The Public Defence is a mandatory element in Research Project 2 (not in Research Project 1) that consists of an on-campus or online presentation during one of two MBCS Symposia organised by the programme. The main goal of the Public Defence is to allow students to show their work to their peers, connecting their work even in the second year, when there are few opportunities to work with their own cohort. The Symposia dates in 2024-2025 are: - January 30, 2025 - June 27, 2025 Note that it is not necessary to have fully wrapped up your project for this presentation. It is okay to present work-in-progress, much like you would during a conference. The time for the presentation is limited, however: it is a 10-minute presentation! ## Content The presentation should be 10 minutes long, with an additional 5 minute Q&A. Unlike the Research Project 1 presentation, the project does not have to be (near) completion. Similar to the way a PhD candidate might present work in progress during a conference, the Public Defence can show the status of a project that is only halfway through. The reasoning behind this is pragmatic: since students start and finish projects throughout the year, it is not possible to find dates that are exactly in phase with multiple students wrapping up their Research Project 2. On top of that, we also would not want students to finish a project and subsequently have to wait for one of the Symposia. ## Picking a date Via the Programme Canvas, the page on research projects links to an online form in which students can pick their public defence date. You should be logged into your UvA account to use this form. ## Assessment The Public Defence is assessed and it's this grade that will be used as the presentation grade for Research Project 2. For this, the rubrics as found in [[Grading Rubrics Research Project 2]] are to be used. Assessment is done by the Public Defence committee, which consists of the graders in that particular round. This means it is made up of at least three people and at least one of these people is the internal or external grader of the project under consideration. Each committee member uses the rubric to arrive at a final score and the weighted average of the scores is used to determine the grade. In case neither the internal or external grader of the project makes it to the Public Defence, the presentation should be repeated in a different setting where at least one of them _is_ present, yielding an additional grade that can be used together with those from the Public Defence to determine the presentation grade. ## Submitting the grade The Datanose environment used for registration of grades is currently not optimally suited to submit the various grade of the Public Defence. Examiner or assessor can submit the Public Defence grade once the assessment phase of the Research Project 2 as a whole starts on Datanose. If at the time of assessment the Public Defense grades are no longer in possession of the assessor or examiner, please contact the programme coordinator, who maintains an archive of the grades. ## Presence during the Public Defence As its name suggests, this defence is open to to visitors. It is geared towards the MBCS community, but of course interested friends and family are also welcome to attend the session. Symposia feature both in-person sessions and hybrid sessions. Online attendance is only possible for hybrid defences.