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UCL School of Management

University college london, 26 august 2022, the imb dissertation: how does it work and what are your options.

The dissertation is one of the most important projects that an undergraduate student can face during their years of study. A dissertation is a large body of academic work or a research project, and typically concludes both undergraduate and postgraduate study.

However, in the case of UCL School of Management’s BSc Information Management for Business (IMB) programme, the typical rules of a dissertation do not necessarily apply. An IMB student can write a standard dissertation, but they can also elect to do a consultancy or enterprise project. Wondering what the difference is between these projects? Let’s take a look at the IMB class of 2022 and how they chose to complete their final-year projects.

msin0067 Extended project - the dissertation module

When discussing the IMB dissertation project, what we are actually referring to is the MSIN0067 Extended Project module. As previously noted, there are three types of projects that you can select in the final year of your IMB, and the choice is entirely yours.

The Extended Project module is a double module, meaning that it carries 30 credits, and runs during both Term 1 and Term 2 of the IMB final year. Unlike other modules on the programme, classes do not run weekly, but approximately once a month. That way, there is enough time between each session to work on a particular part of the project. It also allows time for 1:1 meetings with supervisors in order to receive frequent feedback to build upon your work.

As a result, the progress of the project is very much down to the individual student - at least it was for my year - as there are no intermediate deadlines. But what is it actually like to write these projects and what experience can they give you?

IMB Dissertation - wei’s experience

When undertaking an IMB Dissertation, the focus is on writing an academic piece of research. That involves the assessment of academic literature to identify a research topic that can further advance what is already known. 

Having talked to one of his family friends about e-commerce platforms in China where cashback reviews are fairly common, my friend, Wei Cao, decided to focus his dissertation on how these reviews affect customers’ choices. 

Discussing his project, titled, ‘Cashback reviews: How does it affect consumers’ purchase decisions?’, Wei Cao told us,  “I would say that writing this dissertation was quite a challenge for me. I had to manage my time and my effort well, especially during the last few weeks before the deadline, and reading extensively for the dissertation is also a huge amount of work. Also, working with my supervisor was a really good experience. He was really helpful, and answered my questions very quickly.”  

IMB Consultancy Project - my experience 

The IMB Consultancy Project is about conducting a piece of research for a business client to help them resolve issues and grow their businesses. While students are encouraged to source their clients and discuss a mutually beneficial project together, the IMB team can help with arranging these collaborations. Each year, through links with alumni and industry experts, the IMB team is adding more external clients to the consultancy project portfolio, covering everything from Business and Management to IT – so there is something for everyone.

During my time at Secondary School, I participated in an educational programme provided by a non-profit organisation called JA Slovakia. When deciding what to do for my extended project, I realised that I may be able to help them by researching their alumni. That is how my Consultancy Project titled “JA Alumni Slovakia: Establishing a Flourishing Alumni Network” came about. 

To sum up my experience, I very much enjoyed the practical focus of the Consultancy Project. While the majority of projects in the IMB programme are quite practical, I enjoyed this project as I also had the chance to interact with a business client over a longer period of time. As a result, I have developed excellent time management skills, as well as an ability to communicate professionally and assertively and a well-researched project.

IMB Enterprise Project - paulius’s experience 

The IMB Enterprise Project focuses on researching and testing a student’s business idea. Much like the Consultancy Project, the Enterprise Project is very practical and gives students an opportunity to try out business ideas before truly committing to them. 

Running a business alongside his studies at the UCL School of Management, my friend, Paulius Serva, decided to conduct an Enterprise Project and focus on foreign expansion research for his business. 

Discussing the experience that his project, ‘Alfa Klase Ltd Foreign Expansion’ gave him, Paulius told us,  “The Extended Project allowed me to have a very methodical and comprehensive analysis of the business idea I had. Ongoing supervision was extremely valuable as receiving feedback made me question multiple assumptions and guided me through the whole process. The outcome gave me the basis to proceed with the idea further and I’ll inevitably use the knowledge for future ventures.”  

Which type of Extend Project should you choose? 

If you are studying or plan to study an IMB at the UCL School of Management, the type of project that you undertake in your final year is entirely up to you. But fear not, besides the inspiration from the quotes above, you will have a resourceful and extremely helpful teaching team in the MSIN0067 Extended Project to turn to for help and guidance.

I have only one remaining piece of advice: you should write your final-year project about something you are actually interested in. This project will make up a large portion of your final IMB year, so make sure you make it as enjoyable as you can by writing about something you actually care about.

Authored by: BSc Information Management for Business student, Andrea Uličná.

Centre for Doctoral Education

Publishing doctoral work

All doctoral students are encouraged to publish their work, and should expect guidance and support from their supervisors in doing so. Publishing is an important part of academic work, and publications provide opportunities for feedback on and development of work from wider communities.

Publications may also demonstrate that the work included in a thesis meets the requirements of a thesis (section 5.1). However, to avoid any doubt, there is no requirement to publish work in order to pass a doctoral examination; and furthermore, having doctoral work published does not oblige examiners to judge the work of constituting an original or sufficiently scholarly contribution.

