MSc in Mathematical and Computational Finance - Examination and Assessment

 Overall Assessment

• The Examination Regulations govern the course and are taken from the overall University Examination Regulations, sometimes referred to as the 'Grey Book' which govern all academic matters within the University.
  
  In Oxford, the word 'examination' often refers to the ensemble of assessments (written examinations, dissertations etc) that, taken together, determine your final result in the MSc. The examination for the MSc in Mathematical and Computational Finance comprises:
  
  
  • Written examinations on the core courses;
  • Assessment of two options, usually by miniprojects;
  • Assessment of financial computing by practical (programming) examinations;
  • Assessment of the dissertation.
  
  The Examination Regulations are supplemented by the Examination Conventions which are published in the Course Handbook. The Examination Conventions explain in detail how students will be assessed, within the framework of the Examination Regulations.
  
  
• Past Examiner's Reports (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011)

  Assessment of Core Courses

• The core courses are all compulsory and are assessed by four written examinations, each of two hours duration.
• Two of the examinations (Papers A and B) will be based on Michaelmas Term courses and will be held before the start of Hilary Term (see Course Calendar).
• Two of the examinations (Papers C and D) will be based on Hilary Term courses and will be held before the start of Trinity Term (see Course Calendar).
• Past Exam Papers for the MSc can be found here.

  Examination Entries

• Students will be entered automatically for the assessment of the core courses, but will have to register for the assessment of the optional courses.
• The examination entries are dealt with by the Examination Schools.
• Students will have to make a choice of their options by the specified date (please see Course Calendar), and any subsequent change will incur an extra fee.
• Your College Office should contact you about making your exam entry. Please contact them if you have not heard from them one week before the deadline.
• For more information please go to University's Exam entries website.

  Assessment of optional courses

• Each student must choose two optional lecture courses.
• All Optional Courses are assessed by miniproject/assignment.
• You should choose a subject which is covered in the course. The lecturer(s) may suggest topics, or discuss this with you.
• The report may be, for example, an expanded account of a topic covered, a review of papers in the literature, or a computer implementation of an algorithm. You are required briefly to outline the relation to the material from lectures in the introduction. There is no requirement for substantial originality, but the project has to go beyond material covered in the lectures, and must be more than just summarising other sources. Assessment will take into account how you can demonstrate an understanding of methods developed in the course and apply them in a specific (new) context.
• The miniproject/assignment should be typeset. The preferred typesetting system is LaTeX. A typical report will be about eight to ten single-spaced typed pages of A4. Please ensure you keep a copy for your records.
• Examples of assignments submitted as mini-projects:
  • The Kelly Criterion
  • Risk Management and Hedging of Guarantee Features in Variable Annuities
  • On the Numerical Valuation of Swing Options
  • Derivative Use for Risk Management in Shipping
  • Investigation of the Properties of the abcd Function in Relation to LMM-SABR Model
  • Estimating Model Parameters from Market Quotes
  • On expansions for the SABR model

  Assessment of Programming Courses

• Both programming courses are compulsory.
• Each is assessed by a three-hour practical examination (see Course Calendar).

