Planning to organise a doctoral level course? Please follow these five easy steps to successfully managing a doctoral training course.
Doctoral programmes have different ways of accepting course proposals. The course organizer provides a course proposal with a preliminary course program, budget, schedule, target audience, number of credits, learning outcomes, prerequisites, assessment practices and criteria (grading 0-5, or pass/fail), number of participants (in particular if there is a maximum number) and other details either via an e-form (if a call is organized) or sending an email to the planning officer of the doctoral programme (e.g. mbdp-office@helsinki.fi).
The course program should include elements to challenge and engage the doctoral researchers in active learning, e.g. a pre/post-symposium, journal club, student presentations, small group discussions, workshops and exams.
The board of the doctoral programme reviews the course proposal and decides whether or not the course will be financed by the doctoral programme and included in the curriculum. Additionally, the doctoral programme may make recommendations to the course organizer on the program.
Based on the course program and approval, the course organizer agrees with the planning officer on training goals and pedagogical methods to be employed.
Based on the budget of the course, the course organizer agrees with the doctoral programme on the course expenses.
The planning officer books the necessary facilities for the duration of the course and registers the course in OPTIME and SISU (and create a code for the course if needed). The room rents are excluded from the course budget if teaching is done in the University of Helsinki facilities.
The course organizer prepares the program (schedule, titles, speakers, the affiliations of lecturers / instructors).
Advertising and handouts:
The course organizer invites and instructs speakers and lecturers. For travel arrangements, please contact CWT (university.fi@contactcwt.com; +358 (0)205 615 635) and/or the planning officer of the doctoral programme to ensure whether the doctoral program should pay for the tickets directly. Use Form 1 to claim back travel expenses. More information on travelling in Flamma: https://flamma.helsinki.fi/en/group/matkustaminen.
When the course is created in Oodi, a course page is generated in https://courses.helsinki.fi/. On the course page, you can add course materials such as the course program and links. On the course page, you can also create a Moodle area for the course. Moodle can be used to distribute course material, organize discussions, collect students’ assignments and inform students of the grades. Instructions can be found on the course page once you have logged in and clicked ‘Edit’. You can also create a new Moodle area and find more instructions: https://moodle.helsinki.fi/.
The course organizer reserves food and drinks, when needed and budgeted for the course.
Doctoral researchers at the University of Helsinki are required to register for courses in Sisu. Doctoral researchers and students from other universities as well as researchers and staff can register using a separate e-form or as agreed with the planning officer.
In some cases, the course organizer may wish to handle the registration per e-form, e-mail or in Moodle (the information on how to register for a course should always be clearly described on the course page). The course organizer should communicate about this with the doctoral programme office at an early stage to allow sufficient time for proper planning.
Helpdesk: the planning officer of the doctoral programme
For course expenses, the course organizer may:
Please be aware that the doctoral programme has no funding for extra costs outside of the budget, and therefore, all additional costs must be covered by other means.
Please note that all facility costs are excluded from the course budget (if teaching takes place in the University of Helsinki premises).
Please note that all food and drink bills need to be accompanied with a participant list!
Fees can be paid for lecturers from outside the University of Helsink, to University of Helsinki employees if teaching is not in the unit in which they are employed and e.g. for technicians participating in workshop tutoring (please refer to the University of Helsinki guidelines for fees in Flamma: https://flamma.helsinki.fi/en/group/henkilostoasiat/fees). Use Form 4 for the fees.
Foreign lecturers need to fill a tax-at-source form (Form 5) if the work is done in Finland. If the work is done abroad (e.g. application evaluation), this is not needed. However, they should fill Form 6 if they don’t have bank account in a SEPA-country.
Use Form 1 to claim back travel expenses.
All personal salary/fee forms, travel bills (original receipts attached) and other forms should be signed, scanned and sent
The course organizer collects feedback from the participants. Feedback collection can be organized either online with questions planned by the course organizer eg. in Moodle, or by a general eform such as this one: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/92256/lomake.html, or by a traditional paper feedback form (this is recommended if an exam is organized).
Please agree on the feedback collection method and transferring the results to the programme with the planning officer.
After the course, the organizer should deliver to the doctoral programme a short course report stating the number of students who passed the course and a summary of the feedback.