28 november 2012
DNR (VHS)
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01.11-254-2012
DNR (YOUR)
[Klicka och skriv diarienummer]
Marleen Whiteley
Head of English Communication
Common errors found searching for courses and on university
course description pages
Problems in search results on Universityadmissions.se

The course or programme hasn’t been given a name so it shows up in the search
results list without one.

Information regarding the cost of the course or programme is blank (all that are
available to international students must have the tuition fee listed).

When a student indicates in advanced search that he/she only wants to get
results for courses and programmes that do not require previous university
studies, the result list often contains courses that do have university courses as
prerequisites (often master’s level courses).
Problems on course description pages that Universityadmissions.se links to
in the search results list
When students perform a search on Universityadmissions.se, they are presented with a
search results list. Each course and programme’s information listing has a link to the
university’s description of the course or programme on their website. The following
problems have been found when looking through a number of these university
webpages:
Names for the different application rounds
Students can apply to the masters/international courses application rounds (with earlier
deadlines, such as January 15 or August 15) or the national application rounds (later
deadlines, such as April 15 or October 15). There are different names for these round s
at different institutions. Swedish application round really doesn’t sound attractive to an
international student and many might not realize they can apply to it at all. Here at
VHS, we have decided to focus on when the admission round’s application deadl ine is
– so we have the January admission round and the April admission round for the
autumn semester, and the August and October admission rounds for the Spring
semester. Making this uniform would also help international students understand when
they should apply, and to which admission round.
BOX 24070, SE-104 50 STOCKHOLM, VISIT: KARLAVÄGEN 108,
PHONE: +46 8 725 96 00, FAX: +46 8 725 96 01, E-MAIL: [email protected], WWW.VHS.SE
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We decided not to call them anything having to do with EEA as any student can apply
to any admission round, if they like. We can’t and shouldn’t limit who can and cannot
apply to a specific admission round, but it is important to explain that students within
the EEA can apply to any round and still have time to make arrangements; however,
students who must get a residence permit will not have time if they apply to the later
admission rounds (non-EEA students).
Title of the page
We have seen the title of the course description page as “Course occasion” which I
believe is a direct translation of kurstillfällen. A good title for the page could be
“Course information” or even just the name of the course or programme.
Mix of English and Swedish
Many, many times we have found a mix of English and Swedish on the course
description page – and on a number of university websites. This is, of course, very
confusing for international students. Our guess is that the page is set up in a certain
way for certain admission rounds with a certain framework – or that the information is
being automatically pulled in from where the data has been entered.
Where to apply
Students should not apply for the course at “Verket för högskoleservice” or
Antagning.se – they should apply for the course at Universityadmissions.se – this is
also where they should go to get more information.
Mixing of level descriptors
We have seen cycle/undergraduate/bachelor’s etc. We have even seen “Basic” which
should not be used. We recommend that you use Preparatory, Bachelor’s (First cycle)
and Master’s (Second cycle) to describe the level of the course in a way that an
applicant will understand. VHS has provided a separate document regarding this issue.
On-campus vs. distance
There is no such thing as “normal” teaching. A course is either offered “On -campus” or
“Distance” or “Web-based distance”.
Different, often incorrect, terms
A myriad of different – and often incorrect – terms are used in the course descriptions,
such as Course time (should be Course dates), Education language (should be
Language of instruction), Last application (should be Application deadline), Do a late
application (should be Submit a late application). International students are met with
different descriptors; using uniform terms would make it much easier for them to
understand. VHS has a list of terms in Swedish and their English translations on vhs.se.
Error pages
We see links that go to 404 error pages.
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Linking to a page that isn’t the course description
When a student clicks on the link for more information in the search results, the link
should go to the specific page on the university’s website where the course description
is, not to a general page where the student must then search through lists to find the
course and corresponding page again.
Term or semester?
In conjunction with Swedish universities and university colleges, we made the decision
here at VHS to use semester and not term – Högskoleverket does the same. We see
both used on university websites.