Undergraduate Curriculum Structure AY 2005-2006

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Curriculum Structure AY 2005-2006

The Curriculum Structure detailed as follows is applicable to students admitted to the School of Communication & Information beginning from Academic Year 2005/2006.

Academic Units Required

To graduate, students must accumulate a minimum of 144 academic units (AU), comprising 76 AUs of Core Courses, 32 AUs of Prescribed Electives, 15 AUs of GER-PEs and 21 AUs of GER-Unrestricted Electives (GER-U).
The breakdown of the normal load of courses and the AU to be accumulated in each year of the degree course is listed below:

	Core	Prescribed Electives	GER-PE	U-Elec	Total AU
Year 1	36	0	3	0	39 AU
Year 2	12	12	9	3	36 AU
Year 3	14	12	3	3	32 AU
Year 4	14	8	0	15	37 AU
Total AU	76	32	15	21	144

Year 1	Semester 1 Course Type	AU	Semester 2 Course Type	AU
39 AU	Core	4	Core	4
	Core	4	Core	4
	Core	4	Core	4
	Core	4	Core	4
	Core - CS111	4	GER-PE	3
	Total	20 AU	Total	19 AU

Year 2	Semester 1 Course Type	AU	Semester 2 Course Type	AU
36 AU	Core	4	Core	4
	Core	4	PE	4
	PE	4	GER-PE	3
	PE	4	GER-PE	3
	GER-PE	3	GER-U	3
	Total	19 AU	Total	17 AU

Division Selection at End of Year 2

Year 3	Semester 1 Course Type	AU	Semester 2 Course Type	AU
32 AU	Core	4	Professional Internship	10
	PE	4
	PE	4
	PE	4
	GER-PE	3
	GER-U	3
	Total	22 AU	Total	10 AU

Year 4	Semester 1 Course Type	AU	Semester 2 Course Type	AU
37 AU	FYP		FYP	10
	Core	4	PE	4
	PE	4	GER-U	3
	GER-U	3	GER-U	3
	GER-U	3
	GER-U	3
	Total	17 AU	Total	20 AU
144 AU

Total academic units needed for graduation = 144 AU
The normal load of courses in each semester is 20 AU. Students can opt to accumulate a minimum of 16 AU or a maximum of 24 AU, instead of the normal load in a particular semester without the Chair ’s approval. Those who are capable are advised to complete most or all General Electives before they reach the final semester.

Optional Minors

SCI students may elect to do a minor from any of the various schools in NTU. Students may register for minor courses in the first year of study. More information on the minor program is available at OAS website .

Alternatively, students may elect to complete at minor in the following courses at NIE or the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture."

As an additional component of the new curriculum, the following Minors are available to SCI students:

Minor in:	available from:
Drama and Performance	NIE
Literature in English (Note: No longer offered by NIE - taken over by HSS)	NIE
Chinese	Centre for Chinese Language and Culture

Requirements
A total of 15 AU will constitute a Minor and may be obtained over a duration of 4 academic years for the degree programme. To fulfill this requirement, the student must take 5 modules of 3 AU each from any Minor offered by NTU or NIE. Each Minor will consist of a Core module at the foundation level which is compulsory and elective modules at Ordinary and/or Advanced level for selection. Students must be careful in their selection of modules as not all modules are offered in every semester. All modules could count in lieu of General Electives even if the Minor course is not completed.

Details of the NIE Minors can be found here. Details of NTU Minors can be found at the OAS website. For details on the Minor in Chinese, students are to refer to the website. Students are advised to refer to the NIE and the School’s website for detailed courses to be offered at the specific semesters and the pre-requisites respectively.

Registration of Courses through STARS

Students will register through the Students Automated Registration System (STARS) by using the telephone or the Internet to enter their desired courses. However, students are not allowed to use both at the same time. The time limit for STARS will be 10 minutes per session for each student.

Restrictions

Students with outstanding fees will not be allowed to register for courses.

Add/Drop Period

Students are allowed to change the courses they have registered during the Add/Drop period. After the Add/Drop period, students cannot make registration changes (i.e. cannot add or drop courses).

Overloading

Students are allowed to take 1 course more than the normal load without the Chair ’s approval. However, overloading is only allowed for General Electives and for courses to be repeated.

Prescribed Electives & Foundation Courses

Students are not allowed to take more than 28 AU of Prescribed Electives and 16 AU of Foundation courses during the 4 years of their studies. Therefore, students cannot take more than the allocated number of Prescribed Electives and Foundation courses in a particular year. If students wish to take more courses than necessary, the additional courses should be taken as General Electives. For purposes of registration, the only foundation course; CS111, which is compulsory, will be classified as ‘Core’ while the others of which selections can be made, will be classified as ‘Prescribed Electives’.

Allocation and Acknowledgement of General Electives

Students who have not fulfilled their General Elective requirements are allowed to take any course, other than Core courses, offered in any year as General Elective by the School or by other Schools course to the Chair ’s approval. To take General Electives offered by other Schools, students must indicate their prioritised choices of General Electives during the registration period. Students will be put on the wait-list initially. The Computer will allocate according to the wait-list starting from the students’ first choice of courses. Allocations are course to available vacancies. Students will be informed of their choice of General Electives offered by other Schools on the first day of the Add/Drop period. They must then acknowledge the General Electives allocated to them by the deadline set by the Registrar's Office which is sometime during the Add/Drop period. Otherwise, the allocated course will be taken away from the student and re-allocated to another student. For detailed dates, please refer to the Registration Instructions in StudentLINK.

For students who have fulfilled their General Elective requirement, STARS will not allow them to register more General Electives during the Registration period. Students who wish to do so have to complete the Course Approval Form and the appeal is course to Chair's approval. If approval is given, students will register the course during the Add/Drop period, course to vacancies available.

Repeat Courses

Students should try to repeat the courses they have failed in the previous semester as soon as possible. This is especially important for senior students, otherwise graduation may be delayed.

Students will be allowed to overload for repeat courses on the day assigned to them for registration of the normal load. The number of courses and academic units for such overloading will be specified by the Chair.

Courses to be Taken Ahead

Normally, students are not allowed to take higher level courses in advance. Those who wish to do so must complete the Course Approval Form to seek approval from the Dean before they are able to register into STARS. The Form is available from the School’s General Office at either Level 2 or 4.

Caution

As students can register for courses on a “first-come-first-served” basis and there is no wait-list for courses which have been fully registered, students should take whatever time-slot is available for the course of interest instead of waiting for a vacancy in the “ideal” time-slot.

Attendance at Lessons

Students are expected to attend all lessons as prescribed by the lecturers. Students must inform their lecturers if they need to be excused from classes. Penalties for absences will be conveyed to students and imposed if the rules are breached.

Updating of Information

Students must update their addresses and telephone numbers in the computer system should there be any change in their addresses or contact numbers.

Students must read their emails at least once a week. During and near the registration and Add/Drop period, students should read their emails at least once a day. Students are responsible for checking their registration and report any discrepancies immediately to the Office of Academic Services as well to the Manager, WKWSCI.