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This article was published by Videnskab.dk
Jounalist: Anne Ringgard
Every year, thousands of students work hard for an entire semester to complete university with the grand finale: the thesis.
But most of the 26,000 or so Theses produced each year end up gathering dust. At best in university libraries, at worst in the desk drawer.
"In many places you just hand in a Thesis, and after a while you get a grade sent to you without further evaluation," says Josephine Almind from Ungdomsbureauet.
"It's anti-climactic after all the work you put in as a student," she adds.
Josephine Almind is the project manager of a new festival this week, where graduates from all Danish universities take to the stage and make short presentations of the main points of their Theses.
The presentations are recorded on video and published online.
"The purpose is for students to get recognition for the hard work they have put into their theses. We sense from the support we have received that many students feel that their Thesis is just going to waste," explains Josephine Almind.
The youth agency is on to something, according to Professor Peter Dalsgaard, thesis supervisor at Aarhus University's School of Communication and Culture.
"It's a shame that there are so many really good Theses that are not being used," says the professor.
Many of the theses have interesting aspects that can be used in further research. But this happens too rarely, because the theses are not read or disseminated.
During the corona shutdown, several of Peter Dalsgaard's thesis students have studied what happens when companies move work from the physical office to online from home.
"When employees were sent home, there was no knowledge of how to deal with it, and companies have handled it very differently," he says, adding:
"Many of the thesis students come up with some really interesting things about how they handle it in different companies. That knowledge is relevant to a lot of people."
When students write their Thesis in a company, they are often subject to a confidentiality clause that prevents them from communicating their results, says Peter Dalsgaard - more on that later.
Mogens Høgh Jensen, professor and thesis supervisor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, also recognizes the problem of students' knowledge being lost once the thesis is submitted.
"It is one hundred percent certain that there is a goldmine of knowledge in the many Theses that are produced. All researchers will say that," explains Mogens Høgh Jensen, Professor of Biocomplexity at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
"But the theses of up to 80 pages just sit at the universities and are often not used for anything," he adds.
At the Niels Bohr Institute, the thesis students usually do physical experiments.
"In our industry, a Thesis must contain new results. In some cases, the results are published in a scientific article co-authored by the thesis student," explains Mogens Høgh Jensen.
But often they don't make it past the thesis stage, because if the results are to be published in a scientific journal, the student needs to spend time on it after the thesis has been submitted. And then they often move on to a job.
At Aarhus University, budget cuts have meant that the time for writing the thesis and the time supervisors have to give feedback has been cut, says Peter Dalsgaard.
This affects both the quality of the thesis and the learning the students get out of doing it, he believes.
"A lot of research demonstrates that students learn a lot from feedback. But often they just hand in a Thesis, which very few read, and then they just get a number on a piece of paper," says Peter Dalsgaard and adds:
"I spend some of my own time meeting with students and telling them what they have done well or badly. But in many places, that has been cut out. The whole process has become extremely compressed."
students can share their knowledge and practice presenting the main points from the academic paper is a really good idea, says Peter Dalsgaard.
"It is obvious to work with communication formats that go beyond the formal assessment," he says.
One challenge is that many Theses are subject to a clause that prevents students from publishing data and results, he points out.
This is because an increasing number of students are writing Thesis for a company or organization.
In this kind of Theses , students often make an agreement with the companies that data and results cannot be published.
The theses are therefore not placed in the university library as usual, and they are only read by the supervisor, the external examiner and, in the best case scenario, the company they are about.
"Companies use the thesis to screen future employees. My impression is that many students get jobs this way, even if the thesis is not groundbreaking in an academic sense," says Peter Dalsgaard and continues:
"The problem is that the knowledge produced in such a Thesis does not go out more widely, but stays in the one organization that has made itself available for the student to write their Thesis there."
Specialefestivalen was held September 23-24, 2021 at Station in Frederiksberg, Denmark. Around 40 graduates from different universities and subjects presented their Theses on two stages at the festival.
The festival is a collaboration between Ungdomsbureauet and Station - A student Innovation House.
