5a Status

Pursuant the PhD Order, PhD students must complete courses totalling approximately 30 ECTS points. The Order contains no provisions regarding the content of such courses. However, the guide to the PhD Order does mention that the courses should have a higher academic level than those offered on the qualifying Master's programme, unless special considerations require a departure from this principle.

Pursuant to the University Act, the PhD committee is responsible for approving PhD courses. There are considerable differences among Aarhus University graduate schools with regard to the doctoral courses they offer. Longer courses are viewed as an opportunity for in-depth study of a topic, while shorter courses are easier to plan and coordinate. By the same token, it is probably also most realistic to offer shorter inter-institutional joint courses. The number of required coursework credits varies from 0 to 30 ECTS. While most of the graduate schools make descriptions of the courses they offer available on their websites, in many cases these descriptions fail to include an account of the objectives of the courses.

ECTS credits are awarded on the basis of the workload necessary for the student to achieve the expected learning outcome. Student workload for one academic year is equivalent to 60 ECTS credits, which means that 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of twenty-five hours [Cirius Online]. In addition, the student’s learning outcome must be assessed and validated.

Experience has shown that there are major differences among the graduate schools with regard to how credits are allocated for PhD courses and the assessment of participants in courses. For example, some graduate schools award ECTS credits for participation in conferences and local lecture/seminar series (such as journal clubs), while others consider such activities a natural component of the research project.

A number of graduate schools carry out assessments of PhD courses in which students are required to answer questions about the course or to fill out questionnaires which are handed in to the instructor at the end of the course. Such questionnaires typically include questions about the student's evaluation of the course, the instruction, and learning outcomes. These evaluations are reviewed by the head of the graduate school and the PhD committee for the main academic area in question.

Activities which foster the various competences which a modern career in research demands are an important dimension of modern researcher training Examples include courses in ’transferable skills’, including”academic writing, academic English, patenting, ethical aspects of research, project management, dissemination, etc”. Aarhus University graduate schools offer their students a variety of such courses, either internally or by drawing on external resources. The individual graduate schools include this type of course in the doctoral course catalogue in different ways. For example, some graduate schools offer mandatory ‘transferable skills’ courses, while others place limits on the number of such courses on offer.

The PhD Order specifically requires that PhD students be offered courses in teaching. This requirement is interpreted in various ways by the individual graduate schools.

Some years ago, the main academic areas of Aarhus University and the other Danish universities negotiated an agreement on an ‘open market' for PhD courses which set out conditions for student participation in PhD courses offered at other institutions. There is a need for flexible, reasonably priced inter-university courses.

With regard to knowledge dissemination, the PhD Order requires that PhD students gain experience with teaching or other forms of knowledge dissemination which should insofar as possible be directly related to the student's PhD project. Teaching and knowledge dissemination include a range of different activities. Examples include giving lectures, assistant teaching, supervising Master's degree students, making presentations for high school students (for example, in the context of the ‘Researcher for a Day’ event), talks at theme days/PhD days and contributing to websites.

Most of the graduate schools link the PhD Order’s requirements with regard to teaching and other forms of knowledge dissemination with the administration of the ‘salaried work’ obligation governed by the collective labour agreements for PhD scholarships. However, the amount of teaching individual PhD students are offered/required to perform varies among the graduate schools. The amount of teaching offered/required also varies within individual graduate schools, and in some instances is determined by the individual students' terms of employment.

5b Objectives

Elements such as courses and knowledge dissemination skills training are a natural part of modern, structured PhD education. Aarhus University should strive to ensure that all PhD students have easy access to a range of courses and teaching/knowledge dissemination-related activities. The range of courses and activities offered should enable each graduate student to fulfill the PhD Order's requirements, and at the same time constitute a genuine contribution to the quality of the students' education without unduly reducing the time available for the other elements of their studies (not least research).

The content of PhD courses should be relevant to students' PhD projects and should provide an occasion for them to acquire experience in teaching and knowledge dissemination. To promote this end, an increased focus on the range and quality of the courses offered would be appropriate, with special attention to issues such as requirements with regard to quality, the appropriate proportion of mandatory courses, etc. The objective is to ensure that PhD students are given genuine, relevant opportunities for learning that are consistent with the requirements of their specific field of research.

Similarly, graduate schools should be in a position to offer PhD students opportunities to gain relevant experience in teaching and other forms of knowledge dissemination which will be beneficial in the student's subsequent career.

The administration of the intersection of these activities with the students' paid work should not be experienced as inappropriate by the students. 

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Aarhus University’s objectives for initiatives regarding courses and communication skills in the PhD area are

• to increase the quality and quantity of the range of internal academic PhD courses offered;
• to increase the quality and quantity of the range of external PhD courses offered;
• to enable the university to become an attractive partner in national and international collaboration on PhD courses;
• to give all PhD students access to relevant training in communication skills (teaching and other forms of knowledge dissemination) during their studies; and
• to administer the employment conditions and salaried work of PhD students so that all parties feel themselves handled fairly - across the graduate schools and on an individual level.

 

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5c Initiatives

Development of the graduate schools' course programmes 

One of a graduate school's most important tasks is to ensure that it offers its students a broad range of high-quality, relevant courses within their field of research. These academic courses are normally offered in the context of the graduate schools’ individual PhD programmes.

