Course approval and credit transfer

The courses/modules you enrol in during your exchange period must be approved by the programme leader for your Bachelor/Master's program and by the VUC International Office. Notice the difference between pre-approval and final approval of courses and credits.

 
Pre-approval of courses and credits

Before you go on exchange, it is important that you are given a pre-approval of the courses you intend to take abroad. This confirms that the courses and credits you plan to take will be transferred to your degree at VUC and that they do not overlap courses you have completed earlier. The pre-approval of courses is also important, as it enables you to apply for funding from Lånekassen (if applicable).

The pre-approval of courses and credits may be done in two ways.

Students exchanging on an Erasmus+ agreement complete the Erasmus+ Learning Agreement
Students exchanging on all other agreements complete the Forhåndsgodkjenningsskjema (only in Norwegian - contact the International Office)

Changes during the exchange period

If you change your courses after you have completed the pre-approval, you need to contact the VUC International Office and make sure that these changes will be approved. If your grade transcript from the exchange study show courses/modules that are not pre-approved it will prolong the final approval and credit transfer and, in a worst case scenario, mean that the courses/credits are not approved and transferred.  

Final approval of courses and credits

The student is responsible for making sure that a grade transcript from the exchange period abroad is sent to the VUC International Office. Once we receive a transcript, we check the courses with the pre-approval and complete the final course/credit approval. The result of the final approval will be registered in VUC's student database FS which automatically is also provided to Lånekassen and students receive notification by e-mail. 

The VUC International Office completes a general approval of courses/credits from the exchange period. However, it is the Study administrators in Student services which inserts the courses into the student's education plan ("utdanningsplan"). Therefore, it may sometimes take some time before courses from exchange periods are registered in the education plan. To find your education plan, see Studentweb.

Note: Courses taken at other universities (e.g. during student exchange) will not be listed on regular transcripts from Volda University College. External courses will only appear in the final diploma/diploma supplement. If you need to document that you have completed courses/credits on student exchange, you should contact Student services. The final diploma/diploma supplement from VUC will also list courses taken at other institutions, but without grades (it will show "transferred" where grades normally appear). In order to document your results from the exchange semester, you should also include the transcript from the host institution.