Universities are challenged to produce quality graduates and have introduced different type of teaching methods in the curriculum to address this challenge. As a measure to minimize this issue, universities have introduced various activities in the curriculum. Industrial placements, industry based projects, field visits, courses, workshops, seminars from industry experts and special courses such as entrepreneurship are a few examples raised so far. Among other activities, a research project component is a leading way to link theory into practice, enhance employability skills of the students and improve the industry university collaboration. There are mainly two types of key participants in the thesis process, and they are students and supervisors. A student or group of students performs research under the guidance of a supervisor or team of supervisors. Research supervision is a unique teaching methodology, and it is certainly one of the most complex and problematic among other pedagogical methods and such projects report a high dropout rate. Also, it is a well-known problem that a large number of students are failing to complete their research project within the scheduled timeframe with the anticipated quality. The selection of an interesting topic and a suitable supervisor are essential requirements for a successful research project. Many students select research topics without a proper understanding of the topic. Students, supervisors and industry representatives have research ideas that are important for each other but, lack of communication between these parties prevents the initiation of them as valuable research projects. Hence, although industry is a main source of ideas, there is a lack of industry related students projects in the Sri Lankan university system. Although, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enable information systems are developed to support teaching, learning, and administrative activities, there is a lack of research to study about the use of ICT for the thesis supervision process. The focus of this study identifies issues in the initial stage of the research supervision process with the purpose of designing an ICT enabled framework for the thesis supervision process. This study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques, and follows a mixed method. A survey was conducted to identify issues in the thesis initiation stage, and four types of questionnaires distributed to supervisors, students, administrators and industry representatives. Furthermore, coordinators were interviewed to clarify unclear problematic areas. Finally, issues are explained as a model that can be used as a foundation for future studies.

Conducting research and writing a thesis about it is regarded as a distinctive pedagogy (learning through inquiry) within higher education which brings new challenges to all parties involved. To complete a thesis, students should select a problem, make a systematic plan, implement the plan and, finally, write a report of the process and findings. Students do have a supervisor to guide and support them, but it is the student who plays the key role in the whole research process. The present study is a qualitative, explorative case study to understand the challenges related to research projects within undergraduate management degree programmes in a Sri Lankan national University. Data have been collected using interviews and focus group discussions in six-degree programmes, with around 40 participants in total. The study focuses on identifying problematic areas and creating a general picture of why students’ research projects are not progressing favourably. Six main challenges were identified: student motivation, student-supervisor relationships, skills and knowledge, students’ workload, the structure of the research project course, and resources and ICT tools. These problematic areas are complex and multidimensional. Therefore, further studies are required to truly understand the complex interrelatedness of these areas.

One of the main issues in undergraduate thesis supervision is a lack of understanding about the pedagogical assumptions underpinning the supervision process. In this paper, the concepts of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding are applied in developing a theoretical framework to understand the nature of the interactions that are expected between student, supervisor, research context and peers. Both designed-in and contingent scaffolding are applied in order to frame a personalized learning environment with a flexible structure that supports the interactions, based on individual zones of proximal development. A case study was conducted including students’ and supervisors’ views in several undergraduate degree programs within a Sri Lankan national university, and the findings were compared with the theoretical framework. The empirical data suggest that both students and supervisors tend to encounter problems if the thesis supervision process has not adequately designed to support the characteristics of constructivist learning.

This article focuses on how to empower the initiation stage in the thesis supervision process with information and communication technology. Starting a large number of theses with available resources based on creative ideas is a challenging task. Another challenge is to connect the students’ theses with industry interests. In order to facilitate a good thesis, the SciPro ICT support system for thesis supervision has been developed in the last few years. The most important task in the thesis initiation stage is matching students, supervisors and ideas together to start a thesis. Supervisors, business partners and administration staff are other stakeholders that should be interacting in this process for a successful project. Although the selection of an idea is the responsibility of students, and appearance is simple, it requires a series of academic and administrative processes. There is a lack of developed IT systems for thesis supervision as well as an initiation stage and SciPro can be introduced as a model for future developments. The thesis initiation stage is the foundation for a quality thesis, and it highly affects the quality of a thesis. The research approach is based on case study method. Data collection methods are interviews, observations, and focus group discussions and log data during a period of 2 years. This paper presents four interrelated IT systems that have been developed to support the start of a quality thesis. These four systems and the SciPro resources site add value, save time and increase the quality of the thesis initiation stage. The process implemented rewards for supervisors and students by providing freedom, control and selection of relevant topics to a high degree. Although all the activities in the initiation stage are not fully automated, the administration staff benefited and there were significant advantages for administrative activities. Also SciPro can be linked with industry to enhance the relationship with industry.

Thesis supervision is one of the most complex and problematic pedagogical methods(Connell, 1985). Hansson and others discuss this complexity and show that the core activities of supervision require (an estimated) four to five times more effort per individual student than the payment/time allocated (Hansson, Larsson, & Wettergren, 2009). These authors also discuss the nature of thesis supervision and argue that a large part of the process is dependent on communication. Communication is time-consuming and hence may be one of the reasons for this problematic state of affairs; maintaining the quality of communication is a challenge. The Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) faced this challenge when several theses were reviewed by the Swedish Authority of Higher Education (Bider & Jalali, 2016). The DSV initiated a project to implement an ICT-supported system for the thesis supervision process in 2011 in order to address the issue of quality. Sci-Pro, the thesis supervision support system, was launched in 2011 and has grown into a mature system during the last six years. There is a lack of comprehensive studies of ICT support systems; the aim of the current study is to conduct a literature review of the published articles about the DSV thesis supervision system to explore how ICT can support the thesis supervision process. The results of this study therefore offer benefits to individuals who intend to develop or use ICT support for the thesis process.

This study intended to develop a framework for designing a Learning Management System for supporting thesis projects. A model named ‘Explanatory Design Theory’ was followed as a methodology to identify the component of the proposed framework. The following four steps were followed: 1.) Identification of kernel theories, 2) Analysis of kernel theories and identification of meta-requirements, 3) Formulation of design components based on meta-requirements, 4)Formulation of testable hypotheses. Developing the designing explanatory design theory was a four-step process; each step was crucial and decisive. The first step involved identifying kernel theories related to thesis supervision. These were Zone of Proximal Development, Scaffolding, and Self-regulation. Secondly, meta-requirements were determined based on kernel theories, and it was discovered that enhancing the student-supervisor interaction and supporting students’ self-regulation processes were key meta-requirements, based on which the components of FLMSTP were identified at the third step and labelled as Initiation, Planning, Implementation, and Completion. The final step was the setting of hypotheses formulated to refine kernel theories and evaluate the accuracy of meta-requirements and the usefulness of the components.