All graduate schools should develop a set of guidelines for the courses to be offered by each PhD programme, as well as for course descriptions.

In addition, each graduate school should ensure that all PhD students enrolled have access to an adequate programme of PhD courses within their field, and that the PhD Order's requirements with regard to coursework can be met with a course programme appropriate to the individual PhD student’s studies. In addition, a large proportion of these courses should have direct relevance for the individual PhD student's project. The course programme should also contain both internal and external courses, and it should permit long-term planning of individual coursework (progression of courses to be taken, timing, etc.).

Agents: The graduate schools

Allocation of ECTS credits to PhD courses

Each graduate school should develop guidelines to ensure that all courses offered fulfil current requirements for application of the ECTS standard. The guidelines for preparing course descriptions should be discussed in the graduate school programme committees, the PhD committtes and among the heads of graduate schools.

Agents: The heads of Aarhus University graduate schools

Evaluation of PhD courses and instructors

There is a need for a general clarification of the procedure for evaluating PhD courses, both those offered by Aarhus University as well as other providers. In the first place, the university’s graduate schools’ experiences with regard to evaluations should be surveyed (best practice), after which a comparative evaluation of appropriate (or inappropriate) differences in practice should be performed.

Agents: The heads of Aarhus University graduate schools

Courses in ’transferable skills’

A general survey of the graduate schools’ experiences with and requirements with regard to ‘transferable skills’ courses should be carried out.

In addition, a programme of joint courses available to all of the university’s graduate schools should be established on the foundation of these experiences and requirements. Individual courses could be offered centrally, by one of the graduate schools or by an external provider.

Agents: The heads of Aarhus University graduate schools

Website with link to all PhD courses offered at Aarhus University

Every year, Aarhus University offers a number of PhD courses divided among its nine main academic areas. It would be an advantage to make information about all of these courses accessible via single portal. This would make it easier for the university’s PhD students to locate relevant courses outside of their own main academic area. It would also make it easier for PhD students in the rest of the country to access information on the wide range of PhD courses offered at Aarhus University. It would also strengthen the university’s image as an institution with a strong profile in the area of researcher training.

In cooperation with a private company, the PhD association at the Faculty of Health Sciences has developed a web-based program which enables all Danish main academic areas to register their courses in an accessible format. In addition to making it easy for PhD students throughout the country to search for courses, the programme has a number of useful features. For example, it contains a user service which informs users of potentially relevant new courses. The programme fulfills all the requirements for a shared portal.

In order for the programme to be used by Aarhus University, it would be necessary to integrate it into the online portfolio system to ensure secure and stable operation as well as further development. It is also important to ensure that courses only need to be published online once (not both in the portal and on the websites of the main academic areas). The programme should also link to the course registration systems of the main academic areas. Ultimately, the portal could be offered to other institutions in Denmark.

Negotations with the Faculty of Health Sciences and its PhD association should be initiated in order to explore the possibility of transferring the programme to the university, including subsequent assistance with maintenance and development. Alternatively, other providers of similar programmes could be investigated.

Agents: The heads of Aarhus University graduate schools

External PhD courses

Aarhus University should contact the other Danish universities in order to initiate negotiation of a nationwide agreement to replace ‘The open market for PhD courses’ (Det åbne marked for ph.d.-kurser), which gave PhD students access to courses at other universities free of charge. Any such agreement must be based on a functional and equitable collaboration on PhD courses and be designed to promote the greatest possible flexibility.

The graduate schools should cooperate in order to make an updated list of external course offerings available. The list should include feedback on experiences with courses offered by international networks such as the Coimbra Group.

Agents: The heads of Aarhus University graduate schools

The framework for knowledge dissemination activities

Information on the individual graduate schools' experiences with knowledge dissemination activities for PhD students should be gathered (best practice).

On the basis of this overview, each graduate school should prepare guidelines for the knowledge dissemination aspects of its PhD programmes, including guidlines for

• requirements with regard to the extent of compulsory knowledge dissemination activities and
• the framework for the form such knowledge dissemination activities should take

The ultimate goal of this work should be to develop a general shared framework for practice.

In addition, the graduate schools’ administration of the legal requirement that a teaching course be offered to PhD students set out in the PhD Order should be improved by means of increased collaboration among graduate schools and with the Danish Network for Educational Development in Higher Education (DUN).

Agents: The heads of Aarhus University graduate schools

The framework for salaried work

A survey of the practices of the graduate schools with regard to salaried work in a general sense should be carried out, both in relation to the collective agreement governing the salaried work of PhD students employed as PhD research fellows and in relation to PhD students who are not employed as PhD research fellows, including PhD students admitted on a PhD scholarhip (i.e. before the completion of the Master’s degree).

This survey should include

• requirements with regard to the extent of salaried work required/permitted
• the formal framework governing an offer of salaried work
• practice with regard to students who choose not to accept such an offer of salaried work

On the basis of this survey, a general policy for employment practices should be developed. These guidelines should help ensure that PhD students are not burdened with unreasonable work demands relative to the short period of time available to them for the completion of a doctoral degree at an international standard. They should also ensure relatively uniform practices among the graduate schools and with regard to the treatment of individual students.

Agents: AU Human Resources, the electronic PhD administration system and the graduate schools