Examination criteria

Even considering the peculiarities of each course, the consortium has made an effort to establish an as uniform a procedure as possible for examination and assessment of student’s achievements. In particular:

• All courses give rise to a single examination. The syllabus specifies in addition the other complementary modalities for each subject, as well as the part reserved for each form of examination.
• The examination for each common course is organised simultaneously on all sites. Students will have to answer questions on a single subject. The duration of the examination will be fixed in advance between 2h and 3h, depending on the subject. The exam papers will be collected in one place and corrected by the teacher responsible for the module.
• All courses have the same coefficient.
• At the end of each semester, the list of courses validated by each student will be drawn up with a mark and the number of ECTS credits associated with each.
• The stage gives rise to a dissertation written in English. This dissertation will be presented orally in English before a jury composed of representatives of the entire consortium. Each member of the jury will give a mark. Three different teachers from universities other than the ones in which the student did his work experience will mark the dissertations beforehand. Each corrector must fill out an evaluation grid, which leads to a mark. The marks from the oral presentation and written evaluation are then averaged out to give a final mark. The stage counts for 30 ECTS.
• Good marks in one subject cannot be used to compensate for poor marks in another.
• To obtain the Master's degree, it is necessary to obtain 120 ECTS credits.
• Should a student fail one or more examinations, a resit session is organised depending on the case:
  • For semesters 1, 2 and 3, at the end of each semester, a resit session will be organised under the same conditions as the normal examination. The resits will take place at least two weeks after the first session;
  • For semester 4, a new dissertation and a new oral presentation will be required in September.

At the end of the two years, a marks sheet will be drawn up for each student. It will include the official seal of all the partner establishments, thus guaranteeing recognition of the credits obtained.

Once 120 ECTS credits have been obtained, students will receive the two national master's diplomas from the universities in which they have studied, and a supplement to the diploma. All the establishments in the consortium will recognize the results.

Obtaining these Master's degrees will allow students to enroll in doctoral studies in the establishment of their choice.
The Pedagogical Council defines a unique equivalence chart for the different evaluation systems used in each country, and a marking system in ECTS: A, B, C, D, E, FX and F, which correspond to:

• A › the best 10 %;
• B › the next 25 %;
• C › the next 30 %;
• D › the next 25 %;
• E › the remaining 10 %.

A distinction is made between the marks FX and F, used for students who fail. FX means "fail – some more work required to succeed" and F means "fail – considerable further work is required". Indication of the degree of failure on the marks sheet will not appear, and is only used internally for the sake of student orientation.

Should it be necessary to transfer marks from one system to another, we have drawn up a table of equivalences that makes it possible to do such a transfer:

First of all, all the marks are transferred into the ECTS scale system shown above. For marks that must be transferred from one country to another and which must be compatible with the local system of the country in question, we will draw up, for a numerical mark, the per equation for converting from one scale to another. In the case of a non-continuous scale, we will take the median interval.

Validation of a module/course is acquired if students obtain A, B, C, D or E marks on the ECTS scale. If this is the case, students acquire the ECTS credits associated with that module. If students receive an FX or an F, they must take the resit examinations in which they must obtain at least an E on the ECTS scale. If this is not the case, the student will be excluded from the Erasmus Mundus programme. Such students may obtain the possibility of enrolling in the local master's course used as the basis for the Master's programme.

The jury for the Master's is composed of at least one teacher from each university. The jury meets at the end of each semester to harmonise the marks and distribute the ECTS credits.

Both the admission and selection and the student examination procedures have been thought of having in mind their transparency, fairness and objectivity. As transparency is concerned, all documents will be kept open to inspection, and the students will receive a detailed feedback on their own evaluation and distance from expected performance. No distinction will be made regarding any aspect of the students’ personality and previous career, which are not explicitly listed among the evaluation/examination criteria. All the criteria can be quantified, allowing a fair and objective assessment. The large participation of teachers to all the decision-making processes guarantees a mediated agreement, not leaving room to any prevailing personal opinion.

Nevertheless, the consortium is aware that some discrepancy between the intended effects and the actual ones might arise. For this reason, an accurate ex-post evaluation of the described procedures will be done, once they have been applied in practice, and any drawback that should emerge will be discussed in depth and corrective actions will be proposed.

The way in which the Master is organized also takes into account Life Long learning and permanent education. Persons that desire to improve their professional situation could apply to the Master as a whole or to specific topics. The broadcasting of courses and the availability of all the material for the other ones facilitate this possibility.