You must get an approval of all courses not offered by the Graduate School of Health via PhD Course Management to be able to include the ECTS from the external course in your PhD Plan. This includes courses from other AU departments, faculties and units, even those offered by other Graduate Schools at AU via PhD Course Management.
Please note, you cannot get external courses approved if they are taken during leave from the PhD study or completed after enrolment end date.
Case processing can take up to 4 weeks.
If you would like to include an external course in your PhD Planner, you must use the form "Apply for approval" to submit the following after you have completed the course:
You are able to apply for a pre-approval of an external course in the following cases:
If you would like to get an external course pre-approved, you must use the form "Apply for pre-approval" to submit the following prior to course attendance:
Once the graduate school has pre-approved your external course, you are guaranteed ECTS accreditation for the given course.
Re-submit your application for approval after you have completed the external course in order to get the ECTS accreditation (see above). Use the form "Apply for approval".
The graduate school will normally be able to approve courses included in the following categories:
Category | Additional condition for approval |
|---|---|
Courses at PhD level offered by other health science faculties | |
Courses at PhD level offered by other faculties | Only if the course has direct relevance to the PhD project |
PhD courses completed before enrolment in the PhD programme | A maximum of 15 ECTS for courses taken within the last two years before enrolment, and only if the course has direct relevance to the PhD project and as a minimum is at the same level as our own PhD courses (learn about credit transfer) |
PhD courses taken during a Research Year or in connection with enrolment in the PhD programme | A maximum of 15 ECTS for PhD courses completed during the research year and within the last 5 years before enrolment in the PhD programme can be transferred and approved as part of your PhD degree (learn about credit transfer) |
University courses at a Master's degree level | Only up to a max of 10 ECTS credits under the following conditions: If the course has been concluded with an exam If the course has not been included in the PhD student's Master's Degree, and If the main supervisor can confirm that the Master's degree course is relevant to the PhD project |
Online based PhD courses | Only under the following conditions: If the course has been pre-approved* by the graduate school, and If the student has successfully completed the concluding exam/assignment |
Network activities and annual meetings including activities similar to courses | Only under the following conditions: If activities similar to course activity are included (e.g. workshops, group work, educational sessions etc.) If the main supervisor can confirm that the activity is relevant to the PhD project |
| Conferences and congresses | Only under the following conditions (as of 1 May 2018): Find the conditions at the site "ECTS for other external activities". You do not need to apply for an approval; simply update your Planner and upload documentation for participation. |
The Graduate School of Health allocates ECTS credits for external courses based on teaching hours, time spent on home assignments, exam etc. Therefore, we ask you to submit a detailed course programme when applying for approval of an external course.
The allocated ECTS value might differ from the ECTS value stated in the external course certificate, since the external institution might use a different calculation model.
At the Graduate School of Health 1 ECTS equals 10 teaching hours including preparation (preparation factor 1,5) for external courses.
NB: Preparation hours are not included on Coursera courses. (Example: 25 working hours equals 1 ECTS)
There are a few exceptions to the above procedure:
The approval procedure however remains the same.
