Study regulations
1. Student agreement
For ensuring that the students are well informed of their rights and obligations, the EACH programme Student Agreement is signed with all students.
Examples of different types of Student Agreements:
Students with Erasmus Mundus scholarship;
Students with Tuition-Waiver scholarship;
Fee-paying students: students from EU/EEA countries; students from non-EU/EEA countries.
2. Academic calendar
The summary of the EACH programme academic calendar:
|
Universities |
Academic year |
I semester |
Exams |
Winter school |
II semester |
Exams |
Holidays/ Breaks |
| I year – UT | Sept – June | Sept – Jan | II week of Jan | 2nd half of January | Feb – June | end of May | Christmas and I week of Feb |
| II year – UU | Sept – June | Sept – Jan | end of course | 2nd half of January | Jan – June | end of course | Christmas and Easter |
| II year – AAU | Sept – May | Sept – Dec | end of course | 2nd half of January | Jan – May | end of course | Christmas and Easter |
| II year – UL | Sept – Sept | Sept – Feb | end of course | 2nd half of January | Mar – Sept | end of course | Christmas and Easter |
Full calendars of the four universities:
3. Course registration and exams
The student must register for the courses within two weeks starting from the beginning of the academic year. Students are informed as when they need to register for the second semester courses, since the registration deadlines may vary by years.
Deadline for placing students to the II year universities is at the end of January of the I academic year and takes place at the Winter School.
The student is allowed to take exams if the student has registered for the course and fulfilled all the requirements provided in the syllabus.
The examiner bears the responsibility for checking the fulfillment of the requirements established in the syllabus for allowing the student to take the examination.
Students shall be allowed to take an exam in one subject twice per semester: one regular examination and in the case of failure one resit.
Students are not allowed to resit an examination or defence in order to get a higher passing grade. The exam results will be entered into respective Study Information Systems in all universities. In order to be allowed to take thesis defence, students are required to have passed all the courses of their study track. The requirements set for thesis defence related matters are described in the section Thesis defence.
4. Master´s Thesis
I. Objective
By completing and presenting a final thesis, the student shows that he/she:
a. knows how to apply the acquired knowledge to formulate scientific problems, to plan and carry out respective research, to draw conclusions based on collected data and to present it either orally or in written form;
b. knows how to find and analyze scientific information and is able to synthesise new knowledge of the specialty with the help of this information and the scientific data he/she has collected by himself/herself;
c. knows how to prepare and give a public presentation, how to express himself/herself in his/her specialty orally and in written form and how to defend his/her viewpoints;
d. knows the general principles of ethics in science and is able to estimate the scientific level and the practical value of the research done in his/her field.
II. Supervisors and Topic
1. In order to guarantee high-level supervision of the master’s thesis at least two supervisors are appointed to every thesis by the consortium committee. One supervisor is always from the second-year (host) university and as a rule, is the main supervisor. The second supervisor is from the first year (home) university. Supervisors can be lecturers, researchers, professors or practitioners of the respective field, who have at least a Master’s degree or a level of education equal to this degree.
2. The topic of the thesis can be the following:
a. a scientific research project having relation to analytical chemistry;
b. an applied research project having relation to analytical chemistry;
c. educational equipment or material;
3. It is the responsibility of the main supervisor to guarantee that the scope and the difficulty level of the topic picked for the final thesis are suitable.
III. Layout
4. The thesis is submitted to the respective unit of the university where the second year studies take place. The thesis is written in English only. All students are informed when is the submission deadline and to which unit it need to be sent to.
5. The recommended maximum length of the thesis is 40 pages (excluding annexes). The thesis typically consists of the following sections:
a. title page, according to the template (UU, UCBL, AAU);
b. table of contents;
c. introduction (introduction of the problem and the purpose of the thesis and an overview);
d. core section which is divided according to the type of the thesis; for example:
i. An overview of the problem based on literature;
ii. Experimental part: description of data, methods, equipment, objects, material, etc. The extent should be such that an educated chemist would be able to reproduce the experiments (if necessary additionally involving literature references);
iii. Results: the reliability of the results has to be ensured and demonstrated in a suitable way (validation, uncertainty estimates, etc);
iv. discussion of results and an analysis/conclusion
v. Summary;
vi. References: There is no prescribed format for the references. References have to be numbered in order of appearing in the text. All the authors have to be listed. Web references are allowed, with full citation and date of last visit. Internal references (references to documents from the same company) are allowed. Recommended number of references is 30.;
vii. Appendices, if necessary (charts, drawings, photographs, academic articles, etc.).
IV. Evaluation of Thesis
6. Evaluation of the theses will be carried out by a joint evaluation committee. The committee includes at least four members and both universities where the student has studied are represented in the committee. In addition, a representative from associate members is appointed as members of the committee. All committee members have at least Master’s degree.
7. Master theses are submitted for evaluation by the deadline set by the second-year university and presentations will be carried out according to the rules of the second-year university. The thesis is submitted both electronically and in printed version. The evaluation of the thesis will take place at the second year university. The joint evaluation committee appoints reviewers to the theses, taking into account suggestions by the supervisors and submits the reviewers for approval to the relevant university authorities.
8. There is zero tolerance towards plagiarism. All theses are checked for plagiarism (unless precluded by confidentiality requirements) by the second year university. Usage of external figures is allowed, with reference to the original publication.
9. A student who has passed all other courses in the EACH programme by the time of the presentation is allowed to present their final thesis.
10. The evaluation of the thesis takes place in the form of an academic discussion that consists of the following parts:
a. a presentation made by the author where he/she introduces his/her work during 10-15 minutes;
b. an academic discussion between the reviewer and the author;
c. general discussion (questions to the author from the auditorium and author’s answers);
d. conclusion by the author, up to 1 minute;
e. assessment of the thesis by the joint evaluation committee.
V. Assessment
11. The joint evaluation committee shall assess the thesis during a closed part of the session.
12. When assessing the thesis, the following points are taken into account:
a. technical execution and scientific quality of the thesis work;
b. layout, structure and readability; linguistic correctness;
c. presenting the thesis, including the structure and the quality of the presentation; presenting skills and the ability to answer questions; the amount of knowledge of the specialty demonstrated in the presentation and during the discussion;
d. reviewer’s assessment of the thesis.
13. A successfully presented final thesis shall receive a positive grade and its author shall be recognized as having graduated from the EACH programme university with double degrees.
14. If the presentation committee comes to a conclusion that the final thesis does not meet the required standards or if the author is unable to present it, the thesis shall be graded as a fail. In this case, one more chance to present the thesis is granted which requires supplementing the existing work or choosing a new topic. The presentation committee can give their suggestions on this matter.
15. If the student does not agree with the grade received at the presentation, he/she has the right to submit a written appeal to the Academic Coordinator of EACH within the two workdays following the announcement of the final grade.
7. Student feedback forms: End of year I and WS , end of year II and WS, final feedback (after graduation)