Credit plan (Sisu) for doctoral students

Step A4. Choose study modules for your degree

If you have chosen the academic year correctly, Sisu will automatically show your correct research field (Sisu will display the message “Selection confirmed to the study right”), as well as other modules.

Add your doctoral thesis under the module Doctoral thesis with the respective thesis code “researchfieldcode.diss.” You can check the code under the research field module.

Step A5. Choose courses for the study modules

To enroll to the courses, you need to add them to your plan. Please see the curriculum and other instructions of your Doctoral programme for further information about which module to place the courses to. The courses that will not be included in the degree should be placed under extracurricular studies (e.g. Finnish language courses).

To add courses to the plan, you can use the selection assistant window on the right. To open the selection assistant, please click on the title of the study module (e.g. General research studies).

A study module can include compulsory, elective and free-choice courses, depending on your Doctoral programme. The Sisu selection assistant window (on the right) guides you on how to make the selection. 

Please note that the version of the course will change every year, so if you make the plan now, you need to change the version of it next year to be able to enroll to the course.Instructions: Changing versions in your study plan

You can use study drafts for planning individual studies or courses taken in other universities.Instructions: Study draft

• After following the steps 1-A5, your credit plan as a starting student should be ready. You don’t need to request for approval for the modules in Sisu at this stage yet. Please see the exceptions in Step A6.
  
  If you are unsure whether your credit plan follows the degree requirements (curriculum) of your doctoral programme, you can contact your Doctoral programme. Doctoral Education Services are able to access your credit plan in Sisu in order to guide you.

Step A6. Approval and confirmation

Approval = Requesting approval for the modules in Sisu.

Confirmation = Applying for your School’s confirmation on a PDF version of the credit plan. Check the process here.

You will need to request for approval for the modules your credit plan at this stage if you plan to take studies in other universities or substitute some of the compulsory courses. Check the compulsory courses from your Doctoral programme’s curriculum and see instructions.

Please note that approval for the modules of a credit plan that includes study drafts is conditional and you must request for final approval after you have received the credits.

All doctoral students need to get final confirmation for their credit plan before pre-examination – apply for the final confirmation only after all the courses that you want to include in your degree are completed and registered.

Step B4. Choose study modules for your degree

If you have chosen the academic year correctly, Sisu will automatically show your correct research field (Sisu will display the message “Selection confirmed to the study right”), as well as other modules.

Add your doctoral thesis under the module Doctoral thesis with the respective thesis code “researchfieldcode.diss.” You can check the code under the research field module.

If your studies have been previously registered as completed modules, the modules should pop up automatically to your plan – if you have problems with this, please contact your doctoral programme for more instructions.

• If you have changed your research field recently and your studies were registered under the old research field module, that cannot be added to your credit plan directly. Please contact your doctoral programme.

Step B5. Choose courses for the study modules

If your study modules have not previously been registered as completed, please see the curriculum and other instructions of your doctoral programme for further information about which module to place the courses to.

• If you have a previously confirmed study plan (e.g. in PDF form), please add courses to your credit plan exactly according to the confirmed plan.

Instructions: Adding completed studies to your study plan

To add courses to the plan, you can use the selection assistant window on the right (or for already completed courses, the Add to the plan tab on left). To open the selection assistant, please click on the title of the study module (e.g. General research studies).

A study module can include compulsory, elective and free-choice courses, depending on your doctoral programme. The Sisu selection assistant window (on the right) guides you on how to make the selection. 

• If some of your completed courses is not available in the list but you can see it on your transcript, please contact your doctoral programme's Doctoral education services. The reason is that you have completed the course before your doctoral study right has started.

Extracurricular studies are needed for course registration purposes only, completed courses should not be placed there. Please place here only courses that you are still going to attend before you graduate.

If you are unable to add certain courses to a specific module, it might be that you need to activate the title “Other courses” within that specific module. Open the selection assistant window on the right by clicking on the title of the study module (e.g. General research studies) and scroll down to activate the “Other courses” title.

In case you need to delete compulsory courses, please see the instructions:Free edit mode

• After you have completed the required credits, your credit plan is ready and you can request for approval for the modules in Sisu and apply for the final confirmation, please see instructions below.
  
  If you are unsure whether your credit plan follows the degree requirements (curriculum) of your doctoral programme, you can contact your Doctoral programme. Doctoral Education Services are able to access your credit plan in Sisu in order to guide you.

Step B6. Approval and confirmation

Approval = requesting approval for the modules in Sisu

Confirmation = Applying for your School’s confirmation on a PDF version of the credit plan. Check the process.

