(EN) Regulations for UdL Cross-Disciplinary Subject Areas

REGULATIONS FOR UdL CROSS-DISCIPLINARY SUBJECT AREAS

Governing Council of 26 June 2013, as amended by Governing Council Agreement 115/2014 of 28 May 2014, by Governing Council Agreement 75/2016 of 30 March 2016, by application of Governing Council Agreement 215/2017 of 19 July 2017 and by Governing Council Agreement 111/2020 of 28 April 2020

1. JUSTIFICATION AND SCOPE OF APPLICATION

The student’s integral education is one of the basic functions of universities. A university must train good professionals in different branches of knowledge while facilitating the students’ intellectual and personal development based on certain values and a capacity for critical reflection to enable them to interact with the society of which they form part as citizens. In this respect, university institutions must be able to offer knowledge and strengthen skills of a cross-disciplinary education nature that are useful to all students, regardless of the degree they are taking.

Royal Decree 1393/2007, of 29 October, amended by Royal Decree 861/2010, of 2 July, establishing the regulation of official university studies, already includes that philosophy with regard to cross-disciplinary education, beyond regulated teaching in the strict sense. In reference to this, Article 12.8 states: “in accordance with Article 46.2.i) of Organic Law 6/2001, of 21 December, on universities, students may obtain academic recognition in credits for their participation in university activities relating to culture, sport, student representation, solidarity and cooperation. For this purpose, the curriculum must envisage the possibility for students to obtain recognition of at least 6 credits out of the total number of credits of the aforementioned curriculum for their participation in the above-mentioned activities.” This academic and educational area is the one that the University of Lleida (UdL) has configured as a cross-disciplinary subject area. This is the generic and distinctive name of a 6-credit optional subject that has been incorporated into the bachelor’s degree and double bachelor’s degree curricula.

Education in a cross-disciplinary subject area is centred on those knowledge areas and those competencies that are considered substantial for strengthening the student’s integral education, such as ethical commitment, learning capacity and responsibility, teamwork, ICT use, creative and entrepreneurial capacity, communicative capacity, and commitment to sustainability and gender equality. It also includes activities related to culture and sport, to gender issues, to solidarity and cooperation, as well as those that foster the acquisition of competencies in information management (bibliographic and documentary resources), participation in congresses and conferences that are clearly cross-disciplinary and organised by the UdL’s schools, and student representation and participation.

A cross-disciplinary subject area is configured by educational activities promoted by the following agents:

a) Offices of Vice-Rectors with competence for teaching and students UdL activities related to generic competencies (section 3.1) Student participation and representation (section 3.5)

b) UdL faculties and schools UdL activities related to generic competencies (section 3.1) Congresses and conferences (section 3.2)

c) UdL units (section 3.4)

The following are excluded:

Continuing education courses, except those of the Summer University.

Seminars and other unregulated academic activities.

Because of its legal and organisational specificity, foreign language education will have its own regulations, and will not be included in these regulations.

2. PLANNING CRITERIA

2.1. For each academic year, the UdL will issue two deadlines for submitting cross-disciplinary subject area proposals, which shall be managed by the unit with competence for this type of education.

2.2. The proposals must have one person in charge from the UdL, who will sign the corresponding certificates. The person in charge must be a UdL lecturer or, where applicable, a person who has academic responsibility for the unit proposing the cross-disciplinary activity. For proposals related to student representation and participation, the Vice-Rector with competence for that area will be the person in charge.

2.3. Proposals by UdL faculties, schools and units must be approved in advance by the school’s Study Committee or by the corresponding Office of the Unit Director, and must be accompanied by a favourable report.

2.4. The Student Affairs Committee must approve in advance the proposals for activities related to student participation.

2.5. The Academic Planning Committee will assess the proposals and issue the corresponding reports, which it must submit to the Governing Council for approval.

2.6. For each academic year, the UdL will establish a catalogue of cross-disciplinary subject area proposals.

2.7. A cross-disciplinary educational activity will only be activated if at least 10 students are enrolled in it.

3. CROSS-DISCIPLINARY SUBJECT AREA STRUCTURE

3.1. The Offices of the Vice-Rectors for teaching and students, and the faculties and schools of the UdL may propose educational activities with a teaching load of 1 to 3 ECTS credits related to the generic competencies approved by the UdL.

3.2. UdL faculties and schools may propose congresses, conferences and volunteering activities liable to be recognised within the cross-disciplinary subject area. The teaching load must be 1 or 2 ECTS credits.

