Teachers' Guide | Graduate School of Life Sciences

Teachers' Guide | Graduate School of Life Sciences

Mini-project

Most Master’s programmes have an elective component of 12 EC. These electives can be used to perform a mini-project. 

Often, these mini-projects are short research projects. Other examples include: specific training for a lab technique, writing a script for the analysis of data, contributing to an exhibition in the science museum, or writing an advisory report for a ministry or municipality. 

Many of the instructions for research projects also apply to mini-projects. If you cannot find the answer to your questions in the information below, please also read the information under research project/business internship.

Application

Students apply for a mini-project via OSIRIS Case. For more information see the OSIRIS Case manual. Among others, the following information has to be provided during the application: 

  • The content and end product(s) of the mini-project; 
  • An indication how the end products will be assessed and with what weight; 
  • Contact information of the examiner; 
  • In case of a project outside UU/UMCU: contact information of the supervisor host institute. 

External mini-project

In case of a mini-project outside UU/UMCU the supervisor host institute needs to approve the application in OSIRIS Case. After the student provides all the necessary information in OSIRIS Case, the supervisor host institute will receive an email containing instructions. Mini-projects at non-university institutes or abroad also require a signed internship contract (please contact the research project coordinators if you have any questions). The students can upload the internship contract in OSIRIS Case without the research project coordinator signature, they will receive a notification from OSIRIS Case to sign the contract.

Assessment

A mini-project can take many forms, both in size (0.5 – 12 EC), content, and end products (e.g. report, presentation, poster, advice, script). In all cases, the project needs to be graded by the examiner based on at least one end product and at least one end product has to be written material. The examiner needs to motivate their final grade ideally by using the rubrics that fit best to the deliverable(s). Asking a second reviewer is allowed, but not obligatory. Written end products need to be checked for plagiarism via Ouriginal. 

The assessment is done via OSIRIS Case by filling in the final assessment form. 

OSIRIS Case

The entire procedure of research projects and writing assignments within the GSLS is digitized. This new procedure, designed in OSIRIS Case, replaces the application and assessment procedure via PDF forms. 

Instruction

As an examiner, you can approach the OSIRIS Case environment via OSIRIS Supervisor. There is a manual for examiners available with detailed instructions on this new procedure. 

  • You need to have a SolisID to login to OSIRIS. If you are from the UMCU, and you do not have a solisID yet, you can request one on the UMC SOLIS account site. 
  • You need certain rights to use OSIRIS Case. 

Contact

If you have any problems, questions or suggestions, please contact the administration office.