9. Postgraduate coursework studies

Introduction

Postgraduate courses are higher award courses such as graduate certificates, graduate diplomas, master’s degrees and doctorates. (Information on the graduate-entry University of Sydney Medical Program, which leads to registration as a medical doctor, can be found in chapters 5–7 on undergraduate courses.)

Postgraduate study is divided into two categories, research and coursework. Coursework is the subject of this chapter and chapters 10-30 and 32, and research is considered in chapter 8. Governance, including the resolutions for all postgraduate degrees, is covered in chapter 31. The information in this chapter and chapters 10-30 is in summary form and is subordinate to the provisions of the relevant degree resolutions, in chapter 31.

Coursework

What is a coursework course?

Coursework courses are similar to undergraduate study in that the student enrols in a set of units of study, with largely predetermined content and predetermined assessment. The units of study can be offered face to face, with lectures and tutorials, or offered online with set readings and a Web-based forum or similar, or a combination of both. Each unit of study has a credit point value and each course has a defined number of credit points the student must attain to be awarded the qualification.

Embedded courses

Coursework courses in the Faculty of Medicine include graduate certificates, graduate diplomas and master’s degrees. Some of these are stand-alone but many of them are known as embedded or “articulated” courses. This means that the two or three levels involved are linked with overlapping content so that a student may progress through the levels seamlessly, or transfer from a higher level and be awarded a qualification with a smaller load. For example a student may be unsure about undertaking study again after a protracted period away, so only requests admission to the graduate certificate. However, the student finds the study so relevant to their work that he/she decides to continue with the graduate diploma. Instead of having to re-apply and re-do units of study, the student can request a transfer to the graduate diploma with full credit for his/her studies in the graduate certificate.

Alternatively, a student may enrol in the master’s degree, but part of the way through is posted overseas for work and can’t continue. The student can apply to graduate with the highest level of award for which they have satisfied the requirements, so adding a qualification to his/her list of achievements. Another example is that a year after completing a graduate certificate, a student can apply to undertake the graduate diploma and, if accepted, will be given credit for the units of study completed in the graduate certificate. Note that time limits do apply for returning students and they should refer to the faculty's credit policy on the Web, see
www.foh.usyd.edu.au/postgrad/policies/index.php. Transfer between levels is not automatic. A student must request a transfer. The request is considered by the course coordinator in the first instance, who makes a recommendation to the Chair of the Board of Postgraduate Studies (see chapter 31), who makes the final decision.

In the Faculty of Medicine, the general structure of embedded courses is as follows: a graduate certificate requires 24 credit points for award, the graduate diploma 36 credit points and the master’s degree 48 credit points. Some master’s degrees have an associated honours component. Not all courses follow this structure so students should ensure that they read the resolutions and other information about their course to ensure that they are aware of the requirements.

Units of study

Units of study are the building blocks of all coursework courses, each with an associated credit point value. Each award course has a number of credit points necessary for completion of the course, and these credit points are gained through successfully completing units of study.

For some courses, the course coordinator specifies units of study for which a student must enrol. Other courses have only one or two units of study which are compulsory and the student has a choice, within limits, of which other units of study to undertake to achieve the required credit points for award. The units that are compulsory are core units, and a student must successfully complete these units of study in order to be awarded the relevant qualification. Even if the student has the necessary number of credit points for award, if he/she has not passed the core units he/she is not regarded as having qualified. The units of study where students have a choice are called elective units. Generally the choice of elective units of study is restricted to certain groups of units. Most of this chapter comprises descriptions of the postgraduate courses offered through the Faculty of Medicine, with the requirements of core and elective units for each course.

Some units of study have restrictions on who may enrol in the unit. The three types of restrictions are prerequisites, corequisites and prohibitions. Enrolment in a unit may only be possible if students have already completed a particular unit of study, the prerequisite, e.g. the unit of study OPSC5005 Practical Ophthalmic Science builds on the content of OPSC5001, and without having completed OPSC5001, students will not be able to understand and complete OPSC5005. Hence, OPSC5001 is a prerequisite for OPSC5005. A corequisite is where one unit of study requires a student to either have already completed a second unit of study or enrol in it at the same time. For example, the Biostatistics BSTA5020 Workplace Project Portfolio Part A requires students to also enrol in BSTA5022 Workplace Project Portfolio Part B during the same semester. A prohibition is where a student may not enrol in a unit of study if they have already completed the unit with a prohibition against it. For example, if a student has already completed BSTA5022 Workplace Project Portfolio Part C then he/she may not enrol in either BSTA5020 or BSTA5021.

Financial information about coursework courses

Postgraduate coursework courses within the Faculty of Medicine are fee-paying, with the exception of the Graduate Diploma of Indigenous Health Promotion, which is covered by HECS-HELP for Australian citizens. Very few scholarships exist to cover the fees for coursework degrees for both local and international students. Information on scholarships for inernational students can be found on the University’s website
www.usyd.edu.au/fstudent/international/postgrad/costs/scholarships.shtml and for local students, on the faculty’s website
www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/scholawards/postgrad/index.php.

Students undertaking the honours component of a master’s degree by coursework are not eligible to apply for scholarships that specify enrolling in a research degree as an eligibility requirement, in order to support their honours.