Developing academic writing

It is important for doctoral students and supervisors to be clear about their expectations around publishing work. Such discussions could include what work to publish; when to publish it; whether it would be best presented as a conference presentation, journal article, book chapter, etc; where to publish it; and how to respond to feedback provided on drafts, for example through peer review.

Students and supervisors are encouraged to think about developing their experience with publishing their work across the whole of the doctorate. It may be helpful to plan this in terms of increasingly specialised audiences, or of moving discussions from relatively closed and supportive audiences (such as departmental work-in-progress seminars) to more open or critical fora (such as specialist conferences or peer reviewed international journals). A possible trajectory for development could involve, for example, contributing to the Institute’s annual poster conference or doctoral summer conference, taking part in the three-minute thesis competition, writing for blogs or magazines, presenting at external conferences, and finally producing work for journals or books.

Students and supervisors may also find it useful to review the support, guidance and materials available from the IOE’s Academic Writing Centre .

Joint authorship

Doctoral work may be published jointly with supervisors – but this is not required in all cases, and it is vital that students and supervisors discuss their expectations around this early in the supervisory process. This is particularly important where different disciplines are involved, since expectations about authorship can vary considerably.

Students and supervisors should be aware of UCL’s policy on publication and authorship . However, this does not mandate any particular model of authorship, instead drawing attention to issues that teams should consider.

More specific guidance is provided by specific scholarly societies or professional bodies, and students and supervisors are advised to consider any such guidelines that might apply to their work. There is variation between these, although there are many points of consistency – for example, that authorship (including the order of authorship) should not be claimed on basis of seniority or status.

For example, BERA’s ethical guidelines include the following:

The authorship of publications is considered to comprise a list of everyone who has made a substantive and identifiable contribution to their generation. Examples of substantive contributions include: contributing generative ideas, conceptual schema or analytic categories; writing first drafts or substantial portions; significant rewriting or editing; contributing significantly to relevant literature reviewing; and contributing to data collection, to its analysis and to judgements and interpretations made in relation to it. Academic status or other indicator of seniority must not determine first authorship; rather the order of authorship should reflect the relative leadership and contributions made by the researchers concerned.

The implication of this is that supervisors who had been active during the period of work covered by the publication would normally, but not always, be included as co-authors.

Similarly, the British Sociological Association’s guidelines state that “Students should normally be the first author on any multi-authored article based on their thesis or dissertation” and that honorary authorship is not acceptable, specifying that:

Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial direct academic contribution (i.e. intellectual responsibility and substantive work) to at least two of the four main components of a typical scientific project or paper: a) Conception or design. b) Data collection and processing. c) Analysis and interpretation of the data. d) Writing substantial sections of the paper (e.g. synthesising findings in the literature review or the findings/results section). Everyone who is listed as an author should have critically reviewed successive drafts of the paper and should approve the final version. Everyone who is listed as author should be able to defend the paper as a whole (although not necessarily all the technical details).

The implication of this is that supervisors would not automatically be included as authors on papers for which they had not made substantive and direct contributions.

The British Psychological Society’s Statement of Policy on Authorship and Publication Credit includes this summary:

Authorship refers to not only the writing up of the work but also scientific contributions (origination and formulation of the research idea and hypotheses, design of the research, designing and conducting major analysis, and interpreting findings). Contributions (such as designing or building research apparatus, recruiting research participants, data collation and entry, and other administrative duties) should not necessarily be considered to constitute authorship, but should merit formal acknowledgement if the nature and extent of the contribution is insufficient to warrant authorship.

This differentiation between authorship and acknowledgement may be helpful in giving options for recognising the contributions of different individuals appropriately. The BPS guidance is that “The authorship of publications arising from doctoral work should, therefore, normally be joint (with the student listed first). The supervisory input provided must, however, justify the inclusion of the supervisor(s) as co-author(s).”

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Further help

Your dissertation or research project will almost certainly require a search for literature on your topic, whether to identify selected research, to undertake a literature review or inform a full systematic review. Literature searches require planning, careful thought about what it is you wish to find out and a robust strategy to ensure you find relevant material.

On this page:

Planning your search.

• Search techniques and developing your search strategy

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Time spent carefully planning your search can save valuable time later on and lead to more relevant results and a more robust search strategy. You should consider the following:

• Analysing your topic and understanding your research question: Carry out a scoping search to help understand your topic and to help define your question more clearly.
• What are the key concepts in your search?
• What terms might be used to describe those concepts? Consider synonyms and alternative spellings.
• If your question relates to health or clinical medicine, you might like to use PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes) to analyse your question:
• Combine your concept terms together using the correct operators , such as AND and OR.

See our Library Skills Essentials guide for support materials and guidance for planning your search, including understanding and defining your topic, and defining search terms.

