Dr William Venters

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

The aim of the dissertation is for students to pursue an independent piece of research within the field of information systems. The dissertation is a quantitative or qualitative, theoretically informed, piece of original research or action research / design project that addresses and is related to IS-related questions or topics. Students must obtain the approval of their advisor before embarking on any research. This is particularly important for action or design projects. The course Research Design for Studies in Digital Innovation and the course Study Skills and Contemporary Topics in Information Systems and Digital Innovations provide guidance and background material on undertaking dissertation work.  

Arrangements for supervision:

Advisors will normally be allocated according to student dissertation proposals. The dissertation advisor will help the student identify an appropriate research question, and to work out a plan for a literature informed empirical study.

Two courses prepare students for the dissertation: Research Design for Studies in Digital Innovation and Study Skills and Contemporary Topics in Information Systems and Digital Innovations. Students must follow both of these courses.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Students will use the feedback to the summative essay of the Research Design for Studies in Digital Innovation course as a starting point for the planning of their dissertation research project.

Dissertation (100%, 8000 words).

An electronic version of the dissertation must be submitted on a specified date in August. Penalties will be applied to any late submission. The word limit for the dissertation is 8000 words. The dissertation is critical to assessment on the programme.

Dissertation topics are expected to be related to the broad subject area of the programme. For detailed assessment information, including all deadlines and timings, please see the relevant course Moodle page. Assessment timings will be available at the start of each term.