QUT | APPU | FAQs

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The answers below are intended to provide guidance to course coordinators and other staff. Staff who wish to have more detailed answers than are provided below, or who wish to discuss specific problems or issues are encouraged to contact the Director, Academic Policy and Programs.

Q. Can a student take more than the required number of credit points for a degree?

A. Yes in certain circumstances. For each teaching period in which a student enrols the units they undertake should count towards an unsatisfied course completion requirement e.g. the requirements for a Study Area A or B, or the overall number of credit points required for the award. Students should enrol only in units that comply with the requirements of their course (Student Rule 9(2)). Students who change study areas within a course or revise the academic credit received for their course may take units which on successful completion take their achieved credit points above the number normally required for course completion, provided those units contribute at the time they are taken to an unsatisfied course requirement .

A student who has completed the requirements for a course cannot remain enrolled in the course and take extra units simply because they want to.

Students who wish to take units in addition to those that are required for course completion would normally do so as visiting students.

A. Yes, provided the postgraduate course is ‘postgraduate in time’. See Concurrent Teaching Policy (MOPP C/7.9). Where a postgraduate course in ‘postgraduate in time’ or ‘non-cognate’, a student can be enrolled in a maximum of four undergraduate units.

For ‘postgraduate in level’ or ‘cognate’ courses, students must be enrolled in postgraduate units.

Q. Can postgraduate students be taught in the same class as undergraduate students?

A. Yes (See Concurrent Teaching Policy MOPP C/7.9). However, if the course is ‘postgraduate in level’, then postgraduate students must be enrolled under a postgraduate unit code, informed before enrolling in the unit, and must be offered additional or separate content and/or delivery and/or tutorials and discussions, and/or must undertake additional or separate assessment tasks.

Credit points for a coursework masters will normally be 96 credit points if the pre-requisite is a four-year undergraduate degree, and 144 credit points if the pre-requisite is a three-year undergraduate degree. Coursework masters of 192 credit points may be established where there is a discipline requirement for an 'advanced' level of study provided by an additional 48 credit points beyond the standard 144 credit point course.

Q. Can you offer a unit in a full fee-paying course in summer semester only?

A. Yes. For a HECS-based course, if you offer a unit in summer semester, you must also make it available during the normal year (i.e. first or second semester). However this ruling does not apply for full-fee paying courses.

Q. Can a student who is enrolled in a HECS-based course take four electives that make up a Graduate Certificate and get the second degree as well?

A. Yes (provided the electives meet the course requirements for the undergraduate course). However, the student will need to enrol in the Graduate Certificate and pay the fees simultaneously with being enrolled in the bachelor course, and complete at least 24 credit points of units through the Graduate Certificate in order to meet the QUT credit rules (MOPP C/4.2.2).

Q. Can course rules require students in a four year degree to graduate with the three-year exit version if they do not meet a required GPA?

A. No. You cannot put any kind of internal GPA barrier within a degree. The two options are as follows:

Q. Can course rules state that students must achieve a specific grade in a unit as a pre-requisite to another unit (e.g. a student must achieve at least ‘4’ rather than a ‘3’ in a pre-requisite unit)?

A. No. As above, you cannot put any kind of internal GPA barrier within a degree. Again, you could require students to obtain a certain grade in a pre-requisite unit as a requirement for entry to another degree (e.g. an honours degree).

Note that there are some designated units in which students must gain a pass in order to meet the requirements of the degree. These are usually practicum type units. A pass for these units can either be a ‘3’ or an ‘S – Satisfactory’. A student who fails one of these units can be excluded.

Q. Within a unit, can the result from the first piece of assessment be used as a hurdle to limit the option available for a second piece of assessment?

A. Provided students still have access to complete some form of assessment for the unit, and provided there is no barrier to progression through the unit or course, then a faculty may decide to limit the assessment options in a unit.

Q. What is QUT’s position concerning course changes that mean units advertised to students at the start of their course are no longer available by the time they reach that stage in the course?

A. Students are entitled to finish a course of the same type that they started, and that is as close as possible to the course that was originally advertised. However, the precise details of the units offered may change in the interest of quality improvement. Some units may not be offered in the semesters they were originally advertised in due to the constraints of offering units to small numbers of students.