Search techniques and developing a search strategy

Make sure you are confident about using essential search techniques,  including combining search terms, phrase searching and truncation. These will help you find relevant results on your topic. See our guide to search techniques:

• Search techniques

When carrying out a literature search to inform a dissertation or extended piece of research, you will need to think carefully about your search strategy. Have a look at our tutorials and videos to help you develop your literature searching skills:

• Search skills for research: tutorials and videos

When you carry out a literature search you may need to search multiple resources (see  Sources and Resources ). Your search strategy will need to be adjusted depending on the resource you are using. For some resources, a simple search will be sufficient, whereas for more complex resources with more content, you may need to develop a sophisticated search strategy, ensuring you use the correct search techniques for that resource. See our guides to selected individual resources for further guidance.

• Search guides to individual resources: bibliographic databases
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We also provide support for developing advanced search strategies to ensure comprehensive literature retrieval, including searching for systematic reviews. See our guide to Searching for Systematic Reviews.

• Systematic reviews This guide provides information on systematic review processes and support available from UCL Library Services.

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Where do we view the exact details of our SoRA? I checked Portico and it said students with SoRAs get up to one week in coursework, but from what I remember last year there was a specific % of additional time for take home exams.

Dissertation Showcase 2023

We like to work hard and celebrate even harder here at the Community Research Initiative!

It’s super amazing to see collaborative research accomplished with the relatively novel student-community partnership. Though this partnership may be nerving, any work towards bridging the gap between the student and the community is one that must be commended!

Testimonies and celebrations inform, inspire and ignite future collaborations that will go on to impact both research and communities. This is where the dissertation showcase 2023 came in! We wanted a space that highlighted all the amazing work our UCL students and community partners did across the past academic year, discussing the process, the outcome and everything in between.

The Student Experience

In the theme of partnership, we collaborated with Base KX, the UCL centre of entrepreneurship and innovation! We started this event off with a bang as we heard from some of our wonderful students. Maddy, Ananya and Leigh (PSYC0287 Exploring Power, Inclusivity & Exclusion in Local Communities) shared their experience of their enrolment in a module set up with community engagement at the forefront. Alongside Issy Smith, UCL Students’ Union Postgraduate Student Officer, these lovely students discussed their experience parallel to Cherrill Hutchinson, founder of the Black Woman Kindness Initiative (BWKI), the community organisation that partnered on this module. Although a novel experience, it was clear that this module had a lasting and positive impact on everyone involved!

The next student we heard from was our wonderful alumnus, Sem Lee. Sem explained how their experience in a collaborative research project supported them with the skills and resources needed to set up their very own research consultancy! Sem’s perspective and words of wisdom rang through the room as they welcomed in our student presenters for the 2023 year.

Throughout these talks and presentations from students, there was a real sense of re-discovery. The traditional viewpoint of research was challenged by the re-discovery of impactful research and how attainable it really is, as demonstrated by our UCL students and partner organisations.

Policy might not be a field of research that comes to mind when thinking of collaborative research but our next student speaker, Medina (MSc Political Science) along with her community partner, We and AI, shared how their experiences working together reframed this whole perspective.

After, Chloe (MSc Social Policy and Social Research) sat down to converse about the process and impact of her research regarding Black women and self-care with BWKI, especially being a target of the research herself. Discussing the highs and the lows, Chloe made us aware that community engaged research is a challenging but fulfilling path to bridging the gap between research and community.

To complete the roster of our wonderful student speakers, Neerajha discussed her time working with Westminster Council. She noted that particularly appreciated the hub at the council due to the various people from different universities which resulted in diverse ideas. Coupled with space provided by CRIS to build on these ideas as well as her own, she was encouraged and able to explore concepts to develop impactful and useful research.

The Voluntary Sector Experience

The wonderful Priscilla Igwe, the managing director from The New Black Film Collective (TNBFC), shared with us the wonderful work that they had been doing and why community engaged research was so powerful in that space. In creative realms, things are rarely black and white, which adds to its beauty but also adds to difficulty when trying to explain harmful phenomena like difficulties in black art reaching the scope its white counterpart does, even when using the same resources. The work that TNBFC has and continues to do with the Community Research Initiative supports the understanding and cessation of these phenomena.

Our magnificent Molly McCabe, the Community Research Initiative Coordinator, shared with us the work she had been doing with micro-organisations. Often overlooked and overwhelmed, micro-organisations can sometimes struggle to navigate the world of research. Molly shared with us the importance of micro-organisations in community engaged research as they are often at the forefront of communities. She also discussed tools and resources available at the Community Research Initiative that can be accessed by micro-organisations.

We are so thankful to Base KX for hosting our wonderful event! It was a great space, that channelled community!

Thank you to our event photographer, Christopher Tilley from Drive Photo & Resto, for perfectly capturing the event!

UCL Video Productions supported the live streaming of the event as well as producing the edited film of the event. Thank you so much, Matt and Ash.

The experiences of all our presenters were captured by Ada, a fantastic live illustrator. You can watch Ada’s amazing work unfold in the recorded video alongside all the speakers.

A big thank you to all our brilliant volunteers who provided support throughout the event! 

Lastly, but definitely not least, the biggest thank you to Molly McCabe who conjured and organised this phenomenal event. It simply could not have been done without you!

Below is a video of our dissertation showcase 2023 and it has been timestamped so that you can see the start of every speaker. The brochure and agenda are also linked below so that you can get a more in-depth understanding.

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