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First step is always to discuss with your supervising professor and get their approval.

Before taking studies in other universities, include them in your Sisu credit plan as study drafts, in order to later include them in your doctoral degree.

If you have already completed courses suitable for your doctoral degree (in Finland or abroad), you need to include these courses in your Sisu credit plan, agree on the plan with your supervising professor and then apply for credit transfer. See below for more instructions.

Any prior studies completed at Aalto are already automatically displayed in Sisu and can be included in your Sisu credit plan without applying for a credit transfer.

Sisu instructions: Substitution and inclusion of studies on Sisu

After completing courses suitable for your doctoral degree elsewhere (in Finland or abroad), you need to apply for inclusion of theses studies in your degree in Sisu.

1. Update your Sisu credit plan if necessary. In order to transfer the credits ������, the courses transferred need to be included as study drafts in the degree studies in your Sisu credit plan, max 30/40/60 ECTS* (not in the extracurricular studies).
2. Apply for inclusion in Sisu
3. Attach to the application a screenshot of your Sisu credit plan (including the whole plan for the required 30/40/60 ECTS*) so that the content of the study drafts and possible individual study attainments are clearly visible on the screenshot.
4. Attach to the application a transcript of records and an official description of the completed course.

Sisu instructions: Substitution and inclusion of studies on SisuThe transcript of records must be either digitally signed or marked with a stamp of the issuing university or school. If you have completed studies in another Finnish university or university of applied sciences, you can also use the My Studyinfo service () to share information of your completed studies with the administrative staff at Aalto University. Go to My Studyinfo, create a sharing link, save the link in a file and add the file to your credit transfer application. If you have completed studies through the flexible right to study (JOO) scheme in an university that uses the Puro service for transferring credits, you can use Puro to apply for credit transfer (). Note: you still have to submit a separate credit transfer application on Sisu. In your application, state that you have used the Puro service to request credit transfer. Also note that a screenshot from the My Studyinfo or Puro service is not an acceptable transcript of records.

The course description of the completed course must be from the time they were completed (e.g. from a study guide published at the time). For example, to claim credits for a course taken in 2020, you need to provide the course description as it was in 2020. It is not enough to include a link to the whole study guide of that year: you must include a description of the course contents in your PDF-format application. Do not include the whole study guide, only the pages containing the information relevant to your application.

If the course credits received do not follow the Europen credit transfer system (ECTS), please include the university's explanation of the course scope in comparison to ECTS credits.

*The scope of the degree depends on your doctoral programme and the degree structure that you are following.

1. Take a look at the curriculum of your doctoral programme, which tells you what kind of independent studies it is possible to include in your degree.
2. Discuss with your supervising professor about the type of individual studies that benefit you the most.
3. Add the planned individual studies to your credited plan in Sisu similarly as any regular courses you plan to complete.

You cannot register to the independently completed individual study courses in Sisu, but you will need to agreed about their completion directly with your supervising professor.

Once you have completed a new individual study (see the list of available individual studies by each School), apply for approval as follows:

1. If you already haven't, include the course in your Sisu plan (see course codes below).
2. Report about the completion to your supervising professor and fill out the form for individual doctoral studies (custom course credit) (pdf) together. Upload the form from Doctoral student forms (aalto.fi). Please use the current available form instead of older versions.
3. Apply for substitution of the corresponding course that you have added to your credit plan in Sisu, and attach the form for individual studies / custom course credit (pdf), signed by your supervising professor. See Sisu instructions for applying for substitution (aalto.fi).
4. Your doctoral programme will process your application for substitution and record the completed credits in Sisu.
5. Check the completed credits in Sisu.

Your supervising professor evaluates how many points are awarded for the studies in question. 1 ECTS is equivalent to about 27 hours of work. Take a look at the course description of the individual study course in Sisu. Please note that the same activity cannot be utilized several times: for example, if a publication is included in the doctoral thesis, it is not possible to get credits for it.

ARTS:

BIZ*:

*Please note that including these independently completed individual studies in the degree is only possible in part of the majors, see the curriculum of the doctoral programme for more information.

CHEM:

ELEC:

ENG:

SCI:

It is possible that the curriculum of your doctoral programne also allows for the inclusion of individual studies for which there is no existing course, i.e. no course code or course description.

If you have started your studies before 1 August 2024, you are not obliged to use the individual study courses, but you can include all your individual studies according to the instructions below.

Follow these steps:

Before completing the activity

1. Check that the activity you are planning does not fit into any of the (independently completed individual study) courses in your programme's curriulum. Also check what type of and how many custom course credits can be included in your degree.
2. Agree about the completetion with your supervising professor in advance.
3. Add the planned individual studies to your credited plan in Sisu as a study draft, see instructions for making study drafts, Sisu instructions (aalto.fi).

After completing the activity

(Check the steps above, and do them now, if you didn't before completion of the activity)

1. Report about the completion to your supervising professor and apply for their approval
   • Use the form for individual doctoral studies (custom course credit) (pdf) to report about the activity and compete the form together. Upload the form from Doctoral student forms (aalto.fi).
   • Also present to your supervising professor any other related material, such as any material you have produced, descriptive materials provided by the organisers, possible certificates etc.
2. Apply for the individual study (custom course credit) in Sisu either through a study draft you have made, or directly if you have not made a study draft of the activity before. Attach the form for individual studies (custom course credit) signed by your supervising professor to the application.  See Sisu Instructions: Custom course credit (aalto.fi)
   • Grounds for the application is agreement with your supervising professor and the responsible teacher is your supervising professor.

Each activity is registered separately. For example, if you have written three articles, and your supervising professor grants you one credit for each article, you should apply separately for three individual studies. Half credits are not recorded, only whole credits (1 ECTS, 2 ECTS, etc.).

Here are examples of the type of individual studies and how to fill out their information in Sisu and on the custom course credit form.

Please note: The student needs to also give the date of the study attainment*, the language, the proposed number of credits and the study module in which the study attainment is included.

The supervising professor decides on the credits given and the grading.

* Date of the study attainment can be for example:

• last day of the summer/winter school
• date of submission of an essay/report
• date when all duties regarding the MSc thesis/special assignment have been completed