1st and 2nd year of the studies

Guidelines especially for students of the Institute of Automotive and Aerospace Engineering but generally applicable to students of all doctoral programmes.

According to the Study and Examination Code of CTU for doctoral study, a study unit includes a study according to the following specifications: "A part of the study unit in professional activities is a study that represents a written preparation for the dissertation. It contains a brief summary of the state of the studied issue in the world (comprehensive research), supplemented by the results of student's own work on the dissertation topic so far. These results can be presented as a set of publications submitted by the doctoral student.

The study serves as a topic of debate about the dissertation thesis and on its basis is stated the final title and content of the dissertation. Supervisor, head of the training institution and a member of the Branch Board (hereinafter referred to as BB), as recommended by the Chairman of the BB; the debate can take place in a foreign language. Head of the training institution may in its discretion determine whether or not appoint the opponent study."

The Institute 12120 set a two-tier system of control of the study. In the period after February 20 will be held debates about your study at a meeting of the Department of Automotive, Combustion Engine and Railway Engineering. Students at the end of their first academic year of study shall prepare at least a comprehensive research and on its basis and in cooperation with the supervisor shall formulate the content of the study, its purpose and expected methods to achieve it. The paper must be formulated as a comprehensive presentation on the topic of the study (usually based on a compilation of literature), its goal is not to deliver an outline of examinations and so on. It can also include student's own specific results already achieved in the processing of research topics related to the study. The paper can be presented in English or a foreign language.

Please pay close attention to the research. You may find useful the prepaid specialized database of the Central Library of CTU. If you don't know how to use them, please attend the earliest training organized by the Central Library of CTU.

Students ending the second academic year will submit a study to debate and have a presentation on it in a foreign language (preferably in English, German or French). The written study should be structured as the dissertation and upon an agreement with the supervisor can be substituted by commented set of at least two papers published by the student.

Within the given time, try to balance the introductory part devoted to the broader context of work, review of known facts and resulting problems that you are referring to – and thus sets goals of the study (25, max. 30% of the time). Then you describe the methods and results of your work. Do not forget to highlight what is your contribution and how you achieved it (a balanced content of theory, simulations, experiments, all should be your own or from other members of the team of investigators, and especially to the generalization of guidelines for the design and methodology of experiments, etc.) - max. 40% of the time. Dissertation must bring new, generally valid, findings and thus it cannot be e.g. just an optimized design. Therefore, before you draw the conclusions, it is necessary to analyse the results achieved and draw them into the conclusion about what you've undoubtedly discovered, what else you expect to discover and what you are going to leave for your followers (i.e. you provide suggestions for further thesis). Therefore, this part should take you about 30-35% of the time. It is very likely that during the presentation itself you will extend the previous parts so then you wouldn't have enough time for the most important part of the presentation.

None of the two presentations should exceed 15 minutes. Therefore, it should be supported by a display of the text, prepared on foils or preferably in a Power Point presentation or a similar program. The beginning must obligatorily contain the abovementioned structure (outline) of the presentation and the general outcomes and their evaluation at the end together with the stating the candidate's own contribution to the problems and suggestions for further work in the field. Specific materials submitted should prepare students for the corollary formulation of conclusions, and again in the traditional order of review - the methods or development of new methods - the results obtained by the described methods (simulation and its verification by experiment or experiment and control of its theory) - their analysis - conclusions.

All displayed documents must be written in font size at least 14 (preferably 16 or more) so that they are legible and concisely formulated. It is not necessary (nor appropriate) to read the texts during the presentation, it is better to use the time for their comments. When presenting the specific documentation (diagrams, exceptionally equations, flowcharts, etc.), it is sometimes useful to highlight the relationship with the outline of the presentation. Each slide should be have about 1 minute long comment, so a reasonable size of the presentation is about 10 pages in Power Point.

See the tutorial "Presentation skills e-learning course in Czech/English". It is good to see what your presentation should contain.

These principles apply to the presentations style at conferences and can be successfully used also in internal presentations of your problem solutions for your future employer. It is therefore appropriate to familiarize with them as soon as possible. We kindly ask you to have the presentation prepared by the beginning of February. The schedule of presentations will be compiled according to the possibilities of the employees of the Institute.

It is compulsory to attend at presentations all days for all internal doctoral students. Your participation shall be active, i.e. asking questions, and especially learning from possible mistakes of your colleagues - that is the least risky. Students of combined doctoral study are kindly asked to participate if convenient.