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The European Community Course
Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS)

* Contents

• ECTS
• Grading System
• ECTS Grading Scale
• Comparison between some grading systems in some EU-countries
• Information Package

* ECTS

Reference is made to the ECTS-Guide. The ECTS Pilot Scheme has been launched on an experimental and voluntary basis in order to provide a means by which students may receive credit for study periods carried out at Universities in other Member States.

It was a 6-year pilot project extending from the academic year 1989/90 to the academic year 1994/95. 84 institutions from all EU member states covering five subject areas (Business Administration, History, Medicine, Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering) formed the so-called Inner Circle of ECTS. They assumed full obligation to comply with the rules set out for the Pilot Scheme. Other institutions, also covering other subject areas than the five mentionned above, were encouraged to participate informally through the Outer Circle of ECTS, according to their own initiative and needs.
This Pilot Scheme came to an end and has allowed the full introduction of ECTS in the upcoming Institutional Contracts of SOCRATES / ERASMUS.

Further information about ECTS cab be found at the Web site of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Designation of type course	ECTS Credits in a....
	trimester / term system	semester system	study year system
1. Prescribed courses
a) Lecture-1 hour per week	1	1.5	3
b) Seminar-1 hour per week	1	1.5	3
c) Exercise courses-1 hour per week	0.5	0.75	1.5
d) Excursion-1 week	6	3	1.5
e) Practical training-6 months	30	30	30
2. Optional courses, form part of the study course
a) Lecture-1 hour per week	0.5-1	0.75-1 5	1.5-3
b) Seminar-1 hour per week	0.5-1	0.75-1 5	1.5-3
c) Exercise courses-1 hour per week	0.25-0 5	0.38-0 75	0.75-1 5
d) Excursion-1 week	3-6	1.5-3	0.75-1 5
e) Practical training-6 months	15-30	15-30	15-30
3. Other parts of prescribed study courses, exams
a) Examination period outside the regular study period-6 months	30	30	30
b) Final thesis outside the regular study period-3 months	15	15	15

Technical elements of ECTS are the following :

• the credit point system
  The basic allocation of academic credits is 60 credits per year of study or 30 credits per semester or 20 credits per trimester/term. It is entirely up to the participating departments to subdivide the credits for different courses according to the importance of the courses offered. A suggestion for granting credits is provided in the Table.

• Outline of study courses, course descriptions
  The description covers the structure of the study course, the title of the course, the time unit (trimester, semester, year or any larger unit), the credit value of the course and any other important information, followed by a short indication (5 to 10 lines) of the content of the courses offered by the department/faculty. The type of course is indicated (lecture, seminar, laboratory practical, etc.) as well as its credit value.

• Transcript of record
  It is vital that the transcript of records are structured identically and contain comparable information. The transcript of record should contain the following information:

1. Name of the higher education institution participating in ECTS;
2. Faculty/department;
3. Details on the student (address, date of birth, higher education entrance qualifications, institutions attended, degrees held with dates, matriculation dates and numbers);
4. Course information (course code, course number, short title of course, time span within which course was taken, grade, ECTS grade, ECTS credits obtained);
5. Information on exams, diplomas, degrees, ECTS credits accumulated;
6. Information on the grading systems;
7. Signature of officer/registrar, date, stamp of institution.

* Grading system

No ECTS institution is required to change its grading system for ECTS purposes. However, in order to read transcripts easily, it has been agreed that institutions will add an extra "ECTS grading scale" which indicates the position of the student in relation to his/her peer group (1 = top 25 % of successful students, 2 = second quarter of successful students, 3 = third and 4 = fourth quarter of successful students).

This extra ECTS grading scale does not convert departmental grades into ECTS grades but is an absolute scale based on the number of students who pass a course in any given study year, semester or term, showing where the ECTS student stands in relation to the rest of the class. In spite of the fact that the quality and size of a class may change from one year to another in a given department, the additional information provided by the ECTS grading scale is still considered useful.

The tables below illustrate the usefulness of the ECTS grading scale since many countries use different grading systems.

* ECTS Grading Scale

A mechanism to convert grades from one grading system to another without replacing local grading systems.

* Comparison between grading systems in some EU-countries

Reference: European Student Guide

Based on the ECTS Business Administration Group grading translation and The Commission for Educational Exchange between Denmark and the United States of America: Comparison between Danish and American Grades.

* Information Package

ECTS introduced the concept of the Information Package which should be prepared by each university / department and will contain all the above technical elements of ECTS as well as general and practical information about the university / department, including the university / departmental structure, programme-structures, examination rules, etc. ... Most important is also the concept of the "Learning Agreement" which must be concluded for each individual student mobility with the help of the Information Packages of both the home and the host universities. Obviously, the Information Package is of great importance for the staff mobility too.