INSTRUCTIONS FOR MASTER THESIS
We have written some instructions to help the students in writing their Master's theses, and seminar papers and B.Sc. theses as well. Please, read the guide before starting your thesis work: Scientific Writing – Guide of the Empirical Software Engineering Research Group
MASTER THESIS TOPICS
Software engineering and technology are very popular areas for thesis at the Department and there are many candidates asking for thesis topics every academic year.
We welcome students interested in software engineering, empirical research and modern software technologies to do their thesis with our group. We provide guidande for selecting a suitable topic and provide the supervision and support needed for completing the work. Please contact Antti-Pekka Tuovinen or Tomi Männistö if you are interested. You can also contact the group members to ask about the subject areas they are working on.
We also welcome companies to suggest potential topics for Master's thesis. The topics can be general, based on existing research, or they may require original research and problem solving. We will help to evaluate and fine tune the proposals. Depending on the topic, you may also need to be prepared to provide some guidance and assistance during the thesis project. Please contact Antti-Pekka Tuovinen or Tomi Männistö if you have an idea for an industrial thesis and if you need further information.
TOPICS
The listing below introduces our current areas of research and potential topics for thesis. Each topic has a short description and the names of the researchers working on the topic. Please contact them for more details about the research and the actual thesis work. Note that you can also suggest and discuss other topics within the general area of software engineering research.
THESIS TOPICS FROM F-SECURE
F-Secure offers several topics for thesis in the area of product analytics. Please see this page for the details. If you are interested, contact Tomi Männistö (@cs.helsinki.fi) to discuss the topics and the practical side of getting started.
Contact: Tomi Männistö
DIGITALIZATION AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS: IMPACTS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT
How should digitalization be taken into account in software development processes? What is the role of customer/user involvement in software-intensive systems development (e.g., digital services)? What are the key quality attributes? What new software engineering skills and competencies may be needed? What is the role of software (and IT) in general in different digital transformations (e.g., vs. business process development)? How is digitalization related to traditional software engineering and computer science disciplines in different contexts?Contact: Petri Kettunen
HIGH PERFORMING SOFTWARE TEAMS
How is (high) performance defined and measured in software development (e.g., productivity)?
Which factors affect it - either positively or negatively - and how strongly (e.g., development tools, team composition)?
Can we "build" high-performing software teams in systematic ways, or do they merely emerge under certain favorable conditions?
What are suitable organizational designs and environments for hosting and supporting such teams?
See this link and this link for more info.
Contact: Petri Kettunen
SOFTWARE INNOVATION
How is innovation and creativity taken into account in software development processes and methods (e.g., Agile)?
What is the role of customer/user input and feedback in software(-intensive) product creation (e.g., open innovation)?
How to define and measure 'innovativeness' in software development?
What makes software development organizations (more) innovative? See here for more about the topic.
How can Open Data Software help innovation?
Contact: Petri Kettunen
ANALYSIS OF QUESTION-ANSWER THREADS IN OSS PROJECTS
Use of state-of-the-art Natural Language Processing techniques to analyze communication in Open Source projects. Focusing on the type of questions posed, by whom, the answers given, if any, and by whom. The aim is to identify question-answer patterns to bring about deeper understanding of interaction, and enable automatic responses or automatic forwarding of questions, ensuring enough support is provided. (Some readings : - Guzzi, A.; Bacchelli, A.; Lanza, M.; Pinzger, M.; van Deursen, A., "Communication in open source software development mailing lists," in Mining Software Repositories (MSR), 2013 10th IEEE Working Conference on , vol., no., pp.277-286, 2013. - https://ossmeter.com/ )
Contact: Myriam Munezero