ECTS CREDITS AND METHODS OF CREDIT
ALLOCATION
1.
INTRODUCTION
1.1
GENERAL
This paper has been produced in response to a strong request for assistance expressed by a large
number of colleagues who find themselves obliged to allocate ECTS credits to the teaching
modules in their institutions of higher education. They complain that, if existing literature
explains what ECTS credits are, they still need serious guidance on how to allocate credits in
practice. So this presentation is meant to be a plain person’s guide to credit allocation. It is
intended to be supplementary to and not a replacement for other literature on the subject,
including above all the European Commission’s ECTS Users Guide. A select guide to the
literature on ECTS (and other Credit Accumulation and Transfer Systems), on the
Bologna/Prague Process and on the Bruges Process is attached to this paper as an Appendix.
Before setting out on a specific discussion of the practicalities involved in allocating ECTS
credits, it is essential to start with a reminder that ECTS has TWO MECHANISMS - Credits and
a Grading scale - and FOUR WRITTEN INSTRUMENTS - Application Form, Learning
Agreement, Transcript of Record and last, but definitely not least, Information Package or
Course Catalogue. This paper which is devoted solely to ECTS Credits and Credit Allocation,
must, nevertheless, be set within that general context. ECTS is a complete package of
complementary parts. Further, ECTS is just one part of an even wider package, agreed within
the terms of the Bologna Process, for the creation of the European Higher Education Area. This
complementary characteristic must never be forgotten
It is also necessary to remember that ECTS has been adjudged, after much debate, to be just as
valid as a credit ACCUMULATION as a credit TRANSFER system. This is scarcely surprising
since it is self-evident that credit cannot be transferred unless it has first been accumulated. In
any event, everybody in Europe, like it or not, is in the Bologna Process for the creation of the
European Higher Education Area which requires all countries involved to put in place a Credit
Accumulation and Transfer System (CATS), either ECTS or a system which is fully compatible
with ECTS. This is to be placed in a wider context of a common framework of ‘diplomas’,
Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate.
What follows below is essentially a discussion about the allocation of credit for First Cycle or
Bachelors degrees. Some debate is still in progress around the total number of credits which
should be accorded to Second Cycle or Masters degrees which can vary very greatly in length of
study1. As for Doctorates, it is still not certain whether it will prove appropriate to attach credits
1
The number of credits to be awarded to Masters degrees has given rise to some debate in cases where
the full-time equivalent length of study is more than two semesters (60 credits) but less than four
semesters (120 credits). Guidelines for courses which may carry 75 or even , exceptionally, 90 credits are
suggested in the final report of the Tuning Project First Phase 2003, p 242.
2
to them.2. In any event, the basic mechanisms for allocating credits remain the same from one
diploma to another.
1.2
THE BACKGROUND TO ECTS CREDIT ALLOCATION.
In order to allow institutions to express in simple terms the weight which they accord to specific
course units or modules, ECTS credits are allocated on a 60 point annual scale. That is, 60
credits at Bachelors level equals the work of one academic year of two semesters. In effect, an
academic year is equivalent to approximately nine months or 38/40 weeks. Even if an institution
should impose, for example, work placements or field studies which involve students working
over a longer period than this at Bachelors level, the number of credits for the academic year
remains 60. That much is easy but clearly there remains a practical question involved in the
actual process of credit allocation since the different educational cultures across Europe have
had in the past very diverse ways of estimating the weight of their various offerings.
So the first crucial stage of this discussion is to go to the absolute starting point of ECTS which is
that, however credit allocation is achieved in practice, it must be carried out according to
Relative Student Workload.
1.3
RELATIVE STUDENT WORKLOAD.
Relative student workload is a splendid concept but it is, in those practical terms that concern
institutions who have to implement it, an extremely difficult one to define with exactitude.
Whatever method is used for measuring student effort, it will to some degree be a shorthand
way of estimating that workload and this fact means that it is essential to proceed with extreme
caution and with mechanisms for continuously checking the validity of what has been done.
At this stage, it is necessary to make a fundamental observation about ECTS in its pilot stage
from 1989 to 1995. It worked basically on the assumption that, whatever the practical problems
of allocating credits, this would be achieved in institutions of Higher Education largely through
comparing the relative weight of the different parts of an overall degree programme. This
effectively implied an ‘impositional method’ of credit allocation but that method has its
shortcomings in certain situations, as we shall see, and fortunately there exist other ways of
determining credit allocation.
In effect, experts on those Credit Accumulation and Transfer Systems which equate credits with
student workload, identify THREE different methods of credit allocation, each of which may be
the best one to use in individual situations. These are:A. The Impositional Method
B. The Compositional Method
C. Credit Allocation by reference to Learning Outcome3.
Where a doctorate consists essentially of the production of a thesis at the end of a three year (or threeyear full time equivalent) preparatory period, it is difficult to see how any doctoral student could
accumulate subsets of these credits during the three-year period.
2
3
See for example, David Robertson (ed.), 1994, pp. 120 ff.
3
We will take these in turn in order to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. It will then
be possible to arrive at some general conclusions.
2.
THE
THREE
METHODS
OF
CREDIT
ALLOCATION
ACCORDING TO RELATIVE STUDENT WORKLOAD.
2.1. THE IMPOSITIONAL ALLOCATION OF CREDITS OR TOP-DOWN
METHOD.
