This information package describes the university and the courses offered in order to help prospective ECTS students to prepare for their stay in Valencia.

The ECTS system is based on the principles of mutual trust and confidence between participating higher education institutions. The rules of ECTS, concerning information on courses available, the Agreement (between the home and host institutions) and the Use of Credit Points to indicate student workload, are set out to reinforce this mutual trust and confidence.

Each ECTS department will describe the courses it offers not only in terms of content but also adding credits to each course.

ECTS credits are a value allocated to course units to describe the student workload required to complete them. They reflect the quantity of work each course requires in relation to the total quantity of work required to complete a full year of academic study at the institution: lectures, practical work, seminars, personal work (in the library or at home), and examinations or other assessment activities. ECTS credits express a relative value.

In ECTS, 60 credits express the workload of a year of study; normally 30 credits are given for a semester and 20 credits for a term. It is important that no special courses are set up for ECTS purposes, but that all ECTS courses are mainstream courses of the participating institutions, as followed by home students under normal regulations.

It is up to the participating institutions to subdivide the credits for the different courses. Work placements and optional courses which form an integral part of the course study also receive academic credit. Work placements and optional courses which do not form an integral part of the course of study do not receive academic credit. Non-credit courses may, however, may be mentioned in the transcript of records

Credits are awarded only when the course has been completed and all required examinations have been successfully taken.

The students participating in ECTS will receive full credit for all academic work successfully carried out at any of the ECTS partner institutions. They will be able to transfer these academic credits from one participating institution to another, on the basis of prior agreement on the content of study programmes abroad between students and the institutions involved.

All students of the participating departments who are willing to take part in ECTS may do so if their institution agrees, and provided that there are places available.

Most students participating in ECTS will go to one single host institution in single EU Member State to study there for a limited period and then return to their home institution. Some may decide to stay at the host institution, possibly to earn a degree. Some may also decide to proceed to a third institution to continue their studies. In each of these three cases, students will be required to comply with the legal and institutional requirements of the country and institution where they take their degree.

When the student has successfully completed the study programme previously agreed between the home and host institutions and returns to the home institution, credit transfer will take place, and the student will continue the study course at the home institution without any loss of time or credit.

If, on the other hand, the student decides to stay at the host institution and to take a degree there, he or she may have to adapt the study course due to legal, institutional and departmental rules of the host country, institution and department.

Students selected by each institution to participate in ECTS may only be awarded a student mobility grant if they fulfil the general conditions of eligibility for the ERASMUS grant.

The scale of ECTS qualifications is a relative scale that tries to make the credit system clearer without interfering in the qualification systems of other institutions. This scale consists of the combined use of key work and suitable numeric definitions. Following the chart below this key work and definitions establish a relationship between the positive individual results of each student and the positive results of the students´ classmates.

This scale will only be used between institutions that have developed the ECTS system of credit transfer.