Certain policies and regulations provide a framework for the university’s teaching activities.
If you use works, such as images, in teaching materials, always carefully indicate the authors and sources of the images in the teaching material. Images may be used as quotes if they illustrate the subject matter, but the use of quotes always requires the disclosure of sources and authors or creators in accordance with good scientific practice. Learn more about using images in learning materials: ImagOA guide - Open science and use of images - LibGuides at Aalto University
If you use an image on the grounds of a Creative Commons licence, the licence is valid only if you comply with the terms and conditions of the licence. BY, or the Attribution condition, is included in all licences. The author’s information must therefore be provided in a manner specified by the licensor. Images licensed under the CC BY and CC BY NC licences may be included in lecture materials. Some licensing options prohibit the further use of the lecture materials. Further information on Creative Commons licences is available on the Creative Commons website: Information about open licences and content in English
If you choose to distribute learning materials openly, it is a good idea to indicate how you would like to be credited as the author.
For more information about copyright in architecture, design and graphic design, see the Copyright Guide: Home - Copyright Guide - LibGuides at Aalto University
It is important for all teachers to notice that students have copyright to their work.
Also take account of copyright in doctoral studies. In its Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) guidelines, the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK lays down guidelines on references to the publications of other researchers, among other things.
Data protection during the course:
The points 1–6 above were a summary of the key data protection measures in the field of teaching. Further information on all the points above is available on Aalto.fi (Data Protection, personal data (EU General Data Protection Regulation)) and in the Aalto University Wiki (Personal data protection instructions for teachers).
If you have questions on technical issues, support is available from Aalto University IT Services (IT Services), while Aalto Cloud Info contains a classification of cloud services often used at Aalto University based on their level of security (Aalto Cloud Info).
From below you can find some main things for the teacher to consider about teaching arrangements. It is however important to get acquainted with all the regulations concerning teaching listed above.
Students are required to register for courses and examinations. Registration for courses begins no later than 28 days before the start of the teaching period and closes 7 days after the start of the period. In the case of courses that admit a limited number of students or where other practical reasons apply, the registration closes 7 days before the start of the teaching period. Registration for all examinations opens no later than 60 days before and ends 7 days before the examination dates (Decision by Vice President 28 November 2013, no. 796/02.01.00/2013).
The registration periods may be different from those specified in the decision by vice president (of 28 November 2013), but any exceptions must be mentioned in the course description in the section ‘Restrictions on registration’ or no later than during the course. Please note that the duration of each curriculum period is two academic years and the time window for editing course descriptions is limited.
For compelling reasons, limits may be imposed on the number of course participants. If there are legitimate reasons, a pre-defined quota of student places may be reserved for different types of students in the course. If the course description does not mention quotas for different types of students or other grounds on which students are admitted to the course, Sisu will draw lots between the registered students to determine who will be admitted to the course.
All exceptional procedures and possible admissions criteria have to be listed in the course description or, at the latest, in the description of an individual course implementation. Any limits on the number of participants should also be mentioned in the course description. In some cases, for example, the student’s right to study may limit his or her possibilities for registering for a given course.
Students use Sisu to register for courses. The courses for which they register must be included in their primary personal study plan (HOPS). As a teacher, you can accept or reject students’ registrations for your courses. Instructions on how to inform students of admission criteria and maximum group sizes in the course description of your course are available on the page Curriculum information on courses, in the collapsible section ‘Information on courses’, subsection ‘Restrictions on registration’.
Notifying students of exceptional registration dates is the responsibility of the teaching unit and course teacher.
Students are instructed on how to register for Open University courses in the course descriptions.
Instructions on processing students’ registrations for your courses are available in Sisu HELP: Processing student registrants for courses: a guide for teachers
Examples:
Each course has to have a teacher-in-charge who is responsible for organising the course in accordance with the curriculum and academic timetable and for assessing the students’ study attainments. The teacher-in-charge participates in preparing the curriculum and bears primary responsibility for ensuring both that the course implementation promotes the intended learning outcomes and that the credits awarded correspond to the workload. In addition to the teacher-in-charge, several people may be involved teaching and grading a course.