3.3. The maximum total number of cross-disciplinary subject area activities (including sections 3.1 and 3.2) that a school may propose per academic year depends on the students registered, as set out in the following table:

3.4. The Summer University; the Culture, Sports, Development and Cooperation, and Library and Documentation units; and the Dolors Piera Centre for Equal Opportunities and the Promotion of Women may, either individually or jointly with faculties and schools, propose activities with a teaching load of 1 to 3 ECTS credits, depending on how many hours the proposed activity lasts and/or its academic and educational interest. Should these activities be organised jointly with faculties or schools, the units must submit them. The proposed activities must be related to the education given within the context of the Summer University, of sport, of cooperation, of gender issues, of information management competency acquisition, and of culture.

3.5. Within this context of cross-disciplinary education, special consideration will be given to student representation and participation. These types of proposal must be made by the Office of the Vice-Rector with competence for students, in collaboration with the Student Council.

3.6. The number of activated student representation and participation credits that can be recognised as a cross-disciplinary subject area is set out in Regulations for Recognition of the Cross-Disciplinary Subject Area of Student Representation and Participation (in Catalan).

3.7. The internal distribution of academic time is governed by organisational flexibility and by the UdL’s academic regulations.

4. ASSESSMENT AND GRADING

4.1. The outcome of the assessment of the proposed educational activities can be pass or fail in accordance with the provisions of Article 5.5 of Royal Decree 1125/2003, of 5 September (Spain’s Official State Gazette of 18 September 2003).

4.2. The pass grade requires monitoring of the student’s dedication and may include assessment actions (written evidence or other types of test).

4.3. Once the activity has been completed, the person in charge must submit a list of the final grades to the Office of the Secretary of the school or unit promoting the activity so that it can issue the student certificates in accordance with the standard model.

4.4. The Office of the Secretary of the school or unit promoting the activity issues student certificates in accordance with the standard model. The people in charge of the cross-disciplinary educational activities sign the corresponding certificates containing the student’s pass or fail grade.

5. ENROLMENT AND RECOGNITION

5.1. Whenever possible, students must enrol in cross-disciplinary educational activities via the Electronic Office. Failing that, they may do so at the Offices of the Vice-Rectors, units, faculties or schools promoting the activities, which will also issue the certificates of participation in these activities.

5.2. To recognise these activities as a cross-disciplinary subject area, it is established that 1 ECTS credit will be obtained with 25 hours’ dedication to the activity and a pass grade.

5.3. The recognition of cross-disciplinary subject area credits must be done by the Office of the Secretary of the UdL faculty or school where the student officially registered. The student must take the certificate to the school to get them recognised and to ensure they appear in his/her academic record.

5.4. Credits obtained by recognition are not graded numerically and do not count towards the student’s academic record average.

5.5. To incorporate recognised credits into the academic record, the corresponding price, as set out in the Government of Catalonia Decree on public prices for Catalan public universities, must be paid.

5.6. The price applied is the one for the credit of an optional subject with a ‘C’ teaching structure coefficient.

6. ALLOCATION OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES GENERATED

6.1. Income from the students’ enrolment in cross-disciplinary educational activities, to which no indirect costs are applied, must be allocated to:

• Remunerating the lecturers participating in these activities. The maximum rate of pay per hour taught must be set by the Office of the General Manager. Those lecturers who do not reach the maximum teaching capacity that they should achieve in accordance with the UdL Academic Dedication Plan (PDA) must incorporate teaching on cross-disciplinary education into the Academic Planning Plan (POA) of the academic year and, therefore, will not receive any financial remuneration.

• Other educational activity infrastructure and organisational costs.

• Teaching quality improvement programmes in faculties and schools or in other global actions in this field promoted by the UdL.

6.2. Income from enrolment in cross-disciplinary educational activities is directly managed by the Offices of the Vice-Rectors, faculties, schools and units in charge.

FIRST ADDITIONAL PROVISION

Students on UdL mobility programmes who have undertaken activities equivalent to cross-disciplinary education at the destination university may have these activities recognised under the same conditions as those undertaken at the UdL if they have been duly accredited and validated by the Office of the Vice-Rector with competence for international relations.

SECOND ADDITIONAL PROVISION

Under exceptional circumstances, the Office of the Vice-Rector with competence for teaching and/or students may submit a proposal to the Governing Council to the effect that, with the Academic Planning Committee’s prior approval, those cross-disciplinary subject areas of a solidarity nature that it deems appropriate should be free of charge.

TRANSITIONAL PROVISION

UdL students who started their bachelor’s degree and double bachelor’s degree studies in the 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17 academic years who are able to prove that they have obtained B2 before the end of the 2018/2019 academic year (inclusive) will be granted recognition of the cross-disciplinary subject area for a value of 6 credits, free of charge, by submitting the document accrediting level B2 in English, French, German or Italian.

FINAL PROVISION

These regulations, approved by the Governing Council and published in the UdL Electronic Office (https://seuelectronica.udl.cat/etauler.php), will be applicable from the 2020/2021 academic year and derogate all previous regulations governing cross-disciplinary subject areas.