Pareto improvement: Instead of letting students write bachelors/masters theses that are basically just literature reviews, let them rewrite the respective Wikipedia articles instead (and then the supervisor checks the article).
Advantage: Instead of (in expectation) 10 people benefitting from the literature review, now a couple of hundred (for obscure pages) or potentially tens of thousands (for mildly popular pages) of people benefit.
That would depend on the university’s rules and customs. I think a general rule of thumb might be that a bachelor’s thesis may contain new research, a master’s thesis should, and a doctoral thesis must.
Pareto improvement: Instead of letting students write bachelors/masters theses that are basically just literature reviews, let them rewrite the respective Wikipedia articles instead (and then the supervisor checks the article).
Advantage: Instead of (in expectation) 10 people benefitting from the literature review, now a couple of hundred (for obscure pages) or potentially tens of thousands (for mildly popular pages) of people benefit.
I thought masters’ theses were supposed to be about new research (and maybe bachelor theses too?). Is this not the case?
That would depend on the university’s rules and customs. I think a general rule of thumb might be that a bachelor’s thesis may contain new research, a master’s thesis should, and a doctoral thesis must.