On this page you will find relevant information on the recognition of credits earned at home or abroad.
You will also find information on Learning Agreements for semesters abroad, which are concluded before departure.
Questions and answers about the Learning Agreement, recognition and semester abroad
Language exams and international language certificates are recognised by the Language Centre.
Further information on this can be found here Language certificates: University of Erfurt (uni-erfurt.de)
Further information on the language modules in the International Relations (IB) examination regulations can be found here.
A learning agreement is a study contract between the student abroad, the university in Germany and the university abroad. These three parties agree in the Learning Agreement which modules can be completed at the host university and later recognised at the home university.
The Learning Agreement is divided into two tables. Please complete both tables before you start your semester abroad.
You must enter all the courses you wish to attend in Table A. In Table B, these courses must all be listed again. Mark those that you do not wish to have recognised as "Additional work: no recognition desired". For all others, enter the module that you wish to complete in Erfurt. This is done chronologically after the end of your semester abroad.
To complete the table, you will need certain codes (for the host country and the faculties). The table and the links to the specific codes for the host countries and faculties can be found in the footnotes of the Learning Agreement form.
Further information and the LA procedure can be found on the university website under this link.
The LA should be completed by the end of the previous semester that you complete before your semester abroad at the University of Erfurt. It is generally advisable to complete the LAs as early as possible. In doing so, you must take into account the respective semester breaks of the individual host universities, which will therefore no longer be available for issuing the LA. In addition, many host universities usually have their own deadlines that they have to take into account.
So if you are going abroad in the coming winter semester, you should start preparing your Learning Agreement in April, as some universities have a summer break from June. This also applies to the summer semester.
According to the "old examination regulations", i.e. B_PO_Sta-2012, B_PO_InB -2014 and B_PO_Man-2012, language courses must be listed in the Learning Agreement. This also applies to language courses according to the new examination regulations (B_PO_Sta-2021, B_PO_InB-2021 and B_PO_Man-2021) if they were completed within the scope of ECTS.
If it is a stay abroad outside the scope of ECTS, a separate learning agreement for language courses must be completed. With the new examination regulations, language courses are now taken/recognised via the Language Centre's PO ZS ENi 2020, which in this respect is also responsible for any examinations itself and with its own examination board.
You should enter all the courses you would like to take during your stay abroad in your LA before the start of the semester abroad. Please note that you can change the courses and LAs on site. However, the University of Erfurt and the host university require a confirmed overview of the courses you wish to take and complete during your stay abroad before the start of your stay abroad.
The points you should propose for Erfurt depend on your examination regulations. You can also combine two courses from abroad into one Erfurt module if the content fits. The BA examination board has published information on the number of points to be recognised on its website.
This is normally possible. It is always advisable to have a course recognised from abroad that earns more ECTs abroad than are required at the University of Erfurt. This ensures that the modules are recognised. However, recognition is ensured by the Learning Agreement before you start your semester abroad, so you can make sure in advance that your courses can be recognised.
The recognition of courses from abroad depends on whether you have to have these courses recognised or not. If you have already collected enough courses and ECTS and you have achieved better grades in these modules than in the modules from abroad, it is not mandatory to have these courses recognised. However, if you are dependent on the number of ECTS credits that you took during your semester abroad, you must have them recognised.
In principle, the receipt of a mobility scholarship may be accompanied by obligations / target values to achieve a certain number of ECTS points. Please enquire accordingly with your scholarship provider. This also depends on your partner university. You should therefore get in touch with the partner university before creating the LA and find out the minimum number of ECTS credits that must be taken at this university in one semester.
The LA is a contract that can still be changed in the course of time before the start of the semester abroad. Due to the fact that host universities and host universities often only have provisional course plans, it is often necessary to change the LAs again after the deadline, as certain courses are often no longer offered or have a different name. However, because you have completed the LA by the deadline, it is still possible to make changes. It becomes difficult if no LA has been completed by the deadline.
If you need or want to change your LA before the start of the semester abroad, this is done by creating a new LA, having it signed again by the responsible subject coordinator and the examination board and sending it to the partner university and the International Office as a scan.
After the start of the semester abroad, contact the responsible subject coordinator and discuss these changes by email. While changes in the online learning agreement are possible within the ECTS area, changes for stays in the ECTS area require prior consultation and information from the subject coordinator and the BA examination board.
The confirmation and assurance that the courses completed abroad will be recognised is provided by the LA. As you conclude a contract with the host university and the UE that you will take these modules, the UE will also confirm that you can have these courses recognised in Erfurt.
However, it is up to you whether you ultimately want to have these courses recognised.
We recommend that you take a leave of absence from UE during your semester abroad. Advantage: no crediting to the standard period of study, no payment of the semester contribution.
You can still receive child benefit as you can present a certificate of enrolment from a foreign university. Recognition of academic achievements is also possible during the semester of leave. BAFöG beneficiaries apply for BAFöG abroad, which is also possible with a leave of absence.
To take a leave of absence, complete a leave of absence application form by the re-registration deadline. The International Office must confirm the study-related stay abroad. This confirmation can be downloaded from your Mobility Online workflow.
If you decide not to go abroad after applying for a leave of absence, you can change the leave of absence to a re-registration at the SuL department.
As far as the language test is concerned, the OLS was mandatory but will be phased out in June 2022. A new tool will be introduced for the upcoming semesters abroad, in which participation in the test is also mandatory. Depending on the language level requirements of the host universities abroad, a language certificate may be mandatory for exchange students. This varies from partner university to partner university and must be agreed individually with the host university.
If possible, you should propose a full module in Erfurt as a counterpart to the courses at your university abroad, sometimes a course is also possible. This can sometimes be one point more than at your target university and sometimes one point less. The examination board of the Stawi faculty has a table on its website showing the maximum number of points possible.