Teachers-in-charge may be professors, lecturers, university teachers and, on reasonable grounds, other members of staff who are in a contractual employment relationship with Aalto University. Visiting teachers may teach courses, but not be teachers-in-charge. The teacher-in-charge of courses that qualify as doctoral studies must be a professor or have completed a doctoral degree.
In addition to degree students, Aalto University has exchange students, non-degree students, Open University students and students who have a flexible right to study (JOO students, where ‘JOO’ stands for ‘joustava opinto-oikeus’ or ‘flexible right to study’ in Finnish).
A course implementation may be cancelled if the number of registrants does not meet the required minimum. In the case of cancelled course implementations, the students registered for them must be either provided an alternative way of completing the course or advised to take some other applicable course.
If the course has a minimum group size, this must be mentioned in the course description. Indicate the minimum group size in the course description (field: Registration selection criteria) as instructed on the page Curriculum information on courses.
Examples:
Attendance in a course may be compulsory. Attendance may be required in lectures or exercise sessions, or there may be a minimum attendance requirement. You as the teacher may decide whether your students can compensate for missed lessons and how. If attendance is required, mention this in the course description.
Tell your students clearly and well in advance what is required of them for passing the course in the course description, in the sections ‘Assessment criteria’ and ‘Study methods’. In addition, inform the students of the required coursework in the first lecture and in MyCourses. The Programme director’s handbook contains instructions and examples of course descriptions on curriculum information on courses.
Examples:
The study attainments are graded by the teacher in charge of the course. In addition to the teacher-in-charge, the course may have other staff to assist in the review of study attainments. The weight of individual study attainments in the final grade for a course has to be announced to students at the start of the course at the latest. The factors counted in the grading have to be announced for each assigned study attainment no later than at the time the assignment is given.
The provisions of sections 27 and 28 of the Administrative Procedure Act (434/2003) apply to the disqualification of persons involved in the evaluation of study attainments. Further information: Administrative Procedure Act (434/2003) (pdf). The head of the unit in charge of the course assigns a person to replace a disqualified teacher-in-charge.
Further provisions on the assessment of theses are given in the Aalto University General Regulations on Teaching and Studying (OOS) and in the Degree Regulations for Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees and the Degree Regulations on Doctoral Education. All regulations are available on Into: Academic policies and regulations
Further information is also available in the Aalto University General Regulations on Teaching and Studying, chapter 6: Teaching arrangements and evaluation of study attainments, section 27: Teacher in charge of study attainment evaluation.
The teacher in charge of the course is responsible for ensuring that, within four weeks of the examination date or other due date given for a study attainment, all students of the course are informed of their own grade for the course as well as the grade distribution and failing rate of the course.
At the same time, inform students of how and when they can familiarise themselves with the assessment criteria and with the application of those criteria to their own performance. In connection with the final assessment for the course, students should be informed about how those who failed the course may retake it and how a passing grade for the course may be raised.
Instructions for entering the students' grades into Sisu: Assessment of study attainments - Sisu HELP
As a rule, separate lists of grades should no longer be used. If you need to publish a list of grades, only include the students’ student numbers and omit their names and other personal data.
For special reasons, the head of the unit in charge of the course may grant you extra time for grading. Notify the students who are affected by this without delay.
The assessment criteria of study attainments are public after the publication of the results, unless otherwise provided in the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999). Further information about applying the principle of openness in university operations: The principle of openness at Aalto University.
Register entries pertaining to study attainments are retained permanently according to the provisions of the law.
Courses are assessed on the basis of one of two grading scales: the pass/fail scale; or a scale of 0/1/2/3/4/5 where 0 is a fail and 5 is the highest grade.
