As supervisor, you are responsible for teaching and coaching the student, creating the right ambiance, supporting the student in their learning process, and drawing up agreements. Supervising implies offering a tailor-made approach to the student’s needs. Together with the examiner, you are also responsible for proposing an internship that is of a sufficient level and that enables the student to achieve the learning outcomes. Students are responsible for their own learning process and your role is to support them on that.

The examiner has final responsibility for the business internship and monitors the proposed end date with the student. The examiner grades the written report and final presentation. The supervisor of the host institute grades business skills (in consultation with the examiner), written report, and presentation. The final mark is given by the examiner, in close consultation with the supervisor of the host institute.

The format of the written report should be discussed and agreed upon between student and examiner before the student starts the writing process.

Business internship reports (~20.000 words, in English unless Dutch is required by your company) include a management summary, plain language summary*, introduction, company analysis, market analysis, research conducted, results, discussion, conclusions and recommendations, references, and a self-reflection.

*A plain language summary (layman summary) is a ~500-word summary specifically aimed at informing laymen about the content of the internship. The target audience is able to understand biology and/or economics at high school level.

Business internship: 27 EC (19 weeks)

During the application process, students must indicate the time spent on courses, holidays or other days off and the end date will be calculated automatically. We strongly advise you to urge your students to plan and take days off and already think of this at the start of the internship (preferably at least two consecutive weeks of holiday each year) to keep a healthy balance between their studies and personal time. Please consult the academic year calendar to be aware of public holidays. You should be prepared for requests from your students to take these days off from their business internship. Students do not need the extend their end date with these public holidays. This excludes the Christmas and summer holiday period mentioned in the academic year calendar.

It is essential that students finish the internship by the set deadline since any delay will likely affect the total duration of their Master’s programme. This includes handing in the final report and presenting the results. This does not include the 10 working days for assessment of the end products.

After finishing the business internship the student is capable of:

• Applying knowledge and skills gained during theory classes.
• Translating business management problems into a clear problem statement and relevant sub questions.
• Designing and conducting the practical and theoretical research needed to answer the questions.
• Analyzing and interpreting results.
• Writing a business report with concrete conclusions and recommendations.
• Presenting the outcomes of the report to an audience of specialists and non-specialists.
• Working in a professional environment.

A student can start the business internship only after both the supervisor host institute and the student have received an approval email from the Board of Examiners.

Discuss the rubrics with your student at the start of the internship. There you will be able to emphasize which criteria are important for you and will be used for assessment. It will also give you an idea of the strengths and points for improvement of your student from the start.

The examiner is advised to allow the student to work independently during the first three weeks of the internship. At this stage, their understanding of the project is usually not yet developed enough to define a clear thesis plan. After three weeks, the examiner and student can schedule an online meeting to discuss and refine a plan of action. The supervisor host institute may join, but this is not required.

Application forms

The whole application procedure is digitalised in OSIRIS Case. You can access OSIRIS Case via OSIRIS Supervisor. The application forms contain information about the internship, agreements between the student and supervisor host institute, and contact information of the examiner and supervisor host institute. This information allows the programme coordinator and the Board of Examiners to review the content and level of the internship.

Business internships require a GSLS internship contract, signed by the student, research project coordinator , and supervisor host institute. The student can upload the internship contract in OSIRIS Case. The research project coordinator will be notified and sign the contract. If your student is asked to sign a (non-disclosure) contract from the host institute, they can consult the research project coordinators.

At the GSLS we aim to stimulate an open working atmosphere and safe environment in which our students can discover who they are, who they want to be and how to get there professionally; in short, we want them to fully develop their professional identity.

What is the SEED tool about?

The SEED tool focuses on facilitating a Supervision Expectations & Evaluation Dialogue. Using this tool, students are encouraged to reflect and proactively discuss with you as a supervisors about the optimal conditions for a good learning environment.

This SEED-tool form contains guidelines and space to serve as a base for reflection, discussion, and revision of previous agreements. Therefore, it is recommended to start using the SEED tool from the beginning of the process. Students can always go back to their SEED tool at any point during the business internship.

During the business internship, the daily supervisor and student are expected to meet regularly to discuss the progress of the student.

A mandatory interim assessment should take place 2-3 months after the start of the internship. The meeting is between the student, the supervisor host institute, and preferably the examiner.

We strongly advise you to fill in the rubrics about business skills during the interim assessment with the student to provide feedback on their work, progress, and performance. Alternatively, detailed written feedback (½ A4) can be provided. After the interim assessment meeting, the student must upload the highlighted rubric in OSIRIS Case and the examiner will get a notification to approve the document.

As a daily supervisor, you can schedule extra interim assessments and dedicated feedback moments more often during the internship.

Towards the end of the internship, the examiner, supervisor host institute, and student should schedule a defence date. While the defence may take place online, it is often a valuable opportunity for the examiner to visit the organization in person.

Three weeks before the scheduled defence, the student must submitted a well-developed draft version of their report for feedback. One week before the defence, the student must submit the final version of the report, which will be graded. After the defence, no further changes to the thesis are permitted, and the final grade must be determined based on the submitted version.

Allow one hour for the defence: 20-25 minutes for the student’s presentation, followed by 15 minutes of questions (primarily) from the examiner and supervisor host institute.

