Aalto University Art and Media Master’s Thesis Guide: 30 ECTS AXM.thes, 6 ECTS Thesis Seminar and 2027 Submission Dates

Aalto University’s Master’s Programme in Art and Media is a 120 ECTS Master of Arts (Art and Design) programme organised by the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. For the current 2026-2028 curriculum, the six English-scope majors covered by this guide are Game Design and Development, New Media, Photography, Sound in New Media, Visual Communication Design, and Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA). Although these fields can produce very different research questions and artistic outputs, their current public thesis administration is shared.

The central formal thesis is AXM.thes, 30 ECTS. The six majors also use the maturity-test code ARTSa.matr and include the separate AXM-E0004 Art & Media Thesis Seminar, 6 ECTS, normally in the second study year. The seminar is not added to the thesis credit value. The correct planning model is a 30 ECTS thesis plus a separate 6 ECTS seminar within the major studies.

This guide intentionally keeps Art Education / Kuvataidekasvatus outside the English-scope publication object. It also does not import page counts, word counts or administrative rules from Architecture, Design, Film and Television or technical schools. The current public Art and Media instructions provide a common process for these six majors, so one parent-level guide is more accurate than six nearly duplicated administrative guides.

Where the thesis fits in the current degree

The degree totals 120 ECTS. The programme describes a structure of 90 ECTS of major studies, including the 30 ECTS thesis, plus 30 ECTS of elective studies. The thesis is therefore a substantial part of the major and is normally concentrated in the second study year.

Across the six English-scope majors, the curriculum repeatedly lists AXM.thes as the 30 ECTS master’s thesis and AXM-E0004 Art & Media Thesis Seminar as a 6 ECTS course. This shared structure is important because it means a Game Design student, a Photography student and a ViCCA student may have very different subject matter, but they are not using three different public thesis submission systems.

Most of the majors also include AXM-E0006 Doing Research in Art & Media, 3 ECTS. Game Design and Development has a specific recommendation to take CS-E5010 Research Methods: Foundations instead. That difference is academically meaningful, but it does not alter AXM.thes, the seminar, MyStudies submission or the programme-level examination process.

The 6 ECTS Art & Media Thesis Seminar is separate from the thesis

AXM-E0004 Art & Media Thesis Seminar is a 6 ECTS course and is scheduled in English across periods I-III of the second year. It provides a common environment in which students can develop a topic, position the work in a field, discuss research and artistic methods, receive feedback and move toward a submit-ready thesis.

Students should avoid adding these credits to the formal thesis and calling the thesis 36 ECTS. Aalto lists AXM.thes separately as 30 ECTS. The better interpretation is that the seminar supports the thesis process while remaining its own course.

The seminar is also useful for planning differences between majors. A Game Design thesis might combine design research, technical experimentation and playable work. New Media may involve computational, interactive or media-art practices. Photography may combine artistic practice with critical or historical analysis. Sound in New Media may involve sonic production, interaction, technology or listening studies. Visual Communication Design may connect visual systems, communication, computation and social contexts. ViCCA may use artistic research, curatorial practice, critical theory or contemporary-art research. The programme allows these intellectual differences while keeping the administrative route common.

Define the thesis around the actual major and research problem

A shared administrative route does not mean one universal thesis method. Topic, evidence, production form and research method must fit the student’s major and the problem being investigated. A practice-based project still needs a clear academic purpose and an assessable relationship between the work, documentation and written thesis. A theory-led project still needs an appropriate research design rather than a generic chapter template copied from another discipline.

The current public Art and Media thesis page does not publish one universal page count, word count or character range for all six majors. It also does not prescribe one universal method. Students should therefore agree the expected written scope and the role of any artistic or production component with the supervisor and advisor rather than borrowing a number from another Aalto programme.

This boundary matters especially in a broad programme. The amount of writing that makes sense beside a complex installation, photographic project, sound work or game prototype may not be identical to the amount needed for a primarily theoretical thesis. What remains constant is that the final work must satisfy master’s-level academic assessment and the programme’s formal submission requirements.