A. All undergraduate, honours, graduate certificate, graduate diploma, and Masters qualifying courses are approved courses for Austudy. Masters and doctoral programs are not eligible. For a combined bachelor/ Masters program, students can receive Austudy for the duration of the normal undergraduate degree but not for the Masters component.

To be eligible for Austudy, students must be permanent residents of Australia, aged 25 or older, and enrolled full-time.

Q. What is the University's policy on timetabling cross-campus degree programs?

A. QUT policy (MOPP E/5.1.4) states that students must be given travel times of 1 hour between lectures between Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove and 2 hours between Carseldine and either Gardens Point or Kelvin Grove. This is required for core units only.

The University Academic Board meeting of 24 July 2002 approved guidelines for timetabling for cross-campus degree programs. The full report is available here. The recommendations in the report are not requirements but are suggestions to be considered in the appropriate situation. Suggestions include:

hold large lectures and tutorials on more than one campus, (i.e. move the lecturer, not the students)
consider offering lectures in large blocks (e.g. a two-hour block as opposed to two one-hour blocks)
consider using technology (e.g. video-linked classes) where appropriate
consider other modes of delivery, such as online components
review course structures to determine whether a different subject mix between semesters/years might reduce the need for travel.

Q. Can I have units that are not multiples of 12 credit points?

A. The University has adopted standard credit points for units across all courses to allow students across the University to be able to take elective units from other faculties.

Normally the University will not allow units that are not multiples of 12 credit points (i.e. 12, 24, 36 etc). The only exception is the Brisbane Graduate School of Business where six credit point units are offered which run for half a semester each. In this case, students are allowed to enrol in the middle of each semester as well as the beginning of each semester (in other words there are six enrolment points throughout the year). Any faculty proposing six credit point units would need to be prepared to allow students to enrol at six points throughout the year (i.e. at the beginning and the middle of the three semesters).

An alternative to six credit point units is to run 12 or 24 credit point units with six-credit point modules embedded within them.

Q. Can a student in a 'double major' have both majors shown on their parchment?

A. No. QUT policy and systems do not allow more than one major to be shown on the parchment. A proposal to allow both majors on a parchment was discussed by University committees in 2001 and was not approved.

Where a course allows students to take two Study Areas which are of equal value and therefore both count as 'majors', the student has to make a decision as to which major they want to appear on the parchment. Faculties are required to make students aware of the presentation of study areas on the degree parchment through the QUT Handbook and course summary sheets.

Q. What are the timelines for publishing unit outlines?

A. Policy for unit outlines is at MOPP C/7.10.

Deadlines for publishing final versions of unit outlines are the same as those for the timetable (see E/5.1.6 ), i.e.

Semester 1 unit outlines - Week 11 of preceding semester (Semester 2)
Semester 2 unit outlines - Week 11 of preceding semester (Semester 1)
Summer Program unit outlines - Week 11 of preceding semester (Semester 2) (to correspond with the beginning of Summer Program enrolment)

The information provided in unit outlines is intended to be a general description of the unit which is unlikely to change between offerings unless significant changes are made to the unit.

Q. What are the required contact hours for a unit?

A. MOPP policy specifies student ‘workload’ in terms of credit points but is deliberately silent on hours. MOPP C/3.1.4 states that ‘the credit point value is a measure of the proportion of the year's workload which the unit represents to the student’. It is then up to faculties to interpret this in terms of how much class time they expect from students.

Q. What is the policy on giving credit for non-award courses in an award course?

A. Faculties can make the decision on whether a particular course is worth credit into an award course. However, if faculties establish a non-award course (e.g. a continuing professional education course) with the intent that it will be used to gain credit into an award course, then the quality assurance measures that apply to the non-award course should be equivalent to those that apply to award course units (see MOPP C/5.2.3).

Q. If a student has taken an Industry certificate as part of their Year 11 and 12 studies, can they be given credit in a QUT course?

A. Students should not be given credit for anything undertaken while at school, including TAFE units. The only exception to this would be where students are enrolled in a QUT unit while at school. However students could, on the basis of their school study, be allowed to substitute another unit for a required unit.

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