This is, when possible to employ it, the easiest method by which to allocate credits. Where an
educational institution has a clear-cut programme for the achievement of each of its particular
‘diplomas’, then it may well be relatively easy to allocate credits between the various constituent
modules of that programme and to do so semester by semester or year by year. This has
generally proved to be the case in Great Britain, for example, which has, for the most part, very
closely defined degree programmes. Back in 1990, it took the author of this paper just 5 minutes
to achieve credit allocation for the History Departments in St Andrews (Scotland) from first to
fourth year level of the bachelor’s degree. This was simply because, as a Scottish university, it
had a very well established notion of the relative weight of each unit within an overall
programme even if it had not previously used credit points to teaching units to express this. In
this particular Scottish situation, the allocation of precise credit points was, thus, in this specific
subject area, extremely easy4.
Such an easy case as the one cited in the History departments in St Andrews above does,
however, conceal some serious problems which can be encountered in using the impositional
method, problems to which we can now draw attention within three general areas:Area 1
How does one assess credits for modules which are essentially different in
character? Some are lecture based, some tutorial/seminar based. Others are centred on
laboratory work, while yet others involve essentially field work or work placements. Others
again involve the writing of a report or a dissertation or yet again a thesis. Strict comparisons
between such dissimilar modules are, therefore, difficult.
Area 2
How does one cope with particular modules which, although involving the same
amount of work for students, nevertheless count for a different credit weighting when taken
within different degree programmes?
Area 3
How does one deal with programme building unless one makes sure that all
modules fit together in a coherent fashion? Building a 60 point annual programme or a 30 point
semestrial programme can be a nightmare unless one makes sure that the arithmetic works out
properly.
It should be noted that 60 credits per annum greatly facilitates everybody’s task because 60, being both
decimal and duodecimal, causes few awkward calculations. The figure 60 was not chosen by sticking a
pin in a page! Obviously a programme divided into 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 8 (at 7.5 credits)10 or 12 parts leaves an
institution with no nasty ugly credit points with a string of decimal points. Only programmes consisting
of 7, 9, and 11 equal parts give problems with base 60.
4
4
The practical application of ECTS across Europe has shown that all three of the above areas have
given some people very difficult problems to solve.
Area 1 underlines just how important, indeed inevitable, it is that credit allocation be based on
STUDENT effort. Those working in educational cultures which basically estimate the weight
teaching units according to TEACHER effort, such as in the old Spanish and French systems,
have experienced great difficulty in calculating credits to be allocated to teaching units which
are principally about student effort and little, if anything, to do with teacher effort. So, in such
cases, there is a whole educational process to be gone through in order to help such colleagues
think their way through credit allocation by this method.
In respect of Area 2 above, it is obviously preferable to avoid modules which carry different
credits according to the different programmes of which they are constituent parts because it
leads easily to student claims of unfairness. Nevertheless, it is within the logic of ECTS because
it is not student workload which counts but RELATIVE student workload. It is the total amount
of time a student takes to accomplish the work for each module RELATIVE to the total time
required for all modules within the individual semester or year. Nevertheless, it is difficult to
avoid the assertion that what are essentially the same undergraduate diplomas should overall
involve, more or less, the same amount of student work where this work is completed within the
same timeframe as part of a full time degree programme.
As for Area 3, the best way to achieve (arithmetical) coherence is to put all modules for
individual degree programmes onto a flow chart so that one can see how a student proceeds
from point A to point B. It also helps if all modules are multiples of each other. Thus, for
instance, an institution may decide that, since its basic size of module is, say, 5 credits, all other
modules will be multiples of 5, that is 10 and 15, or, in the opposite direction, 2.5. This avoids
awkward calculations for students since having multiples of 5 will make it much easier for them
to construct programmes consisting precisely of 30 credits for a semester or of 60 for a whole
year. This may seem obvious but it is amazing to see people failing to do this or thinking it was
a brilliant stroke to do so. It is, of course, just plain common sense! It is just like playing with
bricks and fractions of bricks in order to construct neat and tidy buildings.
In addition, it has been found most helpful if attention is given to developing different routes or
pathways through Bachelors degrees which provide the requisite FLEXIBILITY to meet different
student needs through the introduction of options and electives into particular programmes5.
Nevertheless, attempting to do this clearly becomes a potential nightmare where the curriculum
Referring these three areas of concern back to the Scottish environment in History outlined above, they
did not constitute serious problems because that environment was, as stated, really modular way before
credit points were allocated to the teaching programmes. This was necessary because of the binary
Scottish system leading the student from an Ordinary degree (the first two years or four semesters) to an
Honours degree (the next two years or semesters five to eight); because there were, and still are, so many
joint Honours degrees, linking two academic subjects areas which demand strict credit accounting in
order to insure a correct balance between the two subject areas; and finally because there was a long
tradition as between the four ancient universities of Scotland of what was in effect credit transfer for
students. This situation is not surprising when it is remembered that the North American credit systems,
on which ECTS is modelled, were essentially built on the Scottish organisation of university studies.
5
5
planners and the teachers of individual modules do not possess a clear sense of an overall
programme and of the fundamental sizes of sub-units of which it is constructed. This
unfortunate situation is often underpinned by a denial that what one professor teaches can
seriously be compared with what another professor teaches. The next step is to deny that it is
possible anyway to build credit allocation on STUDENT EFFORT because that is supposedly
not measurable.
