Article (14): Programs’ System
Article (14): Programs’ System
- The official teaching Language is English, and the Faculty of Engineering will ascertain the student's English Language proficiency. Textbooks, assignments, and examinations are all in English.
- The Programs follow the Credit-Hour (CH) system. This is a measure of the contact hours between the teachers and the student per semester. One Credit Hour is equivalent to the course Contact Hours as follows:
- One Hour weekly lecture for a semester of 15 weeks.
- Two Hours weekly tutorial for a semester of 15 weeks.
- Three Hours weekly Laboratory work for a semester of 15 weeks.
- One Contact Hour is divided into 50 minutes actual teaching and 10 minutes break.
- For each course and Program in this curriculum, the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is given as a numerical descriptive value of qualification expressed in terms of Student Work Load (SWL). It is defined as “the number of working hours typically required to complete the learning activities of course units in order to achieve their expected learning outcomes”. This system was adopted through the Bologna declaration in 1999 at the University of Bologna in Italy to facilitate the mobility of students through Europe.
- The total SWL comprises two components:
- The structured SWL which is the scheduled teacher-contact hours interventions.
- The unstructured SWL (USWL) which is the time spent by students in their own self-study, completing course assignments, and preparing for all types of exams, e.g. assessment workload.
- It has been considered as an essential description of the educational qualification recommended in the European Higher Education Area as a key element of the Bologna and Europeans Framework Qualifications in terms of total SWL.
- One ECTS credit corresponds to 25 hours of total student working, and each 15-weeks academic semester should meet 30 ECTS. As an agreed requirement, 750 hours of total SWL are necessary in a full academic semester, or about 50 hours of total SWL/per week.
- Expected values for each semester:
- 16-19 CH
- 25-28 Contact hours per week for 15 weeks
- 750 hours of total student work load
- 30 ECTS
The distribution of marks is left to course designer to decide. It depends on the nature of the course. Some courses are theoretical, and therefore give more marks to the exams, and some courses are more practical and therefore give more marks to the projects, assignments and labs.