Dear all,
One of the things each course convenor does each year is to check that the number of credits awarded for a particular course is appropriate, with any necessary corrections being made as courses evolve.
This year it is clear that the Neurobiology course was under-creditted. Usually changes are not made retrospectively. However, this is the first year the course has run and, under the usual guidelines for calculating credits it is clear that the work required was significantly more than the 2.5op that was being awarded. A detailed evaluation suggests that the "average workload" associated with the course is circa 105 hours, which is equivalent to 4op.
There will be a proposal at the next departmental council meeting that the credits for Neurobiology for future years will be changed to 4op and that, exceptionally, this will be made retrospective so that all students who took the course this year will be awarded 4op.
At the moment this is just a proposal, but there is clear evidence that the change is needed and it is likely to be passed. Since the next departmental council is not until the end of this month (when many students have started to leave) I thought I would notify you of the likelyhood in advance.
One further piece of news that does not seem to have filtered down to all students yet is that Thomas Kietzmann will be joining the department as the new Professor of Cellular Biochemistry in the late Autumn. Some of his group will arrive in the summer. Thomas works on the hypoxia response (http://www.chemie.uni-kl.de/forschung/bc/kietzmann/), which is essential for both normal cellular processes such as angiogensis and also diseases such as cancer growth. He will be teaching at both the BSc level and brining new courses at the MSc level to the Molecular and Cellular side of the degree.
Best wishes,
Lloyd