This last claim is erroneous as will be demonstrated in section 2.2 below. Nevertheless, it is
obvious that the use of the top-down method is difficult for institutions which lack strongly
coherent degree programmes. A strong sense of collegiality is required among curriculum
developers for this method to be viable. In institutions where this collegiality is seriously
lacking, it rapidly becomes necessary to turn to one or other (or both) of the two alternative
ways of allocating credit.
2.2
THE COMPOSITIONAL
BOTTOM-UP METHOD
METHOD
OF
CREDIT
ALLOCATION
OR
This second method of achieving coherence in the allocation of credits to individual units or
modules consists of a much more direct way of calculating student work load. This is achieved
by counting the ‘hours of work’ involved in studying for the various modules offered by a
teaching establishment. It is possible to approach such direct accounting of student effort by
reference to one of two different methods, although this paper will deal fully only with the
second one for the reasons stated immediately below.
2.2.1 THE ‘STUDENT WORK-HOUR’. The weight of student work effort in the United States
is often formulated in terms of the number of Student Work Hours. The ‘Student Work Hour’ is
a highly developed but theoretical concept (so theoretical that the student will normally work
for a great deal more than one hour to achieve one student work hour!) and one which has
rarely if ever been applied in Europe. It will not, therefore, be considered in detail here. Rather
attention will be concentrated on the much more straight-forward idea of working out how
many actual hours it takes a student to accomplish the work laid down for him/her by a specific
module.
2.2.2 ‘REAL’ STUDENT HOURS. This method does indeed involve attempting to calculate
how many actual or real hours it takes a student to accomplish the work involved in an
individual module or all the modules for an entire semester’s or academic year’s work. It is a
method which frequently raises opposition from certain teachers before they even attempt the
task.
First, it is obvious that individual students, according to their several talents and according to
their various degrees of interest in a specific subject matter, will take different numbers of hours
to accomplish the work involved in a given module. That much is so obvious that it is clearly a
spurious argument. The point is to calculate the time it will take the AVERAGE student to
accomplish the work. Nevertheless and even having made that proviso, ECTS counsellors have
often been confronted, across Europe, with another and more fundamental objection which is
that teachers and administrators, whose task it is to allocate credits, cannot possibly know the
answers to this question.
6
When presented with the statement that obviously the answers can be obtained simply by
asking students through questionnaires relating to the matter, the doubters are aghast that the
students be asked at all and, further, that anyone should be so naïve as to believe that the
answers given by students in questionnaires may be serious approximations to the truth.
One can only ignore the first argument and hope that time will change the notion that ‘canon
fodder’ could ever be asked anything.
The answer to the second point is quite clearly that properly formulated questionnaires,
properly administered and properly processed may, and indeed do, give remarkably reliable
answers.
A look at the answers to the highly professional statistical surveys which have been carried out
all over Europe in recent years reveals that they give some remarkably consistent answers from
one country to another. The average student in Europe estimates that he/she needs to
accomplish 1600 hours +/- 200 hours in order to complete one academic year’s work. This
means that 1 ECTS credit equates to something between 25 and 30 hours of work6.
Variations either side of the above figures, some of which are apparently quite large, probably
result more from differences in the formulation of the questionnaires from one institution or
country to another than from fundamental differences in educational cultures. Moreover,
however much one may seek to establish ‘real’ hours of work, those hours are in fact notional
and one should therefore expect some differences from place to place7.
The fact that such hours are to some extent notional does not, however, deprive them of their
usefulness. In the context of Lifelong Learning, and building on the surveys undertaken as part
of the Tuning Higher Education Systems project, the average value of 1 ECTS credit may be
taken as 25 to 30 hours of work, as was noted above.
Such a conclusion is, in practice, of extreme importance. It gives a strong base for all calculations
relative, as said above, to degree structures where a very precise notion of programme to be
achieved within a very precise timeframe, that is in terms of weeks or months, is missing. This is
true of certain existing European (or non-European) university systems. European policy on
Lifelong Learning is leading the development of part-time qualifications in Europe8. It is clear
that “Valuing Learning” will require a mutually acceptable and transparent system of credits,
based, at least in part, on student work hours, not only for conventional academic studies but
also to a range of vocational qualifications9.
6
See the Tuning Project Report 2003, p. 241 ff.
In this respect it is useful to look at the discussion of ‘notional’ work hours in the ECAS -LLL the European Credit Allocation System for Lifelong Learning- which uses as its base the
definitions of credit employed by the Scottish Credit and Qualifications, 2001. See John Konrad,
7
(2003). This is the appropriate place to offer thanks to John Konrad for the most helpful comments and
advice he gave the author in the preparation of this paper.
8 Memorandum( 2000), Recommendations (2001).
9 See the Copenhagen Declaration as part of the Bruges Process (2002).
7
2.2.3 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS RAISED IN USING STUDENT HOURS AS A BASIS OF
CREDIT ALLOCATION.
