows the IEEE two-column format, with a recommended minimum of 6 pages and a maximum of 15 pages. The thesis may contain appendices such as tables and figures that aid understanding of the text, as well as references to repositories of datasets used in the work.

   Templates in various formats and guidelines can be found via the IEEE link:

   https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html

10. Defence

    • Article 10.1: The defence shall be open to the public and shall take place during the period approved by the Academic Committee, on the dates and at the times determined by the representatives of the examination board responsible for assessing the defence. In accordance with UDC regulations and given the face-to-face nature of the #master’s programme, the Master’s Thesis defence shall be held in person. In exceptional circumstances and for duly justified reasons, the student may request to defend their Master’s Thesis in a format other than that set out in these regulations. To this end, they shall submit a reasoned and duly substantiated application to the Dean of the faculty, who shall decide on the matter once it has been verified that the legal, administrative, technical, financial or other conditions justifying the format of the defence are met.
    • Article 10.2: The chair of the examination board shall preside over the session, during which the student shall give a presentation lasting a minimum of 12 minutes and a maximum of 20 minutes, followed by a round of questions from the members of the examination board (maximum 15 minutes). With the chair’s permission, questions may also be asked by those present at the session who hold a degree of the same or higher level than a Master’s.

    The person or persons supervising the Master’s thesis may request to be heard by the examination board, either during the defence itself, if they are present, or in a private session following the defence.

11. Assessment

    • Article 11.1: Each member of the examination board shall individually award a numerical mark based on their assessment of the work carried out, the documentation submitted and the oral defence. They shall also indicate whether they consider the Master’s Thesis to be worthy of a first-class honours distinction. The examination board may seek the opinion of individuals it considers to be experts in the subject area of a Master’s Thesis.
    • Article 11.2: The final numerical mark shall be the arithmetic mean of the marks awarded by the members of the examination board. A student with a mark of 9 or above may be awarded a first-class honours distinction, provided this is decided unanimously by the examination board.
    • Article 11.3: In the event that a Master’s thesis receives a fail mark or equivalent, the examination board shall send the student and the thesis supervisors a report setting out the reasons for the mark.

12. Authorship and Confidentiality

    • Article 12.1: In accordance with UDC regulations, the intellectual property rights to a Master’s thesis belong to its author. A specific agreement may be entered into to extend these rights on a shared basis between the author and any of the supervisors. If any of the supervisors of a Master’s thesis so requests, the thesis shall be deemed confidential and shall not be made publicly available.
    • Article 12.2: Once defended, theses must be added to the UDC’s institutional repository.
    • Article 12.3: A request for a Master’s thesis to be treated as confidential must be officially recorded by the person concerned, either in the thesis proposal or preliminary draft, or in the authorisation for the defence, or in both.
    • The data involved in a Master’s thesis deemed confidential must be accessible to the members of the examination board. Once the defence has been completed, a request may be made for the partial publication or non-publication of the thesis in the UDC’s institutional repository.

13. Publication in the UDC Institutional Repository

    • Article 13.1. Once the defence has been completed, Master’s theses may be published in the UDC Institutional Repository (RUC), provided they are not confidential. To this end, the author must complete a form specifying how they wish their work to be disseminated. The selection of theses may be subject to criteria established by the department. Submission to the RUC will be handled by the centre’s administration or the programme coordinator, in collaboration with the Library Service.

14. Confidentiality

    • Article 14.1.  A request for the confidentiality of a Master’s thesis may be made in writing by the supervisor, the student, or both, addressed to the Dean’s Office of the institution, preferably at the time the thesis is proposed or authorised, and always before it is submitted. 
    • Article 14.2. The Dean’s Office shall decide on the request within a maximum of 15 working days, specifying the specific conditions for the defence and publication. 
    • Article 14.3. During the preparation, submission and assessment of the thesis, full access to the examination board and the protection of sensitive information shall be guaranteed. The defence shall remain public, although part of the content may be withheld where strictly necessary. 
    • Article 14.4. Once the defence has been completed, a request may be made for the partial publication or non-publication of the thesis in the institutional repository, in accordance with the provisions of Article 13.1.