Create and maintain the formal thesis record in MyStudies

Aalto’s current thesis administration uses MyStudies. Students provide thesis topic, supervisor and advisor information there. The supervisor confirms supervision and approves the topic and advisor or advisors. MyStudies is also used to maintain basic thesis metadata and later to submit the finished work for evaluation, approval and archiving.

The formal record should stay aligned with the real project. If a topic changes materially, if the production component changes, or if supervision arrangements change, students should resolve those changes early with the programme and update the thesis record rather than discovering a mismatch at final submission.

For students whose thesis process began before the MyStudies transition, the current Art and Media page still instructs them to enter the necessary thesis information in MyStudies. The safest current practice is therefore to treat MyStudies as the authoritative administrative record for the thesis process.

The 30 ECTS thesis progresses through staged credit approvals

The programme’s thesis instructions use staged progress. The supervisor approves Thesis Part I, 10 ECTS, and Thesis Part II, 10 ECTS. Once Part II is completed, the thesis examiners are named and the programme director confirms them. Together with the final stage, these milestones complete the 30 ECTS thesis.

This staged structure is useful for project management. The first stage should establish a defensible research or artistic problem, the relevant context and a workable project plan. The second stage should show substantial development of research, production, analysis and writing. The final stage should focus on completion, integration, feedback, presentation, technical compliance and formal submission.

Students should not treat the first 20 ECTS as two administrative boxes that can be completed without a coherent project. The purpose of staged approval is to make progress visible and to give the supervisor a formal basis for monitoring whether the thesis is moving toward master’s-level completion.

Supervisor, advisor and examiners have different roles

The supervisor is selected based on the thesis topic according to the programme process and confirms supervision in MyStudies. The supervisor approves the topic and advisor or advisors and is responsible for ensuring that the student receives appropriate advising and feedback.

The advisor is important during the working process and checks the Turnitin originality report according to the current instructions. Students should use advising meetings to resolve research design, production scope, analysis, writing and schedule questions before they become submission problems.

The examiners are named after Thesis Part II. The programme director confirms them. The supervisor is normally one examiner and the second can be programme faculty or an external expert in the field. At the final stage, the supervisor and external examiner read and evaluate the thesis and submit a statement with a grade proposal to the Programme Committee.

Register the intention to submit in MyStudies

Art and Media uses an additional planning step before final hand-in. Students register their intention to submit by changing the thesis record’s planned end date in MyStudies by the published intention deadline. Aalto explains that this registration is not binding. If the student misses the intention deadline, submission can still be possible, but the student should contact the supervisor and student services immediately.

The reason for registering is operational. The programme needs an estimate of how many theses are approaching a particular deadline so that presentations, examination and study-plan checks can be organised. Students should therefore take the intention date seriously even though it is not itself a final submission lock.

For 2026, the programme publishes four operational routes. The primary spring route uses intention by 27 April, oral presentation by 12 May, final thesis hand-in 25 May, and grade decision in June. The supplementary spring route keeps the 27 April intention date, has the oral presentation by 15 June, hand-in 31 July, and grade decision in August. The autumn secondary route uses intention 26 October, oral presentation 9 November, hand-in 23 November, and grade decision in December. The autumn supplementary route uses intention 26 October, oral presentation 7 December, hand-in 31 December, and grade decision in January 2027.

The oral presentation is a mandatory pre-submission quality gate

The oral presentation is mandatory. Aalto describes it as a milestone where the student presents a completed thesis draft and receives feedback that can still be used before the final hand-in. The presentation must be completed before examination permission is given.

The supervisor’s permission to submit is based on both the thesis document and the presentation. The presentation can take place in a public setting or in a more informal setting with the supervisor, depending on what is useful for the project. A notable Art and Media rule is that the external examiner cannot be present at this oral presentation.

The presentation should therefore be planned as a genuine final-stage review, not as a ceremonial talk after the project is already frozen. Students should discuss the format with the supervisor and use the feedback to strengthen the thesis before final submission.

For the July supplementary route, Aalto makes the independence requirement especially clear: supervision ends with the mid-June oral presentation, and the student is expected to work independently until the July hand-in. This makes a realistic June draft essential.