There are, however, a number of important questions which need to be reviewed in respect of
using student hours as a basis for credit allocation. First, attention should be drawn to a short
paper produced recently in Britain which casts doubt on the emphasis the Tuning Project
apparently placed on student hours as a basis for credit allocation and as a basis, therefore, for
establishing the equivalence of credits as between the various European countries. It argues that
what matters is not HOW MANY HOURS a student works but rather HOW MUCH HE/SHE
LEARNS in a given time10. This argument may seem to be a piece of special pleading in the
situation in which British surveys of student work hours apparently indicate that British
students consistently work fewer hours during the academic year than their continental
counterparts. To pursue such an argument too far would be to reopen all sorts of sterile and
wearisome debates about who works most and/or hardest amongst Europe’s students. In any
case, it is clearly unsatisfactory to suggest, as this British paper does, that somehow there is no
relationship between the number of hours worked and the learning outcomes achieved11. The
relationship may not be straightforward but it certainly exists12. An important point is, however,
being made here because the paper argues that ultimately what really matters is the Learning
Outcomes, and that is exactly why the matter is discussed at length in the Tuning Project report
of 2003 and will be discussed at some length below in section 2.313. This is indeed a most
important question not only for the reason just given but also for a second one which is
discussed in the next paragraph.
If the above objection to using student work hours is largely theoretical, there is a second and
purely practical problem with using it as a method of credit allocation. If student questionnaires
can give answers to the question of the total number of hours it takes to accomplish the work
involved in PRE-EXISTING modules, such questionnaires obviously cannot be used in respect
of new modules which are in the planning stage. One needs, in these cases, to be able to
calculate the number of hours involved in advance which is, of course, impossible by this
method.
10
This was published under the title Comments on the Proposed Developments in the Bologna Process, by the
Universities UK. The argument is by no means new. See for example the following:- ‘As a measure of
learning, the assignment of credit units on…the basis of student workload [is] arbitrary and meaningless.’,
Sheldon Rothblatt, 1991.
11 In fact, the author is really intent on showing that the reason why the British appear to work fewer
hours per year than other European students is purely that the British have calculated work hours on a
different basis from their continental colleagues. The author complains that the British simply do not wish
to recalculate the hours just so they can fit in with more usual European practice. In pursuing this point,
the author is, however, conceding indirectly that work hours DO matter in calculating credits. In effect, it
is obvious that Learning Outcomes for different modules cannot possibly be compared in weight from one
to another unless those Outcomes are converted into the number of notional hours needed to achieve
them.
12 Naturally, work and the time taken to accomplish it is at the heart of discussions about time
management. That the relationship between the two may be awkward is illustrated in the so-called ‘Peter
Principle’, put forward in the 1960s. According to this semi-jocular proposition, work will tend to expand
in order to meet the time laid down to accomplish it. University teachers and administrators who have
had to sit through interminable meetings to little effect, need no introduction to this idea! For a more
serious discussion of the relationship between work outcomes and time, see below section 2.3.1.
13 Tuning Report, 2003, p. 59-211.
8
Finally, even if student questionnaires can give a firm idea of the relative effort which students
put into individual modules, it is still necessary when allocating credits to make sure that full
time students can construct COHERENT PROGRAMMES equating to 30 credits per semester
and 60 per year14. If a pre-existing programme is being checked then it may prove necessary,
after administering questionnaires to students and having tentatively allocated credits to
individual modules, to adjust a programme and its contents in order to make sure it now is
coherent in terms of its semestrial and annual credit ratings. It is necessary to make sure that
individual students can build a sensible programme which equates to 60 credits per academic
year. In other words, attention must be given to the basic arithmetic of modular credit so that
the various building blocks are cognate as part of a whole. This is, of course, exactly the same
point that was made in relation to the impositional method of credit allocation above.
2.3
THE METHOD OF CREDIT ALLOCATION ACCORDING TO LEARNING
OUTCOMES OR COMPETENCIES
The best way, at least theoretically, to calculate the number of student hours which will be
involved in successfully completing a new module is by being very precise, during its planning
stage, in identifying and enumerating the Learning Outcomes and Competences15. The same will
often be true of checking the number of study hours required to complete successfully an
already existing module with its attendant Learning Outcomes. Before going further, it is
important to state that the ‘objectives’ or ‘aims’ of a teaching module are NOT the same thing as
Learning Outcomes. The former are related to but they are not identical with the Learning
Outcomes.
LEARNING OUTCOMES may be defined as:- “Statements of what a learner is expected to
know, understand and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of a process of learning.
When used in association with their related assessment criteria, learning outcomes reflect the
level at which the learning has occurred”16.
In other words, one may understand by Learning Outcomes that which:a student who successfully completes this module or course will know and be able to
demonstrate….
a student who successfully completes this module or course will be able to do ….
Many Learning Outcomes will be specific to the individual module or course but many others
will concern transferable skills, so it is important to identify both sets of outcomes. Statements
of Learning Outcomes are vital in establishing PROGRAMME EQUIVALENCE. This is vital for
helping in all kinds of student mobility. Here is one major reason why Course Catalogues
The point of ‘coherence’ in this respect is to emphasise the importance of ensuring that a programme of
study is an organised and planned learning pathway, leading to a recognised qualification with its own
goals or outcomes.
15 In order to avoid undue repetition, the term ‘Learning Outcomes’ will, from this point on, be used
exclusively in this paper.
16 Credit and HE Qualifications, (2001), p. 10.
14
9
produced across Europe, on the pattern laid down by the ECTS Users Guide, are increasingly
providing statements of Learning Outcomes.
