Exchange students @unibo: Exams, internships and certifications of the activities carried out

Course contents, text books and teaching materials

In the course unit catalogue you can find a syllabus (learning outcomes, course contents, teaching and assessment methods and tools, language of instruction) and the list of books and texts for study (bibliography/ readings), for each course unit.

Before purchasing text books, wait for the start of lectures and follow the instructions given by the professors. You may purchase teaching materials in the bookshop or borrow them from the library. To search for books and materials please visit the Library Portal.

To consult and download teaching material prepared by the professors, you can use the service Virtuale.

Booking exams through AlmaEsami

Before sitting an exam you must:

• enter it in your online study plan. The uploaded exams are immediately visible on AlmaEsami;

• book the exam (register for the exam session) trough AlmaEsami.

You can access AlmaEsami directly from your personal homepage on AlmaRM – Accesso studenti (“Register for an exam” button).

In AlmaEsami:

• you can check the dates of the exam sessions. When the professors publish the sessions, alongside each exam the “Prenota” (book) button is enabled;

• you can register for the exam sessions. Once you have seen the exam session dates, you can register for the exam sessions according to the schedule set by the professors;

• the professors record the exam results.

Check your career details in your personal hompage in AlmaRM, to monitor your exam recordings. Do this check periodically and if any recordings are missing, contact the professors.

Important! You must take the exams within your mobility period.

Exams

The procedures for conducting the exams are published in each course unit page (assessment method).

At the end of the exam, the professor informs you verbally of your grade or, in the case of written exams, publishes the grades in AlmaEsami. You can accept the grade or refuse it. In the latter case, you can sit the exam again during another available exam session. Once you have accepted the grade, the professor records it in AlmaEsami. Subsequently, when you access your career details in your personal homepage in AlmaRM you may read “verbalizzato” (“recorded”) and the grade/evaluation next to the exam. Check your career details regularly and, if any exams have not been recorded, contact the professor.

Some course units are known as “integrated courses”, and have 2 or more components.

As an exchange student, you may sit both the exam for a single component (obtaining only the credits for that component) or the whole integrated course. For problems in filling in the study plan and registering for the exam sessions of single components, please write to exchange.students@unibo.it

Important: all exams must be taken during the period agreed upon for your exchange programme.

Internships

During your exchange period, you can also carry out a curricular internship. The curricular internship offers you the chance to have work experience to complete your university training and obtain the credits laid down in your study plan.

The curricular internship offers you the chance to have work experience to complete your university training and obtain the credits laid down in your study plan. It is possible to carry out an internship outside the university (businesses, public institutions, professional firms, etc.) or in the university (laboratories, research centres, administrative departments, etc.), both in Italy and abroad.

If you want to carry out an internship you have to check in advance if it is possible: find the degree programmes of the subject areas you are interested in, read the information on the relevant web sites (studying > curricular internship) and contact the indicated offices. For some degree programmes the information may be available only in Italian.

To consult the list of institutions holding agreements with the university for internships and book them directly online, access the Online Student Internship Service using your username and password.

These activities must also be included in your Learning Agreement and in your Study Plan and are recorded in AlmaEsami. In some cases, the hosting institutions issue a further certification which details the internship (number of hours, subject, etc.).

Learn more if you want to do an internship under Erasmus + for Traineeship programme, see the section.

Grades and passing exams

The grades in the Italian university system are expressed out of thirty.

You pass an exam or internship with a grade of at least 18/30.

If you obtain full grade (30/30) the examination board may also decide to award you honours (lode).

Important: failed exams are not usually recorded in Almaesami and therefore they are not listed in your Transcript of Records. If your university requires failed exams to also be listed in your Transcript of Records, you must explicitly ask the professor to record the “fail”, immediately after the exam.

The failed exam can be recorded as “respinto” (rejected), if you finished and failed the examination, or “ritirato” (withdrawn), if you didn’t finish the examination. It is not possible to record a numerical grade lower than 18. If you fail the exam you do not obtain the relative credits.

For some activities, i.e. language exams, including the Italian language courses, some internships, laboratories and seminars, you will not be given a grade but merely a “Idoneo”/“Pass”. The same “Idoneo”/“Pass is listed in the Transcript of Records. The “Idoneo”/”Pass” can never be transformed into a numerical grade.

Certification of attendance and certification of teaching activities not included in the curriculum

If you need certification of your attendance to lectures of single courses, you must contact the teachers at the beginning of the lectures. The teachers will decide whether to issue the certification at the end of the course.

In the Italian system, attendance alone is not sufficient for obtaining credits.

If you wish to take part in activities that are not in the course unit catalogue and which can therefore not be included in your study plan (some internships, seminars, preparation of the dissertation, etc.), you must immediately agree with the professor on how to perform them and certify them.

The actual performance of these activities and their evaluation can be certified by the professors on stamped and signed headed paper, but they cannot be recorded in Almaesami and therefore are not reported in your Transcript of Records.

Always check in advance whether your university accepts this kind of certification.