Glossary: S - Z
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This glossary provides a general definition of terms commonly used at UNSW and is intended as a guide only.
Refers to the standard of academic performance of a student in a course or a program in which they are enrolled . The Program Authority must be satisfied in the student’s ability to progress to the next stage of their program.
Also see Academic Standing.
Also see Academic Standing.
The administrative time period in which Teaching Periods are defined, students enrol and for which students are charged fees or student contributions. UNSW has two main semesters per year, as well as the eight-week Summer Term in December/January.
The two main semesters are structured around 12 weeks of classes in 13 weeks. Each semester also includes a one week mid-semester break. Semester 1 is, approximately from February to June and Semester 2 is, approximately from July to November.
Exceptions to this pattern are the Faculty of Medicine and the Australian Graduate School of Management whose academic years are divided into multiple teaching periods within the semester structure.
See Teaching Period.
The two main semesters are structured around 12 weeks of classes in 13 weeks. Each semester also includes a one week mid-semester break. Semester 1 is, approximately from February to June and Semester 2 is, approximately from July to November.
Exceptions to this pattern are the Faculty of Medicine and the Australian Graduate School of Management whose academic years are divided into multiple teaching periods within the semester structure.
See Teaching Period.
See Major.
An academic organisational unit, also sometimes referred to as a Department. Faculties may be comprised of several Schools e.g. the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has 5 Schools, including the School of History and Philosophy.
A focussed area of academic study in a postgraduate program.
See Major, Stream.
See Major, Stream.
Programs are generally structured in a number of ‘Stages’ of study, requiring students to complete a specified number of units of credit and/or a particular sequence of courses at each stage. Generally, students are identified with a particular program stage, depending on how far they have progressed. For a full-time student, stages correspond with their year of enrolment (e.g. Stage 1 is the first year of study, Stage 2 is the second year, etc).
Stream is a sequence of study. This is the umbrella term for majors, minors and postgraduate program specialisations. At UNSW, streams are identified by a a six-digit code that consists of a four-character subject area, a single alphabetical character strand code, and a single character stream type code. For example, SENGA1 refers to the full-time Software Engineering stream, whereas SENGA13648 refers to the Software Engineering stream offered under program 3648
See Plan, Major, Minor, Specialisation.
See Plan, Major, Minor, Specialisation.
One of four bands of disciplinary areas into which a given unit of study will fall. Student contribution bands are used to determine the maximum student contributions for a place.
(Previously known as HECS liability). The financial amount a University sets that a Commonwealth supported student pays for courses (units of study) in that university for a given year.
Contributions that Commonwealth supported students make towards the cost of their education.
An entitlement that gives eligible students access to a Commonwealth supported place. There 2 types: Ordinary SLE which is the type of SLE that all eligible students receive when they first commence higher education. From 1 January 2005, all students will start with an ordinary SLE of seven years of equivalent full-time study. Additional SLE is an extra entitlement to ensure that eligible persons have enough SLE to undertake a course of study as a Commonwealth supported student. The amount of additional SLE received depends on the program the student is enrolled in and whether they have used additional SLE in the past.
The total number of units of credit (UoC) taken in a semester. A full-time load at UNSW is 18 or more UoC per semester (usually 24).
See course.
Each Program may define rules that allow individual students to substitute core or elective courses with other courses that meet their special abilities or needs. Often such substitution must have prior approval of the Program Authority.
See also Credit Transfer.
See also Credit Transfer.
Supplementary Transcripts were issued to eligible UNSW students who graduated prior to Semester 2, 2010 for approved activities and awards from Semester 1 2007. Combined with an academic transcript, the Supplementary Transcript recognises student achievement outside formal study, such as volunteer contributions, international exchange and scholarships. It awards official recognition to those leadership activities promoted under the UNSW banner that could be seen to enhance the development of graduate attributes.
Each Semester is composed of several Teaching Periods, for example Teaching Period 1A (T1A) and Teaching Period 1B (T1B) in Semester 1. A course in Semester 1 or 2 may run over 13 weeks, or in one of 2 shorter 6 week periods. The eight-week Summer Term has two four-week Teaching Periods - one in December and one in January. Summer Term courses may run over either one or two of those Teaching Periods.
See Semester.
See Semester.
A default sytems term assigned to a commencing student when a major has not been declared. Students are required to declare a Major by the start of Stage 2 of their program.
See Major.
See Major.
Programs of study, leading to the award of a degree, which do not require students to have previously undertaken university study in order to enrol. They are designed for students who have completed secondary studies (high school) in Australia, or have a level of education deemed equivalent to this (e.g. equivalent overseas study or alternate entry programs).
Please see http://www.it.unsw.edu.au/students/unipass/.
Each course at UNSW has a particular load or weighting which is referred to as units of credit e.g. the course ELEC1111 ‘Electrical and Telecommunications Engineering’ is worth 6 units of credit. This is often abbreviated to UoC. UNSW programs require the successful completion of a specified number of UoCs and fees are also charged on a UoC basis.
Refers to courses offered at Levels 2 - 6 that sometimes require completion of Level 1 courses as pre-requisites. In practice, each course is associated with a specific level.
See Course.
See Course.
It is calculated by multiplying the mark obtained for each relevant result by the units of credit of the particular course, adding up the products and dividing by the total number of units of credit for the relevant courses. Only results that produce a mark are considered to be relevant, apart from DF prior to Session 1, 2002 and AF from Session 1, 2003, which are equivalent to a mark of zero. A 'Term WAM' is calculated for relevant results in a semester, and a separate cumulative WAM is calculated for relevant results over the student's entire program.
Normal workload expectations for each program are a minimum of 25 hours per semester per unit of credit, including class contact hours, preparation and time spent on all assessable work. For a full-time enrolled student, the average workload across the 16 weeks of teaching, study, and exam periods equates to approximately 37.5 hours per week. Workload is also sometimes referred to as ‘Assessable hours’.
Please see http://www.it.unsw.edu.au/students/zpass/.
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