MA426      One Unit
Dissertation in Operations Research & Analytics

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

The aim of the dissertation is for students to pursue an independent piece of research within the field of Operations Research and Analytics. The dissertation may be theoretical or empirical. Students must obtain the approval of an advisor before embarking on any research.

There will be a minimum of 12 hours of lectures and seminars delivered across Autumn and Winter terms. Most of the teaching will be shared with MA498. The ratio of lecture time and seminar time varies each week. Seminars do not include personal supervision time, which is scheduled independently with the supervisors.

An initial seminar will include presentations by members of the Operations Research Group in the Department of Mathematics on proposed topics for dissertations that they would be interested in supervising. Additional seminars will cover important aspects of writing a dissertation in mathematics, including: what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, the use of libraries for research, electronic research, general aspects of writing mathematics, and preparing a manuscript using mathematical text processing software (in particular, LaTeX). Each student will be assigned a supervisor who will monitor their progress and provide appropriate guidance thorough the WT, ST, and over the summer.

Research report in Winter Term Week 6

Students will be expected to produce an initial report in week 6 of WT, on which feedback will be given. This report should normally form part of the final dissertation after feedback is taken in to account.

Detailed suggestions for reading will be provided by the supervisor.

Presentation (10%) in Winter Term Week 11

Dissertation (90%) in August

Assessment is primarily based on the Dissertation, an electronic copy of which must be submitted by late August or early September (exact date to be specified later). The report may include some software relating to the project. Detailed information about the required format for this submission will be provided during the Seminars. At the end of Winter Term, each student will produce a presentation on the topic of their dissertation. The presentation will be graded and worth 10% of the course grade. Students will be given support in the seminars on how to prepare, how to present and what is expected, and will be given the opportunity to practice presentations.