Plagiarism check

The examiner has the responsibility to ensure that no fraud or plagiarism took place and should check the written report for plagiarism via Ouriginal. The students can do this themselves or the examiner can do this. Please note: as examiner you need to login with your Solis-id.

Here you can find details on using Ouriginal.

Upload the final version of the report as Word file without the reference list to Ouriginal.  The examiner should upload the printed report (summary) from Ouriginal in OSIRIS Case during the final assessment.  

Plagiarism check in case of confidentiality

In case of confidentiality, the examiner can exclude the file from the Ouriginal database. This option is only available when the examiner uploads the file. 

To do this, click on the analysis address, and go to the submission account (in Dutch: inleveraccount) see red circle. It ends with @uu.nl in most cases. 

You can do this by clicking on the fourth icon (that looks like a paper with an earmark).  In the figure below the file with 0% similarity (green bar) is exempted from the database. 

If the file is exempted, other uploaders can see if there is similarity with the file but cannot open or access the file. If you click on the fourth icon, you will see the following message that includes the definition of this exemption: 

Previously submitted documents provide comparative material in checking documents later submitted by others. Normally, a previously submitted document – where similarities have been detected – will be recognized as the source, in its entirety, in the Ouriginal Analysis. 

You can, by clicking the button, exempt the document from being able to be viewed in its entirety if there are similarities found at subsequent inspections of other documents. If you choose to exempt the document, the document will still be stored on behalf of your educational organization and itself checked for potential similarities with other sources, but it will not be shown in its entirety or be downloadable. The analysis of the latter document will still show that there is a similarity to your document and inform when and where it was submitted, but no text from the document will be visible – instead, a text explaining why it cannot be shown will be displayed. 

Do note that depending on the settings chosen by your university, your document may still be visible and possible to download within the university to which you submitted it.

Click on proceed. 

What if the percentage of matching text is >10%?

When there is no case of plagiarism, a motivation written by the examiner explaining this should accompany the assessment form in OSIRIS Case.

Contract cheating sites

The use of the services as described in this paper on cheating sites is considered as plagiarism by the Board of Examiners. The examiner should take all the written versions of the student into account.

Report plagiarism

Any act of plagiarism should be reported to the Board of Examiners. Please do not hesitate to contact them for informal discussion on the case before taking formal steps: 

• Secretary for the Faculty of Medicine and Veterinary Sciences: Kirsten Boersma-van Nierop 
• Secretary for the Faculty of Science: Nina uit het Broek
• Chair of the Board of Examiners: Jan Andries Post or phone +31 (0)30-253 3894 

Fraud or plagiarism are absolutely not allowed and will be dealt with as described in the Education and Examination Regulations (article 5.14). 

The final assessment is primarily based on an evaluation of 3 elements: the business report, the business skills, and the final presentation. These elements make up 60%, 30% and 10% of the final mark, respectively. 

If the grades of the examiner and supervisor host institute differ by 2 or more points, the examiner should notify the Board of Examiners.

The examiner and supervisor host institute must complete the final assessment in OSIRIS Case (see OSIRIS Case manual) within 10 working days after the student has handed in the final report and has given the presentation. To make sure there are no delays, make agreements with your student beforehand about the dates for handing in the final report and giving the presentation.

Rubrics

The examiner must provide a motivation for the final grades. We strongly advise to use the rubrics about business skills, business report, and presentation.

The supervisor host institute provides grades for all three components; business skills (in consultation with the examiner), business report, and final presentation. The examiner provides grades for business report and final presentation, and determines the final grades (for business skills in consultation with supervisor host institute).

The examiner and the supervisor host institute should contact each other to make sure that the assessment of all components is performed according to the guidelines of the GSLS. 

The supervisor host institute determines the grades according to their own marking system (e.g., Anglo/Saxon marking (F-A⁺)) and then consults the examiner. The examiner converts the grade according to the Dutch marking system if necessary. Here you can find the UU credit conversion table.

Grading tool

For guidance regarding the grading of a business internship, you can use the flowchart on the Registering course results page.

Registration of grades

For the specifics about grading check out section 5 in the EER. For 2024-2025: 

• Marks are awarded on a scale of 1 to 10. A mark of 5.5 (not rounded off) or higher is satisfactory, and lower is unsatisfactory. The examiner determines the final grade expressed with one decimal figure, which will be rounded off mathematically. Marks will be rounded off as follows: If the second decimal is a 5 or higher, the first decimal will be rounded up. If the second decimal is a 4 or lower, the first decimal will be rounded down. This does not apply to grades between 5.45 and 5.50 and between 3.95 and 4.00: these will be rounded off to 5.4 and 3.9, respectively. In OSIRIS final grades between 5.0 and 5.4 will be rounded down to 5.0, grades from 5.5 to 5.9 will be rounded up to 6.0. Other grades will not be rounded off in OSIRIS. 
• If the average final grade as well as all the partial grades are sufficient, the sufficient grade will be registered in OSIRIS. If the average final grade is insufficient, the insufficient grade will be registered in OSIRIS. If the average final grade is sufficient but one or more of the components does not meet the requirements, it will be registered as NVD (niet voldaan – incomplete) in OSIRIS. 
• Partial marks of the business internship should each be satisfactory. The student has the right to do a resit when the average final grade is higher than 4.0 (also in case of a NVD). 
• To meet the cum laude requirements, students should receive a 8.5 or higher for their business internship.