Instructions for Bachelor's Thesis

The results of the thesis are meant to be utilised by all. When submitted to the University of Applied Sciences, a thesis is interpreted as an authoritative document, which, based on the Act on the Publicity of Actions Taken by Authorities (Act on the Openess of Government Activities 621/1999), is public, unless otherwise stipulated by the law. The publicity principle does not apply to cover business and professional secrets, the thesis plan, the basic data, technological or other development work, and the assessment of the thesis.

In its instructions, the Ministry of Education (Opetusministeriö, 2004) has emphasised that theses defined as confidential based on the law should not be written at all. Alternatively, a thesis should be written in such a way that the confidential information is only included in a separate appendix.

In some situations, it is necessary to leave out some portion of the thesis or, exceptionally, the entire thesis as confidential.  In case it is necessary to leave part of the thesis unpublished, this can be done in the following way:

• The things kept confidential are left as the background data of the thesis and the thesis is written in such a way that it can be published in its entirety.
• The confidential information is included in an appendix, which is left unpublished.
• The student makes two different versions of the thesis, a public and a confidential one. The public version is published as a whole, and the confidential one is delivered to the commissioner of the thesis and the supervisor. 
• Some of the chapters or subchapters of the thesis are left unpublished. In that case, these sections shall include the mention “Includes business and professional secrets”.

The confidential information, sections, chapters or appendices are mentioned in the introduction of the public version of the thesis and in the abstract.

Through the thesis agreement, it is made sure that all the parties have accepted the principle of publicity of the thesis (Appendix 1).