Dear all,
To pass on information about changes to the Pro Gradu passed by Departmental Council earlier today.
1) For a number of years now there has been a strict deadline of handing in the thesis no later than 1 year after commencing the experimental part of the thesis. Effective from today there is a change to the marking criteria used by the department, in that the grade awarded for the thesis will be decreased by 1 grade for each 3 months or part thereof that the thesis is handed in late. There is still the system in place for applying for extensions to either the experimental work or the write up for students if there are factors beyond their control which prevent them from working.
2) Students who were in the old degree system, who will complete their degree after July 2008 and hence have been transferred to the new system, but with the old degree titles and old course requirements have two changes to the Pro Gradu:
A) The Pro Gradu becomes 6 months of experimental work instead of 5 months (with a corresponding increase in credits to 48op). You have been told about this already several times.
B) As per the new system students can start the Pro Gradu work when they are 30op into their MSc studies. In practice this means that students transfering from the old degree system (and keeping the old degree titles and course requirements) must have completed 210op of studies, with Biokemia aineoppinnot 740331A (25op) being counted as 12op towards the total for the purposes of starting the Pro Gradu work after half of the experiments are completed and signed off. The net effect of this is that there is now more flexibilty in the start date.
Since 2B changes a number of things, just to remind you of the guidelines I use for granting extensions these include:
A) If a piece of essential equipment breaks down and there is no back up B) If you get sick C) If your supervisor(s) get sick and/or go on holiday. D) You get invited to give a presentation at a conference. E) Your childcare arrangements break down and you have to stay at home with the kids for a week.
There are many other posibilities, we are flexible. Note that holidays by students are optional and do not grant extensions.
I do NOT normally grant extensions if you have to attend lecture based courses held in Oulu during the Pro Gradu period, but I will grant extensions to the experimental time if you have to attend practical based courses anywhere or lecture based courses held away from Oulu which prevent you doing experimental work on your Pro Gradu provding that the period of time concerned is 1 week or more, a delay of a few days will not be granted an extension e.g. to get an extension the practical course must be for 1 week or more.
Note that attendence of courses etc will cannot be used to grant extensions to the write up period, except under unusual circumstances.
VBW,
Lloyd