Use Turnitin before the final upload and understand the automatic reports

The current Art and Media process requires an originality report in Turnitin during the thesis process according to programme practices, and the advisor checks that report. The purpose is not simply to obtain a low similarity percentage. Similarity results need academic interpretation, especially for quotations, references, standard terminology and legitimate overlap.

At final MyStudies submission, Aalto also creates originality and AI-detection reports automatically, and the supervisor receives access. Students should not wait for this final automatic check to discover citation, attribution or drafting problems. Source use, quotations, paraphrasing and documentation should already be correct before examination permission is requested.

Aalto’s current AI guidance also states that AI-generated text may not be presented directly or in unmodified form as the student’s own work, and AI use is prohibited in maturity exams. Because the thesis abstract functions as the maturity test in this process, students must follow the maturity-test restriction rather than assuming that general AI allowances elsewhere automatically apply to the assessed abstract.

The thesis abstract is the maturity test

The thesis abstract is the maturity test, and the supervisor approves its content. Depending on the student’s earlier language-of-education and maturity-test history, language checking may also be required through the relevant Aalto process.

The abstract therefore has two functions. It is a concise academic representation of the thesis and, when the maturity requirement applies, it is also an assessed maturity demonstration. Students should write it only after the core argument, method, material and conclusions are stable enough to be represented accurately.

Because Aalto prohibits AI in maturity exams, the maturity abstract needs particular care. Students should not treat it as a place where an AI system can generate the final text for them. The supervisor and official language requirements remain authoritative.

Production and artistic components can be submitted with documentation

Art and Media is a practice-rich programme, and the thesis submission system explicitly recognises a production part or documentation of production alongside the written part. If the thesis includes an artistic component and separate pictures, audio or video are needed, Aalto allows these to be stored as media appendix files with appropriate credentials and metadata.

If the documentation is already adequately included in the written thesis, a separate media appendix is not necessarily needed. If examiners have not examined the production component earlier, the student should contact them and arrange the examination of that component.

This means production planning must include documentation planning. A strong artistic work can still create an examination problem if the examiners cannot access, identify or assess the relevant component. File formats, links, credits, captions, metadata and the relationship between production and written analysis should therefore be settled before the hand-in week.

Final submission: PDF/A, under 100 MB, through MyStudies

The final thesis is submitted through MyStudies for evaluation, approval and archiving. The written thesis file must be PDF/A and the maximum file size is 100 MB. Aalto warns that submission will not go through if the file exceeds the maximum or is not in an accepted PDF/A format.

The university provides a thesis template, but the current Art and Media page states that the template is not mandatory. This does not remove the technical submission rules. Students should validate the PDF/A file and check that the converted document is identical to the intended final thesis.

Image-heavy theses require particular attention. Aalto recommends keeping the PDF/A smaller where possible, while recognising that theses with many images may approach the 100 MB ceiling. Compression should not destroy the academic or visual evidence required for assessment, so technical preparation should begin before the deadline.

Approved theses are public and Aaltodoc publication is a separate choice

Aalto master’s theses are public documents. Confidential information should not be placed in the evaluated thesis. This rule is different from the question of whether the complete thesis is immediately published online.

The thesis and its metadata are archived in Aaltodoc. Students can choose whether the full text is published online. The online publishing date can be postponed for up to one year, for example when publication, patent or corporate considerations justify delay. However, postponing online publication does not make the thesis confidential. If online publishing permission is not granted, the archived PDF remains available by request under the public-document rules.

After approval, the thesis cannot simply be changed and resubmitted in MyStudies. If an error is discovered, Aalto uses an errata process. This is another reason to treat the final upload as a frozen academic record and conduct a careful content and file review before submission.

Evaluation and Programme Committee grading

After final hand-in, the supervisor and external examiner evaluate the thesis. They submit an examiner statement and a grade proposal to the Programme Committee, which discusses the proposals and makes the grade decision.

The oral presentation and final upload therefore do not themselves produce the final grade. They move the thesis into the examination process. Students should keep this sequence clear when planning graduation because the final grade may be registered after the thesis has already been submitted in its final form.

