FAQ – Institute for Geoinformatics

Your questions. Our answers.

QISPOS

QISPOS is the University of Muenster’s course booking system. It shows which course can be credited in which module. If you take part in an exam without QISPOS registration we cannot credit the exam, i.e. in that case you have to do the exam again.

You have to register in QISPOS for each course with your student account. Only courses for which you have registered can be credited for the master program. The application phase will be announced on the website and will typically extend from mid-April to mid-June in the summer term and mid-October to end of November in the winter term.

Courses

The M.Sc. “Geoinformatics and Spatial Data Science” is an interdisciplinary study program that is open to students from different disciplines and with different backgrounds. The module “Fundamentals in Geoinformatics” includes courses that are essential for any student to successfully complete the study program and that are also components of the B.Sc. studies at ifgi. Students with B.Sc. degrees from other institutions are by default not assumed to have completed equivalent courses and thus are required to complete this module. However, if you hold a B.Sc. from another institution and have completed courses equivalent to those in “Fundamentals in Geoinformatics” you may replace these courses with elective courses or even study the module “Practicals” instead. Please contact the study advisors if this applies to you.

Modules

QISPOS tells you which course can be credited in which module. When you register in QISPOS for a course, you take a decision in which module this course will be credited. It is not possible to assign the course to another module when the QISPOS application phase has expired. For further questions please contact the study advisor of the MSc Geoinformatics program, Prof. Dr. Edzer Pebesma or Dr. Christian Knoth.

External semester

For this module you need a supervisor at the institute for geoinformatics, and a supervisor at the industry or government partner visited.

Before you start the external semester, you need to write a learning agreement that contains the following information:

your personal information (name, matriculation number, postal address, email…)
in which institution or company do you complete your internship (postal address, email, website…)
when do you complete your internship (date from … to)
what do you plan to learn; what will be the content of your activities; what will be the time planning of the activities, possibly including the working hours agreed upon
who will be the supervisor at the industry or government party; who will be the supervisor at the institute for geoinformatics
for each supervisor, the frequency of supervision meetings that has been agreed upon
whether the supervisor at the industry or government party will (i.e., has agreed), or will not write a short evaluation report that will help the supervisor at the institute for geoinformatics to grade the module,
and due date of the external semester report.

Finally, each party (external supervisor, ifgi supervisor and student) should sign the learning agreement.

Before the external industry of government project starts, the learning agreement shall be sent in a single email to the following four persons:

the supervisor at the industry or government party visited
the supervisor at ifgi
the module responsible (Prof. Dr. E. Pebesma)
study course coordinator Jan Hardes

The final grade for the 30 ECTS is a weighted average of the grades for the courses attended during your stay abroad. In agreement with your ifgi supervisor, your external studies may include a research project. In this case, a project report including a self-assessment (5-10 pages) has to be written and the final grade is given according to the ratio between courses and project work. Note that you have to register in QISPOS for the external studies.

To complete the module, it is necessary to take part in the wrap-up seminar which usually extends over half a day. Attendance is mandatory. The wrap-up seminar will be held once per semester, in July during the summer term and January during the winter term. The date (usually the last or second-last Friday of the lecture time “Vorlesungszeit”) will be announced on the ifgi website and in QISPOS where you have to register for the wrap-up seminar.

Thesis

Find a topic and a supervisor, and finalize a title.
Fill in the form for MSc thesis registration at the Prüfungsamt. Alternatively use the paperless workflow.
The thesis extends over six months and the working time will start at the day when the first supervisor signs the MSc registration form.
The examination office will confirm title, supervisor and submission deadline by sending you an official confirmation letter.

All MSc students have to defend their thesis. The grade of the disputation contributes 20% to the final grade of the master thesis module. The disputation has to take place BEFORE submission of the MSc thesis. The disputation lasts 20 minutes. The form of the disputation, e.g. time allowed for presentation and discussion, is determined by the supervisors. It is expected that MSc students attend each others disputations.

Once per semester, ifgi offers the opportunity to defend theses. The date coincides with the wrap-up seminar for the external semester and will be announced on ifgi website (usually the second last Friday of the “Vorlesungszeit”, the lecture period, of each semester). In order to register, please follow this procedure: Make sure that your thesis is registered at the examination office (“Prüfungsamt”). It is not possible to defend a thesis that is not registered at the Prüfungsamt.

Contact your supervisors and inform them about the date because both supervisors need to be present during the defense.
Register for the thesis defense at latest two weeks in advance. Send an email with your name, student number, thesis topic and the names of your supervisors to the study course coordinator Jan Hardes. If one or both of your supervisors are not available or if your thesis is at a very early stage, it is possible to agree upon an individual date for the defense.
With both of your supervisors, discuss how the thesis defense should proceed, i.e. how many minutes for presentation and discussion, is it necessary to submit a written draft before the defense, etc.

A hard copy version of the thesis including a signed statement of authorship has to be submitted to the examination office before the working time ends. At the same time, the thesis has to be sent in one single email to the examination and ifgi study course coordinator in PDF format. Hard and soft copy need to be identical. The submission deadline is handled absolutely strictly. If you submit your thesis one or more days too late without a valid reason the thesis will be graded with “5.0” ( = fail).