After all the courses you want to include in your degree are completed and registered:

1. Make sure that your credit plan follows the the degree requirements (curriculum) of your doctoral programme – if you are unsure, you can contact your Doctoral programme's Doctoral education services.
2. Request for approval for all the modules that Sisu requires approval for (“approval required”).
3. Apply for the final confirmation (process outside Sisu, see instructions). You need the confirmation before you can start the pre-examination of your thesis manuscript.

If you already have previously confirmed old study/credit plan (e.g. PDF) and your credit plan’s content is exactly the same, you do not need to apply for confirmation outside Sisu, but you do need to request approval for the modules within Sisu. However, if your study modules have been completed earlier and appear as “completed” in Sisu, you don’t need to request for approval at all, but please check the check list below.

Before requesting for approval of the modules, please check that

• Each course is included in the correct module (check the curriculum)
• You have added your doctoral thesis code under the module “Doctoral thesis” and it corresponds to your research field
• There are no courses under Extracurricular studies (if there are, please remove them)
• There are no selections missing or against the rules or other error notifications in red.

If you have both licentiate and doctoral study right, you can find the right structure of studies the following way. For technical reasons, both programmes are named the same, but they differ by code.

If you want to create a credit plan for licentiate degree:

1. Start creating the new study plan and choose My educations, type in the programme name Aalto doctoral programme in... and choose one of the alternatives below.
2. The field 'Learning opportunity' tells you which one you have chosen, licentiate or doctoral.
3. You can also check if you've chosen the correct one from the degree programme code; for licentiate degree includes the letter 'L'.

On the left side of your study plan there is the Add to the plan tab, which you can use to add your completed courses in the study plan. Use the arrow after the name of the course to add the course to the plan. Then select the module in which you want to place the course and confirm it  in the selection assistant.

An Add to the plan button is also visible in the selection assistant on the right, where you can add planned courses in the study plan.

Study drafts are used for individual study attainments or courses which are completed outside Aalto University.

How to add a study draft:

1. First choose the correct module where you want to place the study draft and click open the module à selection assistant opens to the right side of the page.
2. On the selection assistant choose Add a study draft.
3. Fill the required information carefully. Please note that you cannot modify any information given on the study draft once you have added it to your plan. If you need to make changes, please delete the draft and create a new one.
4. When your study attainment is finished, you can receive credit for it through the credit transfer or the custom course credit procedure. See Sisu instructions:

Incorporating studies in your degree by credit transferDoctoral programme instructions

Each study draft must contain the following information:

• Name: title of the literature review, title of conference/summer school, teaching assistant on a course XXXX)
• Planned credits
• Institution where you plan to gain the knowledge
  • If you are planning an individual study (e.g. literature exam/review, teaching) please write Aalto University to this section.
• Description of the learning outcomes
  • I.e. a description of what you plan to do and what learning you plan to gain.

Please note that you cannot modify any information given on the study draft once you have added it to your plan. If you need to make changes, please delete the draft and create a new one.

When you later apply for credit transfer or custom course credit through the study draft, please remember to include the required attachments to your application. See more information at the instructions for the Doctoral personal study plan: credit plan: studies in other universities (credit transfer: inclusion)

If you have already completed the study attainment, it is also possible to apply for the credits directly, without making a study draft first. Please see instructions:Incorporating studies in your degree by credit transfer

Free edit mode is a functionality where you can for example add already completed courses which you cannot find under Add to the plan function on the left-hand side.

1. Click the title of the module (not the code) where you want to place the course(s) or where you would like to make changes, and the selection assistant opens to the right side of the page.
2. Click three dots on the top right corner à Free edit mode.
3. Choose Add a course you have already completed.

Other possible cases when you need to use free edit mode:

• Removing compulsory courses, see below
• In specific cases, requesting approval for module(s).

If you need to remove compulsory courses from your credit plan, you should only do that in the Free edit mode. Note that if you make changes in the module after removing a compulsory course, the compulsory course might reappear in your plan, so always check this after making changes.

Removing compulsory courses from your credit plan requires that you have agreed about it with your supervising professor and mainly applies if you

• have transferred a degree structure and have agreed with your supervising professor that you don’t need to take a specific compulsory course,
• have agreed with your supervising professor to substitute a compulsory course with another study / set of studies.

If you want to cancel module approval request, you can find the application via My Profile → Applications and requests. Choose the application and click Withdraw application.

If you made changes to an approved study module or grouping module but you did not give up its approved status before starting to edit, you will see a notification next to the programme or module: differs from the content of the approval application. Please see the detailed instructions:Study module status