Students may repeat a failed course that is included in degree requirements for as long as the course is included in the curriculum. If an opportunity for repeating an examination or study attainment is available, students may retake a failed examination or redo a failed study attainment.
Failed examinations may be repeated without restrictions on previously announced examination days in accordance with the valid requirements for the course. Any procedure differing from this must be stated in the course description. If the course includes other study attainments in addition to the exam, students may resit the examination if their other study attainments are still valid.
When it comes to other course components apart from the exam, you as the teacher get to decide on a pedagogically sound way for students to repeat the components or the course they have failed. For example, you may ask the students to complete them when you teach the course the next time.
Instructions for repeating a failed examination or course component must be stated in the additional information in the course description. For example:
| Grades should be primarily stored on MyCourses Grades. | Both MyCourses activities and external graded activities should be on MyCourses Grades. |
| Course grading must be transparent to the other course teachers. | If you utilize certain grading formulas, they must be visible to other teachers, and grading files must be shared on a restricted access section with other teachers. |
| Grading data must not be stored in a teacher's computer. | After uploading grading data back to MyCourses or to Sisu, the files with student data and grades must be deleted. |
| The criteria for assessment must be included in the course syllabus and communicated in the beginning of the course. | |
If you need help, contact Teacher Services or Book a session with a specialist.
Students may repeat a passed course or a study attainment included in it once in order to get a higher grade, if an opportunity for repeating the course or study attainment is available. When a student repeats a course, the mode of completion may be different from that of the original course.
If a student has been admitted to a course or participated in an exam, these study attainments have to be assessed, even if it is later noticed that the student had already tried to raise their course grade once or several times. The restriction that gives students only one opportunity to try to raise a grade is in force as of 1 August 2021. Attempts prior to this do not count towards the limit.
Sisu does not automatically check for prior attempts to raise a grade when a student registers for a course. If you reject the course or exam registrations of students who have already tried to raise their grade once before, you have to treat all the registered students equally and check whether each one of them has previously tried raising their grade.
If the student has to retake a course and the course has a limited group size, preference will be given to students who have not passed the course yet.
In cases where a student has taken a course more than once, the highest grade received for the course shall apply.
The credits for an individual course component are valid until the course is given the next time, unless otherwise provided in the degree requirements or curriculum (Aalto University General Regulations on Teaching and Studying, section 34: Validity of study attainments). If this is not the case in your course, inform students of the exceptional periods of validity in the course description.
Examples:
The credits for a completed course are valid until further notice. However, credits may expire in which case they may not be counted towards a degree: study attainments and study modules may be counted towards a bachelor’s or master’s degree for a maximum of seven years after their date of completion (with the exception of the compulsory language studies and the thesis included in the degree). On reasonable grounds, the school may also count older credits towards the degree. Doctoral education is an exception to this rule, as these credits never expire.
In cases where a student has taken a course more than once, the highest grade received for the course shall apply.
The practices and rules concerning examinations are gathered here:
Accessibility must be considered in curriculum design and teaching to ensure unhindered progress in studies for all students. Should the teaching be organised in a manner that does not allow a student, due a disability or other health condition, to complete studies as provided in the curriculum or in the course, the school is obligated to make reasonable accommodations to organise a mode of completing the study attainment. Any accommodated modes of completion must allow the student to achieve the intended learning outcomes set for the degree and course.
Students are instructed to show the certificate for individual study arrangements to the teacher as soon as possible when a course begins. Read more on the Aalto.fi page Individual study arrangements and on the Individual study arrangements that contains instructions for students.
More detailed, practical instructions for teachers concerning individual study arrangements are available in the written certificate that the student receives when the learning services of their school grants them the right to individual study arrangements. Should you have any questions, please contact the learning services and manager of academic affairs of the student’s school: Contact information for individual study arrangements
If you notice that a student is facing challenges of any kind during your course, you can also ask students to contact the contact person for individual study arrangements in their school.
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