The guide to preparing academic regulations shows when and how various stakeholders are involved in the process of developing academic regulations. This is standard procedure as the various relevant ministerial orders outline and describe the roles involved in developing academic regulations. The revision of academic regulations is a complex process, as it involves many stakeholders and thereby also many different and sometimes conflicting views.
Below you can read about the various roles involved in the preparation of academic regulations, their responsibilities and degree of involvement in the work:
The primary readers and recipients of academic regulations are students, teaching staff, administrative staff, co-examiners and prospective employers. In the academic regulations, the recipients find information on rules, academic and educational practices and descriptions of core content and core competencies. The academic regulations are important documents setting out the direction and establishing the academic and educational practices of a degree programme, as well as sending out an important signal to the outside world about the academic core of a given degree programme and the core competencies acquired by students, and how learning is facilitated and assessed on the degree programme. It is important that the academic regulations are addressed to the intended target groups, for example so that co-examiners can easily find information about the knowledge and skills that are to be tested at exams, and students can find information about the course content and the learning outcomes they can expect to achieve.
If you are a student and a member of a working group, you can read more about your role under ‘Tips for setting up a working group’ at the bottom of the page.
The vice-dean contributes to the development and implementation of the faculty’s strategies for education, teaching and learning. The primary task of the vice-dean is to contribute to the development of the faculty’s degree programmes, in cooperation with the directors of studies and boards of studies, by strengthening the existing research-based degree programmes and creating new cross-disciplinary degree programmes, including promoting the development of research-based university pedagogics and didactics as well as the relevance of the degree programmes to society. On behalf of the dean, the vice-dean approves the academic regulations based on a recommendation by the board of studies. As the recommendation from the board of studies takes the form of a proposal, the vice-dean may choose to reject the proposal partly or entirely.
It is the responsibility of the board of studies to develop and ensure the quality of the degree programmes and the teaching, for example through preparing proposals for academic regulations and changes to existing regulations. At some faculties, the development of academic regulations has been delegated to a degree programme board or committee, but the board of studies is still responsible for the academic and cross-disciplinary quality assurance of academic regulations. The board of studies recommends proposals for academic regulations for approval by the Dean’s Office. As the board of studies has an equal representation of academic staff and students elected by and from among the academic staff members (for a three-year period) and the students (for a one-year period), respectively, the involvement of students takes place here.
Academic regulations are developed by the relevant academic environments. According to the University Act, the boards of studies are charged with preparing proposals for academic regulations. At some of the faculties at AU, this power is delegated from the boards of studies to degree programme boards and committees, and in many cases further delegated from the degree programme boards and committees to a working group composed of representatives of academic staff, students and the study administration. This is a way of ensuring that primary responsibility is delegated to those with the greatest knowledge of a task. When the development of the academic regulations is delegated to a working group, the degree programme board/committee must quality-assure the work of the working group and submit it to the board of studies. The development of academic regulations often involves revisiting and discussing the academic core of a degree programme and preparing and choosing good descriptions of the degree programme and of the course objectives, content and relevance and of the forms of examination.
The study administration at the faculty supports the academic environment’s work on developing and revising academic regulations until they can be recommended for approval by the Dean’s Office. The study administration regularly participates in working group meetings, degree programme board meetings and board of studies meetings, and helps the academic environment clarify and determine the scope of the revision.
In addition, the study administration advises on the legal, administrative and system-related frameworks for the development and revision of academic regulations based on close dialogue with the rest of the administration, and ensures that important stakeholders are involved in the process, such as prospective employers, the chairs of the body of external co-examiners, specialist consultants, departments and CED.
The Centre for Educational Development (CED) provides input to the development of academic regulations and offers didactic guidance to the departments in the form of either feedback on specific course descriptions or meetings with the academic environments to address specific didactic possibilities and challenges. Guidance can be sought from CED in connection with the development of specific academic regulations, and CED offers competency development focusing on the production of academic regulations of a high didactic quality. The study administration involved can recommend that academic environments contact CED for guidance in specific cases. For example, CED often advises on the wording of specific academic objectives, on the didactic planning of forms of examination and on good ways of ensuring coherence between objectives, academic goals, forms of instruction and forms of examination.
The director of studies is part of the department leadership and refers to the head of department. The director of studies’ primary responsibility is to quality-assure the department’s degree programmes. The director of studies is responsible for the department’s allocation of resources for educational activities and therefore has to approve the draw on resources associated with the academic regulations. Since student well-being and study progress have an impact on the available resources and the running of the degree programmes, the director of studies is also responsible for ensuring that the academic regulations promote student well-being and study progress. In practice, the study administration is responsible for the ongoing coordination with the department on the approval of the draw on resources associated with academic regulations.
In connection with the preparation of academic regulations and substantial changes academic regulations, the university is obliged to have discussions with employer panels and special consultants, to obtain opinions from the chair of the body of external co-examiners and to coordinate profiling and offerings with other universities.