2.3.1
THE IMPORANCE OF LEARNING OUTCOMES IN ESTABLISHING
PROGRAMME EQUIVALENCE.
The use of Learning Outcomes in describing programmes and individual modules helps to
establish PROGRAMME EQUIVALENCE. First, they indicate equivalence in terms of the
CONTENTS of modules and, secondly, they indicate equivalence in terms of both the
VOLUME and the LEVEL of those contents. Emphasis needs to be laid on the question of
LEVEL. The successful building of a credit accumulation system and the ability to construct
bridges, through credit transfer, between it and a variety of different learning environments and
experiences is highly dependent on establishing the LEVEL at which credits are acquired by
learners.
Above all, this method of credit allocation by reference to Learning Outcomes enables the
curriculum developer to look at exactly how much student effort is necessary to achieve the
specified outcomes. In other words, and to pick up and complete an argument outlined above, it
establishes a clear link between A PREDETERMINED NUMBER OF CLEARLY STATED
LEARNING OUTCOMES on the one hand and THE NUMBER OF HOURS, the average
student will work to achieve them , on the other hand.
In theory, this method of credit allocation is excellent and it is consistently used by those who
design Open and Distance Learning (ODL) modules. Indeed, they have achieved very high level
of skills in doing just this. In extreme case, such module planners argue that it takes 100 hours of
preparation to get one hour of ODL learning correctly set up. One simply cannot afford to get it
wrong with those who have work and/or family constraints on their student work time. To
some extent, this skill is infiltrating more traditional teaching situations in universities,
particularly the so-called ‘mixed universities’ which combine traditional with ODL teaching
packages, as for instance is often found in Australia17. And, of course, they check that they have
got it right by using on-going questionnaires to ascertain whether the students think the effort
being required of them is too much or too little. This practice is increasingly common across
Europe now, although the use of such questionnaires to serve, additionally, as an assessment of
teacher performance raises a lot of opposition among those not used to being evaluated in this
way.
Despite its obvious advantages, this method of credit allocation does present real problems
which require a rapid review.
2.3.2
PROBLEMS OF VOCABULARY
First, the very theory and even the vocabulary of Learning Outcomes is still rather imprecise
even within the Anglo-Saxon world where it has primarily been developed18. This means that
Bruce King, (1999), pp.264-276.
This work was first undertaken seriously in the USA and goes back essentially to RF Mager, (1965). A
useful bibliography of more recent works, again mostly in English, see the Tuning Project Report May
2002, pp. 41-42, unfortunately not reproduced in the final report of 2003.
17
18
10
academics in non-English-speaking countries are often to be found still in the process of
developing a basic vocabulary for the whole area of Learning Outcomes. In these circumstances,
a truly trans-European agreement on the terminology associated with this subject must,
perforce, take time to emerge satisfactorily.
2.3.3 PROBLEMS IN DEFINING LEVELS OF LEARNING
Secondly, much work is still in progress on reaching commonly accepted definitions of LEVELS
of learning. The Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework has, for example, identified
TWELVE levels of learning from Access Level 1 to the Doctorate19. Increases in demand on
students relate to changes in factors such as:• Complexity and depth of knowledge and understanding
• Links to associated academic, vocational and professional practice
• The degree of integration, independence and creativity required
• The range and sophistication of application/practice
• The role(s) taken in relation to other learners/workers in carrying out tasks.
LEVELS, it should be noted, are not necessarily related directly to years of study. As the
numbers of people participating in Lifelong Learning increases, the development of procedures
to enable individuals to gain recognition for their non-formal learning will become even more
important. This principle is not new, as it has evolved from the 1930s in France. The Scottish
definitions (advanced as they are) may well find wide acceptance across Europe, although much
work remains to be done at national levels to build mutual trust and confidence in other nations’
qualifications.
2.3.4
PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN DEFINING AND USING LEARNING
OUTCOMES.
More immediately, there are many teachers who, being unfamiliar with this subject, find it very
difficult to produce Learning Outcomes for student learning on the modules for which they are
responsible. This situation will only improve if universities, colleges and other providers of
formal learning improve their quality assurance processes and provide good guidance and
training in this matter. In the area of teaching a foreign language, a module should be able to
specify with ease the precise language skills which students taking the module will achieve. By
contrast, an historian at university level often finds it impossible to make a clear statement of
outcomes. There are so many skills involved in history and their development can be at so many
different levels that it is repugnant to most historians to make precise statements of outcomes
for an individual teaching module in this way. Nevertheless, the development of UK
“benchmarks” for teaching and learning history at Bachelors level has provided an indication of
an area of possible progress.
On another front, a lifelong devotee of the British Open University recently observed in a
private letter to the author of this paper, that the statement of precise outcomes for modules is
by definition limitative and, he further stated, that if one knows the precise destination before
starting on the journey then there are no surprises on arrival. This apparently limitative
19
See the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework, September 2001, especially Appendix 3.
