Table of Contents

Submission Guide

This explains how to submit the deliverables for your final year project. For what to submit, check the relevant deliverable section for your project module.

All deliverables must be submitted via PATS, except for physical artefacts. Some larger datasets, videos or similar that are only for general support or context may be provided elsewhere. All submissions must contain at least one PDF file in the document files section, or PATS will not allow you to complete the submission.

Submission generally consists of two main steps: (i) upload and check all files for the submission; (ii) complete submission by clicking the “Complete Submission” button. Do not forget step (ii). You can submit as many times as you wish before the deadline (as long as PATS lets you submit), but only the last submission archive is marked, and at most, the last two submissions are kept (if you do not delete them). Any files left in the submission area are not marked, and it is best not to leave any to avoid confusion. You can keep the submission files in the submission area and keep updating them and only perform the second step once you are sure all files are complete.

After completing step (ii), we suggest downloading and checking the contents of your submission archive. In particular, the files in the PDF section are merged into a single PDF file, protected/encrypted to avoid modification and completed with any missing fonts as far as possible. During upload, PATS provides tools to check the contents of the files and also merge the files. You may want to check the resulting submitted PDF files for any issues which can, for instance, be caused by missing fonts in the original files (this means that even the original files may also not show up correctly on your markers PDF viewers). We are trying to create an archival PDF format (PDF/A) from what you submit to minimise any issues with viewing later on as much as possible.

In a submission on PATS, we usually expect a report with sufficient evidence to back up your claims such that they can be verified and reproduced in principle. Often the report with sources is adequate for this. Sometimes you may have some extra data files, videos or images for demonstrations. You only have to submit files you created yourself. No need to submit any files automatically created, such as compiled object files or binaries. There is also no need to submit files from a framework or development suite or otherwise obtained assets you are using (these can easily be referenced - they do not have to be freely available). Some extra data files may be useful to document computational and analysis results, etc. We do not have to be able to execute your code from what is submitted, as it only serves as evidence of what you have done.

File Submission

For each deliverable, PATS has two sections to submit files:

What is suitable to submit often depends on your project and your report. Please discuss with your supervisor what you should include if you are unsure. Your supervisor and moderator can see any of the files you have in the submission area and your current and previous submission archive.

To add files to these sections, press one of the related upload buttons, which opens a separate file selection dialogue. You have a choice to use the resumable upload function, which allows you to continue interrupted uploads, but may not work with all browsers and is particularly suitable for larger files. Instead, you can use the standard direct upload, which should work with all browsers, but cannot be resumed. Once you have uploaded a file, you can view its type, file size, and checksums (to check if your upload was successful). You can further rename, delete and move the file up or down in the list in each section. You cannot move files between sections.

For the files in the document section, you can check if there could be potential issues with the PDF files. You can also combine all files in this section into a single file (PATS will do this automatically upon submission completion).

After you have uploaded at least one file to the document files section, you can complete the submission. This will generate a zip file containing all the files you have uploaded in all sections, sorted by these sections, and in order they are displayed in the submission area. The document files will be combined into a single PDF file. Your files count as submitted only after you have completed the submission. While files in the content area are visible to your supervisor and moderator, they do not count as submitted nor serve as extensions to the submission; they will be ignored.

You can resubmit at any time before the deadline (all deadlines are by 23:00 on the day shown). A resubmission will completely replace the previously submitted files and not extend the previous submission, so always upload all files into the submission area and then submit them all at once by completing the submission. You can delete the archive at any time before the deadline and also download the archive to verify its contents.

Make sure you check the contents of any files you upload in the file submission area and especially the contents of the final submission archive. Files uploaded via the network may sometimes be corrupted, and downloading them again to verify their content avoids any problems. To verify the files, you may also use the checksums. See Checksums for further information. (Some PDF files and archives are modified for compatibility and so the checksums are not the same as your local files).

Physical Artefacts

Some projects may also produce physical artefacts without any digital versions of them. Hardware or similar physical objects need not be submitted but should be suitably demonstrated via videos, images or similar material showing their function. Your report should contain sufficient information to rebuild these. Any physical documentation necessary for your project should, however, be included in the archive in a digitised format.

Anything that fits on an A4 page or smaller can be scanned and directly included in the report as a figure. For documents larger than A4, we recommend taking photos and submitting the image files via PATS. If a single photo is insufficient due to resolution limitations, you can take multiple overlapping photos of the document and combine these into a single image.

If you have any problems with this, discuss them with your supervisors and potentially with our IT Service Desk.

Extremely Large Files/Archives

We have no strict file size limitations for the submissions. But some projects may produce or use massive data sets (say >50GB) that are unsuitable for submission on PATS for various reasons. We recommend discussing with your supervisor what to do with these and if they are needed. Often it may be more suitable to submit them to a public file sharing/archiving site than keeping them on PATS and reference them from your report instead. In some cases, they may also not be required.

You may make larger files/archives available outside of PATS if they are mainly supporting or optional data. These should be clearly referenced in the report. Make sure your supervisor and moderator can view these files and provide share links as references in the report so that other examiners (e.g. third markers, external examiners) are able to access them. Ideally, of course, they would be provided via publicly accessible storage without any restrictions.

Submission Problems and Peace of Mind

After you complete the submission of your files on PATS, your deliverable counts as submitted, and you do not have to do anything else. You can verify your submission yourself by checking the provided submission archive. We do not expect any problems with the network connection, the server or the integrity of your submitted file. However, to avoid any problems with the integrity of your submission and to deal with any problems arising from the server, Internet connections or anything else that prevents you from submitting the project in time, please follow these instructions:

Generally, sharing files with the project coordinator before the deadline works well to resolve any issues. But note that it may take some time until we can get back to you to sort out the problem.

If, for some reason, you are unable to submit your files online anywhere, there is a further offline alternative to this process as a last resort:

So far, we have never had to use this approach.

Recommended File Types

You can use any file type as long as they are suitable in the support file section. However, in general, we recommend the following file formats unless there is a good reason for your project to use a different format: