Guidelines Period 2: report and assessment
The results of the second internship should be written down in the form of an article, even if the results obtained are not (conclusive) enough to allow submission. In such situations the student can describe in the discussion section which other experiments would be required to obtain a more definite answer to the research question, and/or why the chosen approach was insufficient, and/or increase the review aspects of the manuscript in introduction and discussion.
In contrast to a full report, an article focuses on one particular, conclusive part of the results obtained during the research training period. It is written in concise wording and makes a clear point about a research question. For standard experimental procedures references to the relevant literature are sufficient. The article-like report has to be written following the author instructions of the Journal of Cell Biology, including the approximate number of words, figures, etc (article; see http://jcb.rupress.org/site/misc/print.xhtml). Supplementary data should be included as an appendix. Special attention should be given to the instructions for manuscript organization, figure preparation, data presentation and the image manipulation statement.
When more than one subject was studied during the research training period, or when not all the results can be described in the article, the other subjects and results should be described separately in supplements that are added as appendices. Even though the article-like report itself may be rather short, the student nevertheless should give a comprehensive account of the results of the research training period and for this purpose the supplements should be used.
The student must write the article himself/herself based upon his/her own work and will be the only author of the report. In some cases, if results are presented which are obtained together with other persons (for example the Daily Supervisor) a statement and specification on these other persons contributions has to be added to the article to enable proper assessment of the student's own contributions. Specify in such a case which panel of which figure represents an experiment conducted by someone else.
Layout:
- Cover page stating:
- Student's name and number
- Department and institute of the research internship
- Names, titles and email addresses of Internship Supervisor, Daily Supervisor (if applicable) and External Assessor
- Period of the research internship
- Article
- Complete article following instructions of the Journal of Cell Biology
- In case the article will be formatted in the journal layout, which is not required, DO NOT use the logo or add year, volume and page numbers since this comes close to scientific misconduct.
- Translational Aspects Paragraph (obligatory)
- A separate paragraph describing the translational and/or societal implications of this project.
- Appendices:
- Supplementary data and/or short reports on other projects performed.
At time the final report is submitted to the External Assessors the report has to be uploaded to Brightspace: course MMD Internship, for a plagiarism check by the Urkund programme. Students will be notified by the MMD Board of Examiners in case plagiarism is detected.
Additionally, a pdf file of the final report needs to be submitted to the programme coordinator.
Assessment Internship 2
The internship is assessed on the following points:
- Professional attitude and activities during the internship (40%) (judged by Internship Supervisor)
- Oral presentation and defence (10%) (judged by Internship Supervisor)
- Written report (50%) (judged by two External Assessors (25% each))
An assessment form for the internships is available via a link in Osiris Case. External Assessors have to give their grades for the internship report independently. If these grades differ by 1.5 points or more a third assessor will be asked to assess the report. A motivation of the final internship mark on the assessment form is required.
Deadline:
The grades for research training period 2 must be registered before 15 August, to be able to graduate (officially) on 31 August. The almost-final version of the report should be discussed with the Internship Supervisor in time to give students the possibility to include suggested improvements in the final internship report. The final version of the thesis should be submitted to two External Assessors for grading 15 July for graduation on 31 August. Students should communicate to the Internship Supervisor and the External Assessors when the report will be ready for assessment.