What is ECTS?
Istinye University has adopted the ECTS approach and applications as a quality assurance means to reach its strategic goals concerning national and international education and training processes. ECTS is a learner-centered credit system based on the student workload developed by the European Union (EU) to facilitate student mobility and to ensure that periods of study abroad are recognized in the students’ home country.
What is ECTS Credit?
- It is the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System.
- It is an assessment system that demonstrates the amount of time a student spends on each course or module in a study program (workload) or the total amount of workload required by a study program.
- Student workload is the time needed by a student to complete all planned learning activities. It is estimated by the instructor in accordance with the above-mentioned rules by taking into consideration the average time spent by a student. Including the students’ views in the estimation increases the quality assurance and acceptability of the application.
- It is based on the learning time of students rather than the teaching time.
- It is based on the desired learning outcomes rather than the instructor inputs.
- It is based on outcomes rather than inputs.
- It is the numerical value that demonstrates the student workload required for the completion of each course to reach the desired learning outcomes.
*In Associate’s Degree Programs: total 4 semesters x 30 ECTS/Semester = 120 ECTS
*In Undergraduate Degree Programs: total 8 semesters x 30 ECTS/Semester = 240 ECTS
*In Master’s Degree Programs: total 4 semesters x 30 ECTS/Semester = 120 ECTS
ESTIMATION OF ECTS CREDITS
One semester includes a total workload of 17 weeks, 14 of which (corresponding to 70 working days) are devoted to teaching, 1 of which is devoted to preparation for exams and 2 of which are devoted to final exams. Taking into consideration that a student’s responsibility is being a full-time student, he/she is required to work for 45 hours. In this way, the amount of workload in hours corresponding to 1 ECTS is estimated. Since the Labor Law allows working for 45 working days in a week, the total working time of a student in a semester is estimated as 17 weeks (in hours)/Semester x 45 hours/week = 765 hours/Semester.
On the other hand, since there is a workload that equals to 30 ECTS/Semester credit in one semester and since this load is expressed as 765 hours/Semester per semester, the amount of workload in hours corresponding to 1 ECTS should be estimated.
Accordingly, (765 hours/Semester)/(30 ECTS/Semester) = 25.5 hours/ECTS, i.e. 1 ECTS credit corresponds to 25.5 hours of workload. In order to get 1 ECTS credit, a student should spend a total time of 25.5 hours/semester.
THE AIM OF ECTS
To facilitate student mobility at international level.
To ensure the transparency that would provide higher education institutions with additional information about student performance.
To ensure that periods of study abroad are recognized in the students’ home country.
To provide model rules of application based on the transparency of study programs and the success of the students to regulate academic recognition.