If your topic changes, the change must be approved by the Doctoral Programme Committee. Always discuss the changes with your supervising professor first. If the research focus doesn't drastically change, you can modify the title of the thesis or the research plan without an official approval.

In case of a major change in your research topic, it is possible that your supervising professor and research field also changes.

Submit the application to your Doctoral programme's Doctoral Education Services (aalto.fi)

The form "Change of supervision professor, thesis advisor, research field or mode of study" is available at Doctoral student forms (aalto.fi).

You can write your thesis using the Word or LaTeX templates available at the page Publishing doctoral thesis. You can also use your own style or adapt some previously used thesis layout.

Doctoral students at Aalto University publish their thesis through the Aalto Publication Platform. Doctoral students at Aalto ARTS may also apply to publish their thesis through Aalto ARTS Books. The Aalto University publication platform generates the standard front and back covers to the doctoral theses. The platform also generates the title pages and the abstract pages for the doctoral thesis.

Reference management

EndNote is a tool for recording, saving and utilizing bibliographic citations otherwise known as references. It allows users to collect, write, import, organise, and format references. Users can also collaborate and share references with other users having access to the same reference management software. Aalto University has a full licence for reference management tool EndNote for our students, academic and other staff members.

Reference Management Software EndNote

Copyright issues

If the thesis contains material that has already been published (such as pictures) the doctoral student should refer to it appropriately and obtain the required copyrights, when necessary.

Copyrights should also be obtained for the separate publications included in an article thesis. Publications in an electronic form should be equivalent in content with the printed publications.

Answers to copyright-related questions can be found in Copyright Guide and Copyright Guide: Use of Images. 

See more at the section Research integrity: Responsible conduct of research

Patents nor standards may not be used as publications of an article-based thesis. Patents and standards are important results of research work, but their publication practices may be in conflict with the principles of scientific publication. Patents can be presented in the summary, and if necessary, be appended to the thesis.

The purpose of using Turnitin for draft versions of the thesis is to improve the doctoral student's scientific writing skills and to prevent unpleasant surprises due to, say, plagiarism later in the process.

The doctoral student submits a draft version of the thesis in a "Draft" activity in MyCourses. The supervising professor can utilize the Turnitin report for assessing the draft and also give feedback to the doctoral student using the Turnitin feedback tools (for details, see Thesis supervision workspace in MyCourses) or with some other preferred tool.

The doctoral student revises the draft with help of the Turnitin report and the feedback from the supervising professor. It is also possible to get a Turnitin similarity report for your draft on your own, see Turnitin instructions for independent usage.

The purpose of using Turnitin on the final version of the thesis manuscript to be sent for pre-examination is to check that the thesis sent to the pre-examiners doesn’t contain plagiarism.

The doctoral student submits the final version of the thesis for pre-examination in the pre-examination activity in MyCourses.

The supervising professor interprets the Turnitin similarity report at the same time as she/he assesses other aspects of the content.

• If the interpretation of the Turnitin report indicates plagiarism, the procedure of handling plagiarism is begun (this unfortunate step is unlikely if Turnitin has been used with the drafts version together with the supervising professor)
• The pre-examiners can be informed that the thesis has been checked for plagiarism.

The purpose of Turnitin usage for the final version of a thesis is twofold:

• to make sure again that there is no plagiarism in the final version (if the previous steps are done with Turnitin this is highly unlikely and barely needed).
• to ensure that the thesis is protected against plagiarism by others in future. Technically, the aim is to make sure that the final version of the thesis is indexed in the Turnitin repositories one way or another:
  • A thesis published in Aaltodoc, being an open publication archive, is automatically indexed into the Turnitin repositories (most cases) as Turnitin continually scans the internet for new documents.
  • If the thesis is not published in the Aaltodoc (e.g., in cotutelle cases), the doctoral student should submit the final published version of the thesis in the "Version for grading" activity in MyCourses. In this activity the submission is archived in Turnitin's student paper repository.

An article-based doctoral thesis consists of a set of publications on a related set of problems, and a summary of the findings.

The articles included in the doctoral thesis are published or submitted for publication in an acknowledged peer-reviewed forum in the discipline (for example, a scientific publication series, conference proceedings or other work). Articles not yet accepted for publication can also be included in the doctoral thesis. The number of publications required for the thesis depends on their extent, scientific significance and quality as well as on the weight of the independent contribution of the doctoral student to the publications.

The articles may also include co-authored publications if the author's independent contribution to them can be demonstrated. An article can be included in several doctoral theses if the separate contribution of the doctoral student can be demonstrated.

The summary of the article-based doctoral thesis is an independent entity, which provides an overview of the thesis contents. The summary shall describe the research problem, research goals and methods, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline. The summary shall contain a list of the publications included in the thesis and describe the independent contribution of the student in each publication separately.

A monograph is a coherent writing based on the work of the doctoral student and written by the student. The monograph may contain references to previous works by the doctoral student on the same topic.

The doctoral thesis describes the research problem, the research goals, the used methods and results, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline.

An essay-based doctoral thesis consists of scientific essays and a summary. The essays and the summary shall deal with a single research problem or set of problems so that, when viewed as a whole, the independent contribution of the author meets the requirements set for a doctoral thesis.

Each of the essays shall contain new results and viewpoints, and shall primarily be based on independent research by the author, but also collaboratively written essays may be accepted as part of the doctoral thesis if the independent contribution of the author can be clearly demonstrated.

The number of essays required depends on their extent, scientific significance and quality as well as on the weight of the independent contribution of the author to the essays.

The summary describes the research problem, research goals and methods, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline. The summary contains a description of the independent contribution of the author in each of the essays.

At its discretion, the school may also approve as a doctoral thesis some other work meeting corresponding scientific criteria.