11
characteristic of statements of precise learning outcomes is often what leads traditional
university teachers, in Arts subjects at least, to despise what is done in Open and Distance
Learning courses, which they view as substandard compared with their own. A large part of
university education is, they argue, about the individual student’s journey of self development
and self discovery. Consequently, the learning outcomes in individual cases may prove to be
very different from that which the teacher may primarily have had in mind but the teacher may
very well find the student’s outcomes equally valid when he/she sees, in an assessment, what
the student has derived from a particular piece of study. ODL teachers would reply to all this by
asserting that statements of Learning Outcomes merely lay down the BASIC COMPETENCE
level which their students are required to achieve in a given module but this does not stop
students achieving MORE than the basic requirement.
Nevertheless, these sorts of objections form the very basis of so much of the rejection by many
university teachers not only of Open and Distance Learning but also, within traditional
universities, of semesterised and modularised teaching programmes which usually accompany
the introduction of a credit accumulation and transfer system. The whole point of big bang
examinations at relatively infrequent intervals or, indeed, even at the very end of a long degree
course, they assert, is that a whole variety of subject specific and of transferable skills, developed
across a variety of different teaching units, will be displayed across a wide range of examination
papers, dissertations or theses. No doubt these debates will continue for a long time…
2.3.5
PROBLEMS WITH GETTING CORRECT THE ARITHMETIC OF CREDIT
ALLOCATION THROUGH LEARNING OUTCOMES.
In considering this problem, it must be noted that allocating credits according to the hours of
work necessary to achieve specifically laid down Learning Outcomes brings us back, only too
rapidly, to the same problems that we looked at in conclusion to Section 2.2.3 above on the use
of student work hours as a means of. allocating credits. The question is how to plan in such a
way as to get the semestrial/yearly credit arithmetic correct. In practice, those who develop
Open and Distance Learning modules usually know in advance how many credits they will be
permitted for their individual modules and, therefore, plan the Learning Outcomes and the total
student work hours necessary to achieve those Outcomes in response to this prior knowledge.
They do NOT decide the credits once they have determined the Learning Outcomes, rather
they enumerate and define the Learning Outcomes as a result of the number of credits they
have been allocated at a specific level. In other words, what appears to be a bottom-up method
often turns out in practice to be a top-down method. This method is, in these cases, reliant on
there being clear programmes of study, defined by the total number of credits required to
achieve a specific result and at a specific level in terms of this or that ‘diploma’, however varied
and flexible these programmes may be designed to be by a particular institution.
This is an important point to emphasise. Attempts to establish, either by student questionnaires
or by calculating learning outcomes, the precise workload involved in pre-existing modules in
order to allocate credits often end in tears. This occurs because somewhere in the process the
magic annual total of 60 annual ECTS credits gets forgotten. In situations like this, university
teachers are often found trying to have more credits to their academic year than 60 and, what is
more, telling ECTS counsellors that they absolutely must have that number which fails to
conform to the norm. They frequently try to explain that this is the case because the programme
in their university/subject area is heavier than that elsewhere and their students should,
12
therefore, be accorded more credits than those who study elsewhere. This is, of course, totally
unacceptable because it destroys the only viable and valid basis for comparisons between the
modules and programmes of the multitude of universities and other institutions using ECTS.
It is no doubt true that the student year is heavier in some institutions in Europe than in others
but that does not permit institutions to increase the number of annual credits. Neither does it
permit others to argue, on this basis, that, when they send visiting students to such institutions,
it is permissible to allow them to take less than 60 credits and, then, when they return home to
treat what they have done as if what the students did there totals 60 credits. In then end, ECTS
credits, as loosely defined by work hours, can do no more than to persuade institutions to work
around a reasonably agreed AVERAGE number of notional student work hours per academic
year. On the other hand, any attempt to oblige institutions to conform to an ABSOLUTE NORM
would be to overestimate the exactitude of the calculation of work hours or indeed of Learning
Outcomes and also to constitute an unacceptable attack on the autonomy of individual
institutions.
2.4 GENERAL CONCLUSION TO THE THREE METHODS OF CREDIT
ALLOCATION
It is time to draw some conclusions relative to these three methods of credit allocation:2.4.1 WHICH OF THE THREE METHODS OF CREDIT ALLOCATION IS BEST? Three
different methods of credit allocation have been discussed above. Now, it is obvious that in any
given situation a particular method may clearly emerge as the most appropriate to use.
Nevertheless, and given that it has been seen that ALL THREE METHODS have inherent
problems and limitations to be set against their advantages, it seems obvious that the best way
to proceed is to use all three methods as far as possible, then each one can act as a check on the
others. Credit allocation is not and never can be a really exact science. Credits, however defined,
will always remain to some degree notional20. Nevertheless, the margin for error will surely be
reduced if all three methods are used IN CONJUNCTION as suggested. Moreover there are, as
we have seen, other positive reasons for using all three methods simultaneously.
In practical terms, however, it is to be recommended that those charged with credit allocation
within universities attempt FIRST to use the simplest approach, that is the Impositional
Method, and then pass on to the others as a check on that method if and when it has worked
reasonably well. The check is to make sure as far as possible that the credits allocated across a
programme do reflect fairly, if not with absolute precision, the relative amount of student effort
expended.
20
This point is raised in the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework , September 2003. Compare
also with Tuning Project Report, 2003, p. 43ff & 239ff..
13
Even if the impositional method of credit allocation proves a most useful and effective one, it
must be remembered that working out and demonstrating the number of student hours
involved in completing the work of course units or modules will increase mutual confidence in
the comparability of course programmes from one educational institution to another and from
one country to another. Enumerating Learning outcomes will equally increase mutual
confidence in establishing much more firmly PROGRAMME EQUIVALENCE and
PROGRAMME LEVELS as between educational establishments and as between countries.