  Guidance on submission of option mini-projects

• For information on deadlines for submitting work, please refer to the Course Calendar
• ALL projects are to be submitted online using the online system.
• You will need your Mathematical Institute IT account username and password to submit work to this site. If you have any difficulties email help [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk
• You must submit ONE electronic file. Any subsidiary programming or other files must be included, as an appendix, within this single file. If you are unsure as to how to do this please contact mathcompfin [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk for further advice. (Occasionally these instructions may vary. In such cases full details will be given to students at the time.)
• Please ensure that you give your candidate number on your assisgnment and no other identifying information - i.e. do not put your name, college, etc.
• Please ensure the document is named as your candidate number (e.g. "24567.pdf")
• The website will supply you with a confirmation number and email upon submission of the assignment. If you are supplied with a confirmation number and email you can be sure that the work has been successfully submitted. You should keep this for your own records.
• In the extremely unlikely event that there does seem to be some technical problem and you are concerned that your work has not been submitted please email it immediately to mathcompfin [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk, with a copy of the Declaration of Authorship to attest that it is your own work, except where indicated. The Declaration of Authorship can be found here. NB: You only fill in this form if you are submitting it via email. In exceptional cases where a candidate is unable to submit work electronically, he or she must apply to the Supervisory Committee for permission to submit the work in paper form to the Examiners, c/o the Academic Administrator for Mathematical Finance, Mathematical Institute. Such applications must reach the Mathematical Institute not less than two weeks before the deadline for submitting the work.
• It is vital that you submit your work by the deadline, as any late submission - even one minute late - must be reported to the Proctors.  If you experience a medical emergency or other catastrophe which threatens to prevent you from submitting on time please contact mathcompfin [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk,mathcompfin [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk ( )and your College Office as soon as circumstances allow to explain the situation.  

Also to remind you that all submitted mini-projects/assignments and Dissertations will be screened by Turnitin soft-ware which will compare them to a wide range of material (both published and unpublished) and to the work of other candidates. The Examiners will be notified of the extent of any textual matches discovered by Turnitin, and will consider, for instance, whether any text that a candidate has copied from elsewhere is properly identified and the source duly acknowledged. Any suspected cases of plagiarism will be forwarded to the Proctors and may result in a direct fail.

  Advice on writing dissertations/essays and submitting your dissertation

• The dissertation will be written during Trinity Term on a topic chosen in consultation with your supervisor. It should be no more than 40 pages long and should contain material which, although not necessarily original research, cannot be found elsewhere. Credit will be given for the mathematical and financial content, as well as for the quality of the presentation and the clarity of the writing.
  • Typesetting: you are STRONGLY ADVISED to use LaTeX. Dissertation templates are available (see below).
  • Your font size must be no smaller than 11 point.
  • Linespacing should be no less than 1.25 times (use the command \setlength{\baselineskip}{1.25}).
  • Referencing: the golden rule is that you must ALWAYS enable the reader to see when an idea or some mathematical material has come from another source. You should do this when you introduce the material; for example, by saying “In this section we follow [2]”, or “as shown in [3], the formula for call option is…. “. The first of these is appropriate when you are paraphrasing a body of work, the latter is more specific. Direct quotations should be indicated: “Oh, had I but followed the Arts” [4]. Note that it is not sufficient merely to list some relevant sources at the end of your work: you must show who they are referred to in the body of the text. See for more advice on avoiding plagiarism.
  • Bibliography: you should cite the authors, title, date, journal, volume and page numbers for each reference. See any published papers for how to do this. Use LaTeX’s automatic citation system to get the cross-referencing right.
  • Graphics: its always tricky at first to get these right. See any good LaTeX book for hints. Remember that to make the axis labels etc large enough enough on the final version; you may have to enlarge them on your original graphic (e.g from Matlab).
• Most of the dissertations submitted by MSc in Mathematical and Computational Finance students are available here: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
• MSc Dissertation TeX template can be found here
  The style file for the above template can be found here;
  For information on using the university crests/branding, please see here,
  IT help page for LaTeX
• Three copies of your dissertation should be submitted to the Examination Schools, High Street,Oxford, by the deadline stated in the Course Calandar. You will need to submit these in an envelope addressed to the Chairman of Examiners, MSc in Mathematical and Computational Finance, c/o Examination Schools , High Street. You will also need to put your candidate number on the top corner of the envelope. It is important that you also enclose a copy of the declaration of authorship form to prove you are the author of the dissertation. Please ensure your dissertations are spiral bound. As soon as you have submitted your dissertation, you need to email a pdf version of it to mathcompfin [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk (Course Administrator).
• NB: It is recommended that you print your dissertation single sided, so it it easier to read.

