An Approach to Facilitate Students’ Work on a Graduate Thesis Based on Ontologies and Faceted Classification

This work devoted to facilitating students to perform complex research (such as master’s thesis) based on a special cognitive map (the ontology). This map reveals possible detailed activities to complete such work. The elements of this map (nodes) represent a small activity and are connected to resources. These resources are depicted in the form of one or more nodes (facets), which help students to receive useful information for performing the activity. We presented the structure of the map, which represented the general plan of the master thesis. In addition, we offered the steps to use this card throughout the process of preparing the thesis. The pilot examination of this map revealed additional purpose to apply it. This map can be used as not only a navigation aid to facilitate students’ planning of their theses, but a tool to detail diagnosis of various problems that students face when performing complex science-intensive work.