How large should the course offer be and why?
How many courses should be planned for incoming exchange students?
The courses offered to exchange students are decided within the programmes. We recommend that the programmes offer at least a minimum of 20 ECTS of programme/field-specific courses in English per semester to incoming exchange students. Additionally, the students may complete language and culture studies that are offered by the Language Centre and open to exchange students as well (the course offer is maintained by the Language Centre).
The Schools may also have shared course offers, i.e. courses that can be included in the course offer of several programmes hosting exchange students to broaden the course offer of individual programmes. See more details in the section “How is the offer done?”
Why this many courses to exchange students?
It must be possible for incoming exchange students to complete approximately 5 ECTS per exchange month (approximately 20-30 ECTS per semester). This is a standard requirement from the students’ home institutions for an exchange period. For this reason, modules that only contain a couple courses cannot be marketed to our partner institutions and their students as a viable exchange programme available for application.
Programmes that don’t have a sufficient course offer, but wish to be included as a programme available for application must be prepared to tailor-make and arrange a sufficient amount of studies for incoming exchange students free of charge so that full-time studying for a semester is possible. This could be done e.g. in order to secure exchange places in partner institutions for Jamk’s degree students. In such programmes there must be a person who can actively carry out the tailoring of studies and inform and discuss with the applicant about the possible studies that are not available/visible in the study modules offered to exchange students.
NOTE: To save resources, it is advisable to avoid any tailoring and offer courses included in the degree programme structures/implementations to exchange students whenever possible. See the section "How is the offer done?" for more details.
Incoming exchange students are recommended to choose courses specifically from the course offer of the programme they are applying to and come to study in (an inter-institutional mobility agreement for the field/programme is required). This is to ensure the following:
- the students integrate in the programme of their own field
- overlapping in course registrations are minimised
- the students have suitable competence for the field (roughly similar field of study in their home institution)
- the students enter the programme specified in the agreement and they don’t take up quota/places in courses reserved for exchange students of other programmes
The students may suggest max. 2 courses from other programmes’ offers to be included in their study plan, but admission to the courses is not guaranteed.