Confirmed 2027 thesis submission dates

Aalto’s Art and Media graduation page confirms four MA thesis submission dates for 2027:

• 26 May 2027, with Programme Committee grade confirmation 14-18 June 2027;
• 30 July 2027, with grade confirmation 23-27 August 2027;
• 17 November 2027, with grade confirmation 7-10 December 2027;
• 31 December 2027, with grade confirmation 17-21 January 2028.

These are confirmed final thesis submission dates. They are not confirmed Art and Media intention or oral-presentation dates. As of 31 August 2026, the Art and Media thesis page publishes its detailed programme-specific intention and oral timetable for 2026 only. Students planning a 2027 hand-in should therefore use the confirmed final submission date as the outer deadline and recheck the Art and Media thesis page for the corresponding 2027 intention and presentation schedule when Aalto publishes it.

Graduation planning in Sisu

Graduation is requested in Sisu. The personal study plan should be up to date, and other studies included in the MA degree must be completed and registered when the student applies for the degree certificate. The thesis is an exception in the sense that it must have been submitted in final form for evaluation by that point; the final thesis approval can be registered later.

The thesis also needs to be archived in Aaltodoc through MyStudies. Students should therefore coordinate three related systems rather than treating them as one action: MyStudies for thesis administration and final submission, Aaltodoc for archiving/publication, and Sisu for the degree and graduation request.

A practical planning sequence

A workable Art and Media thesis schedule begins before the formal submission semester. Use the first year and early second year to identify a viable topic, build methodological competence and clarify what counts as evidence or production in the chosen major. Use AXM-E0004 to turn this into an explicit thesis plan and working structure.

During Part I, establish the research or artistic problem, field context, initial sources, method and feasibility. During Part II, produce substantial research, analysis, writing and, where relevant, the artistic or production component. Once Part II is approved, confirm the examiners and move toward a near-final document rather than continuing unlimited exploration.

Before registering intention to submit, check the real remaining workload with the supervisor. Before the oral presentation, produce a completed draft that is mature enough for meaningful final feedback. After the presentation, address that feedback, complete the maturity abstract, finish Turnitin and integrity checks, prepare production documentation, validate PDF/A, and verify MyStudies metadata.

Finally, submit the frozen thesis through MyStudies by the correct final deadline, ensure Aaltodoc choices are understood, and submit the graduation request in Sisu when the degree requirements allow it.

Final checklist

Before final hand-in, confirm that:

• your study right belongs to one of the six English-scope Art and Media majors covered by this guide;
• you are using AXM.thes as the 30 ECTS thesis and not treating the 6 ECTS thesis seminar as part of that credit value;
• topic, supervisor and advisors are approved and current in MyStudies;
• Thesis Part I and Part II have been formally progressed with the supervisor;
• examiners have been named after Part II;
• the Turnitin check has been completed according to programme practice;
• the mandatory oral presentation has been completed before examination permission;
• the maturity abstract is complete and follows the no-AI maturity-exam rule;
• production or artistic documentation is assessable and correctly identified;
• the written thesis is a validated PDF/A below 100 MB;
• the final upload is the version you are prepared to preserve as the approved public thesis;
• you have not confused a 2027 final submission date with an unpublished 2027 oral-presentation date;
• your Sisu study plan and graduation request are handled separately from thesis submission.

Final planning principle

The safest way to plan an Aalto Art and Media thesis is to separate shared administration from major-specific intellectual work. The six English-scope majors share AXM.thes, the 6 ECTS Art & Media Thesis Seminar, MyStudies, staged thesis approvals, the mandatory oral presentation, Turnitin, maturity, PDF/A, examiner review, Programme Committee grading and Aaltodoc. Those common rules justify one programme-level guide.

What should remain flexible is the research problem, method, production form and balance between written and artistic evidence. Students should use the shared process as a stable administrative framework while making the thesis academically specific to Game Design, New Media, Photography, Sound in New Media, Visual Communication Design or ViCCA. That approach is more accurate than forcing the six disciplines into one intellectual template or, at the opposite extreme, pretending they have six different submission systems.