This use of the Impositional Method should become an even more the obvious one to use as
universities across Europe build programmes to fit the new Bachelors-Masters-Doctorate
structures of education. It affords a real opportunity to make sure that really well thought-out
programmes lead to this result. Nevertheless, in building new programmes, curriculum
developers will be obliged to pay very close attention to Learning Outcomes and in so doing to
the number of work hours it will be necessary for students to attain those Outcomes. In effect,
they will use all three methods of credit allocation21.
Nor does all this run counter to the desire to provide more flexible academic programmes than
before. The number of credits may be fixed but the clear identification of CORE/OBLIGATORY,
OPTIONAL AND ELECTIVE MODULES within programmes makes variety easier to achieve.
All the curriculum developers need to do to achieve this flexibility is to determine that so many
credits will be laid out in the programme requirements for each individual course for these
three different types of modules. This is best done by stating in the regulations for a specific
diploma the required MINIMUM number of core credits and the minimum of optional credits.
Students may then complete the total number of credits required for that diploma either by
taking electives or by adding extra core/optional modules.
So the final answer to the question as to which is the best method of credit allocation is
obvious. And it is that the best method is to use ALL THREE METHODS simultaneously!
On a practical point, it should be noted that ECTS counsellors often meet colleagues who tell
them that, whilst they know that they will have to confront the task of credit allocation soon,
there is no point doing so at this precise moment. This, they explain, is because all their
teaching programmes are subject to imminent change. This is, however, not a useful approach.
To allocate credits to programmes which are in their last days gives teachers the chance to
discover and deal with the sorts of problems which are commonly encountered. Moreover in
proceeding in this manner they can make and learn from mistakes without embarrassment since
the immediate results of their work will not necessarily be made public. The lessons learned
will, however, be very useful in avoiding pitfalls when they proceed to the detailed planning of
their new programmes and to the allocation of credits to the modules of which they will be
composed.
This conclusion is worth emphasising because a crude use of the impositional method can have very
dubious results. The author of this paper was recently informed by one university in France that it had
allocated credits on the basis of what proportion of effort teachers believed that students should put into
the individual modules being taught within its programmes. It was stated that the teachers were sure that
students would, in time, adjust their relative effort to meet the credit ratings. One understands the
reasoning but this is NOT a correct way to go about credit allocation.
21
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2.4.2 CHECKING THE VALIDITY OF THE RESULTS OF CREDIT ALLOCATION.
Following all that which has been said above, it cannot he stressed strongly enough that,
whichever method of credit allocation or, rather, whichever combination of the three different
methods has been used, ongoing checks should be employed to make sure that the credits
allocated to a particular module remain realistic. The obvious way to do that is by the use of
periodic student questionnaires. Where anonymous course evaluation questionnaires are used
(and their use is becoming more and more frequent across Europe) then it is easy to insert a
question relative to the student’s estimation of whether the work load was fairly indicated in the
credit rating of the particular module. It is obvious that in the course of time, teachers do tend to
modify the contents of their modules and, in so doing, they may well slowly move away from
the credits ratings originally given to a particular module. In this situation, ongoing checks are
essential.
2.4.3
THE POSITIVE REASONS FOR USING ACADEMIC CREDITS. THE LIMITATIONS
OF CREDITS AS INDICATORS
In addition, it is necessary to recall the positive reasons for using a CAT system which, if
seriously applied, implies the introduction of a modular teaching system. This point is of
importance because those who promote ECTS constantly state that the use of ECTS does not
OBLIGE an institution to modularise its offerings. That is true but it definitely makes things a
lot easier if the institution does modularise. Below there are some reflections on the positive
features of modularisation and credit enumeration but also a recapitulation is presented of the
limitations of credits in providing information about teaching programmes in educational
institutions. These limitations emphasise why there is more to the ECTS package than just
credits.
2.4.3.1
THE BENEFITS OF CREDITS FOR COURSE UNITS.
Whatever sympathy one may feel for the arguments against modularisation as outlined in section
2.3.4 above (examinations applied too frequently and without sufficient time-gap between the
end of the learning process and the examination, with no serious opportunity for students to
demonstrate the various transferable knowledge and skills which they have learned across a
wide range of teaching units), arguments which have been listened to by ECTS counsellors
patiently time and time again particularly in Arts and Humanities departments, it is impossible
in the end to subscribe to them. That argument concerning student freedom to explore for
themselves a given academic area has often served as the excuse for sloppy curriculum
development and delivery. Teaching units in universities have often been ill-conceived either in
VOLUME of work demanded or in SKILL LEVELS required. In other words, curriculum
development has often been of poor quality. Facing up to credit allocation is, as most who have
been involved in it, have discovered, a way of really thinking through afresh what university
teaching is about and how best to deliver it. It has forced many in the old Humboldtian tradition
to face up to the fact that STUDENT EFFORT is what matters rather than TEACHER EFFORT
because the ultimate purpose of university education is to develop self-learning and independent
thought. The increasing realisation of these objectives has helped to remove a lot of the unclear
thinking from the university environment although the war (if war it is) is not yet won. ECTS
counsellors still occasionally hear, arguments like, “ECTS is an infringement of teachers’
inviolable liberties.” And even more than this, there are now some students, not realising the
benefits that this new European framework will bring them, protesting against ECTS, as some
15
recent strikes in a limited number of French universities have demonstrated. Somehow the
students have falsely concluded that ECTS is a way to cheat them of their just deserts yet again.