Also to remind you that all submitted mini-projects/assignments and Dissertations will be screened by Turnitin soft-ware which will compare them to a wide range of material (both published and unpublished) and to the work of other candidates. The Examiners will be notified of the extent of any textual matches discovered by Turnitin, and will consider, for instance, whether any text that a candidate has copied from elsewhere is properly identified and the source duly acknowledged. Any suspected cases of plagiarism will be forwarded to the Proctors and may result in a direct fail.

  IMPORTANT notes on plagiarism

• Academics get very worked up about plagiarism (Which means the unattributed use of someone else’s ideas of writing). This is because ideas, and writing about them, are what we make, and we are recognised by their quality. Taking someone else’s ideas without acknowledgement is equivalent to theft.
• Plagiarism is also irreconcilable with academic assessment. When we ask you to write an essay, we want to see what you have to say about the subject, not what you found on the internet. You must, therefore, be scrupulous in referencing your sources. (You can use some common sense: there are only so many ways of stating absolutely standard material. Indeed, you can say, “The following definitions are standard”, where appropriate.
• The Unversity’s statement about plagiarism can be found here. You should be aware that plagiarism is surprisingly easy to detect, and will be dealt with severely. In recent years students have been refereed to the Proctors or have failed their whole course because they presented work as their own that was not theirs. If you are feeling under pressure to produce work and you feel unable to, your first resource should be to talk to your supervisor or the Course Director, not to look on the internet.

  Advice on binding your thesis

• Here are some other options for binding your theses;
  • Mathematical Institute, St Giles, please ask at reception (however, its a very busy time and only one machine, so its usually best to find an alternative)
  • Oxford print centre down Holywell street
  • Press to Print in Gloucester Green.
  • Oxford minuteman press in holly bush row.
  • All these and more show up, if you search for printing or dissertation binding in Oxford, on google.
  • You can also check with your colleges, they may provide this service, as might the reprographics department in University Offices, Wellington Square.
  • If you really have difficulties, please let the course administrator know.

  Advice on writing presentations

• The presentations are compulsory and forms 10% of the total dissertation assessment. But sub fusc need not be worn. Each student is required to give a short talk and to answer questions on your dissertation topic at an open meeting, attended by supervisors, examiners and your peer students. Each student will be allocated a 15 minute slot and you should aim to talk for 10 minutes and to allow 5 minutes for questions and discussion.
  1. When you write a presentation, you should always start by thinking:
     1. What material do I want to present?
     2. At what level of detail?
     3. How do I want to display it?
     4. How do I give the talk?
  2. Let's take these in turn.
     1. Choice of subject matter. Write down an outline of the talk: a few bullet points or headings will do. For example, start by giving the motivation for your work, in general terms, then set out the framework you work in and finally give the specific details. Don't try to cover too much; it never works. If you have more than one slide per minute, you have almost certainly got too much material.
     2. Level of detail. This is a matter for your judgement; on the whole, less is more. No audience can take in slide after slide of long equations. So simplify where possible; for example, do a special case (with simple notation) rather than the general case (with horrendous notation).
     3. Details of display. If you are doing a mathematical talk, you will almost certainly want to use LaTeX (if you want to typeset equations in Word, you are on your own!). There are various LaTeX classes for presentations, of which the beamer class is a popular example. You can download a sample file from here. Make sure your font size is large enough: slides are always less visible when projected than on your computer's screen, so to simulate real life turn the brightness down and look at the display from a coupole of metres away. If you can't read the slides the font is too small. Don't use any fancy backgrounds, as they are distracting. Be sparing with special effects such as moving type, and remember that most audiences prefer to have the whole slide revealed at once, rather than a line at a time. Put in plenty of pictures.
     4. Giving the talk: some obvious points. Face the audience. Remember that the audience can read, so you don't need to read your slides out loud; instead, talk about them, pointing out the highlights and explaining what you haven't written up.

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