Centria publishes its thesis rules as a LibGuide rather than a PDF, which makes them easier to keep current and easier to read in pieces. This page draws on the stages, maturity test and Theseus sections.
Two things here are stricter than at most Finnish UAS institutions: the maturity test is a supervised exam, and the submission deadline is fixed relative to graduation rather than to a committee meeting.
Scope
The thesis is 15 credits in bachelor's programmes and 30 credits in master's programmes.
How the process runs
An implementation plan is made at the beginning and presented in a separate seminar or on a relevant course. It covers the background, the problem or development task, the objectives, and a schedule for the whole work.
Language instruction is built in, in stages. You receive language instruction at stage 1/3, and the language instructor assesses the language of the thesis at stage 3/3. The thesis must be submitted as a Word file via Wihi for text guidance and assessment — not as a PDF.
You assess yourself. The student completes a self-assessment form, found in the Forms section of the guide. The student or supervisor should also ask the commissioner, where possible, for an evaluation of the practical part of the project.
The deadline that decides your graduation date
This is the number to plan around:
- The report must be given to the supervisor for assessment two months before graduation.
- The report must also be sent to Turnitin for plagiarism detection.
- After assessment, it takes approximately one month before you can graduate.
So from handing in to graduating is on the order of three months. Centria also recommends reading the assessment criteria at the start of the project rather than the end, which is sensible advice everywhere and rarely followed.
The maturity test is a real exam
Most Finnish institutions let the abstract or a press release serve as the maturity test, written at your desk. Centria does not, at bachelor's level.
- Taken independently under supervised conditions.
- Three hours (180 minutes).
- No additional material may be used.
- You decide with your instructor whether to write by hand or type. Written by hand, it should be written on every line of the paper. Typed, the computer must be specifically assigned and cleared by the university for the purpose.
The topics are given on the day. Your supervisor provides two to four topics based on your thesis, handed to you at the test occasion, and you choose one. The subject might be a particular perspective on your thesis topic, or a closer look at one sub-area of it.
You agree the text type when registering for the test.
Length and form
- Essay: at least 400 words. A critical, reflective text, beginning with an introduction and ending with a concluding paragraph.
- Internal release: 200–300 words, written by computer under supervision, following field-specific guidelines.
The structure and heading must support the text type and match the contents.
One instruction worth taking seriously: do not assume the reader knows your thesis. The maturity test has to stand on its own.
Assessment
Split between two assessors:
- Content — the thesis supervisor.
- Language and style — an English language teacher.
Graded passed or failed. If you fail, you are obliged to get feedback from the language teacher before re-sitting.
Language
The stated purpose includes demonstrating proficiency in writing academic texts in English. The exception: Finnish citizens studying in international degree programmes must write the maturity test in their language of schooling — Finnish or Swedish.
At master's level
The maturity test is a media release on the thesis work, taken after the thesis report has been submitted for assessment.
Publicity, and what the law actually allows
Centria is unusually precise about the legal basis. A thesis is always a public document, grounded in:
- the Finnish Constitution (1999), section 12,
- the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), and
- Ministry of Education and Culture instructions of 28 January 2004.
Those instructions require universities of applied sciences to ensure confidential material is not included in theses, and that theses are made public immediately after approval.
Handling confidential material
- The student ensures the thesis does not contain anything agreed with the commissioner to be confidential.
- If there is a confidential section, this is mentioned in the abstract.
- The confidential section stays with the commissioner as a separate appendix, counts as background material, and is not assessed.
Publicity can be restricted only for material prescribed confidential by law. Business secrets are the named example — and only where the party concerned has not given permission to share. Patents follow higher-education invention legislation and general patent law; copyright follows general copyright law.
Theseus: open or restricted
Finished and approved theses are uploaded to Theseus, which has two sides:
- the open collection, publicly accessible; and
- the restricted collection, accessible from the Centria network.
Even for the restricted collection, the metadata — author, title, abstract and so on — is accessible to everyone. Restriction limits the full text, not the record of the thesis existing.
What we could not confirm
Centria does not publish a similarity percentage threshold for Turnitin. The report goes for plagiarism detection alongside assessment, but no numeric limit is stated in the guide.
The detailed assessment criteria live in chapter 12 of the Centria guide rather than on the pages used here. This page does not reproduce the grading bands — read that chapter directly, and, as Centria advises, read it when you start rather than when you finish.