Of course, the contrary is true since the student is at the very centre of ECTS, since the application
of this system presents him with clear programmes of study and with FULL INFORMATION on
the contents of those programmes. ECTS is all about TRANSPARENCY and from this the student
can only benefit.
Overall, it is comforting to be able to say that most of those teachers whom ECTS counsellors
have met over the years and who have been seriously involved in the work of credit allocation
have found that it has been an enriching experience and one which forced them to get rid of old
anomalies which, because they were not accorded credits, somehow seemed to bear a charmed
life. The introduction of a transparent credit accumulation and transfer system made such
anomalies only too visible and embarrassing.
2.4.3.2 WHAT CREDITS CANNOT INDICATE
It is advisable to conclude this brief discussion paper by remembering that allocating credits to
modules is only one aspect of a whole process of putting a CAT system in place because there
are a number of things which credits, by themselves, cannot indicate. Credits are there to
indicate VOLUME OF WORK and cannot, of themselves, indicate:• the CONTENTS of the teaching unit and a fortiori
• the precise PROGRAMME EQUIVALENCE
• the LEVEL at which work is accomplished
• the QUALITY of a student’s work, except in so far as no credits are granted to a student
unless he/she passes the assessment of a module however that assessment may be
determined.
The first three of these four points are all covered by the information provided in the ECTS-style
Course Catalogue of any institution. The final matter relates to local/national Grading Scales,
on the one hand, and to the ECTS Grading Scales on the other. Information on local grading
scales and the way in which a particular institution relates these to the ECTS grading scales is
also given in ECTS-style Course Catalogues.
3.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
In drawing this paper to a close it is necessary to emphasise the last point. It raises the whole
issue relating to grading systems across Europe and their relationship to the ECTS Grading
Scale. This subject is so important that it requires a separate paper particularly since it is not just
a question relating to ECTS as a TRANSFER SYSTEM as between universities, it also relates to
ECTS as an ACCUMULATION SYSTEM. The reason is that grading practice can vary so much
WITHIN any individual institution and between individual subject areas and teachers. Because
grading is about that most difficult of subjects QUALITY, it is one which is frequently avoided.
Quality is something we all, as teachers, recognise when we see it. Nevertheless, we often find it
impossible to give a universally accepted definition of variable quality in academic work, at
least one which is truly meaningful particularly in its finer gradations. Consequently a separate
paper has been devoted by the author to the practical use of the ECTS Grading Scales. A copy
may be requested from him at the email address given at the end of this paper.
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What has been laid out above on the questions raised by Credits and Credit Allocation, however
schematically, may, it is hoped, serve as a basis for deeper reflection and discussion on the
practicalities involved in credit allocation. Where a statement on a matter of opinion has been
made above, it must be understood that the views expressed are personal to the author of this
paper and do not necessarily reflect exactly those of the European Commission and the
European University Association.
Richard de Lavigne
Counsellor for ECTS and the Diploma Supplement for the European Commission
email address rldel@wanadoo.fr
Copyright  Richard Louis de Lavigne June 2003
17
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
WORKS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET
ECTS, General Information
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/socrates/ects.html
ECTS, Users Guide
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/socrates.usersg.html
Bologna Declaration and Process
http://www.unige.ch/eua
Salamanca
http://www.salamanca2001.org
Prague, its follow-up and the use of ECTS credits
http://www.oph.fi/publications/trends2/
The Bruges Process and Copenhagen Declaration
Bruges Process
http://europa.int/comm/education/bruges/index
http://www.brussels-eu.mfa.no/EEA/Education/Bruges+Process
Copenhagen Declaration
http://www.europa.int/comm/education/copenhagen/cophenhagen_declaration_en
Tuning European Higher Education
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education.tuning.eng.html
See also printed works below.
Credit and Qualification Frameworks
An Introduction to the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework. Published 2001 with latest
update 2003
http://qaa.ac.uk/crntwork/nqf/SCQF/SCQF
Credit and HE Qualification s. Credit Guidelines for HE Qualifications in England, Wales and
N. Ireland. Published November 2001
http://www.nicats.ac.uk/doc/summ/guidelines
John Konrad, Toward a European Credit Accumulation System for Lifelong Learning, June 2003
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001831.doc
18
PRINTED WORK
GONZALEZ, Julia & WAGENAAR, Robert, Tuning Educational Structures in Europe: final Report
Phase One, Bilbao & Groningen, 2003.
KING, Bruce, ‘Distance Education in Australia’, in Harry K, Higher Education through Open and
Distance Learning, London & New York, 1999.
MAGER, R F, Preparing Instructional Objectives, California, Fearon, 1965.
ROBERTSON, David, (ed.), Choosing to Change: Extending Access, Choice and Mobility in Higher
Education (the Report of the HEQC CAT Development Project), HEQC, 2 vols., 1994.
ROTHBLATT, S, ‘The American Modular System’, in Berdahl R et al, Quality and Access in Higher
Education, Society for Research into Higher Education, 1991.