Department of Economics and Business Economics (ECON) provides teaching in a number of study programmes. Below, you will find inspiration and important guidelines/rules for all lecturers at ECON as well as relevant contact information.
The students are informed about their study programme via the study portals, which contain important information about teaching, exams, bachelor's theses, master's theses, timetables, etc.:
Please read the new guidelines regarding the use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) at AU.
From fall 2024, students are allowed to use GAI in all exams at AU unless it is explicitly stated in the academic regulations or course description that it is not allowed.
The rules have been implemented in the individual academic regulations and course descriptions, so please read these to make sure what applies to your course(s).
If you wish to make the rules clearer in your course description, please contact your teaching coordinator first.
What you need to know when you mark exam papers:
How the students will be informed
The students will be informed about the new rules in august 2024 and again as we approach the winter exams 2024-25.
They will also be able to access both rules and recommendations here: https://studerende.au.dk/en/gai, and a link will be added to all relevant WISEflow-flows.
As a lecturer, you can help students navigate the rules by:
GAI support for teaching staff
If you would like to know more about how you can use GAI in your teaching, you can find good advice, tips and tricks on AU Educate.
As a member of teaching staff, you also have the opportunity to register for courses on GAI at the Centre for Educational Development. See a list of courses
You are welcome to contact your director of studies, your teaching coordinator, or your course coordinator, if you have any questions.
All our courses are described in the AU course catalogue and they are part of the academic regulations for the study programmes. As lecturer you must know both the relevant academic regulations as well as your own course description(s) in depth and adhere to the content in both teaching and examining. Course descriptions (and changes) must be approved by the relevant study board. Input is called for by the study administrators well in advance.
To each course, is assigned a course responsible lecturer. This course coordinator is responsible for coordinating activities in the course incl. the distribution of lectures between lecturers, exam activities, as well as coordinating any input to revisions of the academic content in the course description before each semester.
The course coordinators are always welcome to seek professional sparring with the department’s other lecturers and the teaching coordinators.
The students will be asked to evaluate all their courses towards the end of a term. You must, as lecturer, set aside approx. 10 minutes during a lecture for evaluation. The department management will receive the evaluation results after the students have evaluated their courses.
Read more here: Evaluation
At AU, we use curriculum-based planning in order to try to secure a stable and predictable schedule for both you and the students.
Well in advance of each semester, you will be asked to consider any (professional) limitations to timetable planning for your course.
At ECON, we plan the teaching according to the general guidelines from BSS and also to the guidelines locally decided at ECON:
If you have any questions to the process, please contact your study administrator.
Timetables:
The timetables are published for the students before they register for the following semester, i.e., before 1-5 May/1-5 Nov. After publication, you can only change the schedule for your course if unforeseen professional circumstances occur. A change must be approved by the department management. The motivated request for change must be sent to the study administrators, who will then go forward with it. Remember to state the (professional) reason for your request and to always consider other alternatives before reporting the request.
Teaching periods (15 weeks):
Spring: Week 5-19
(in 2025 and 2026, week 6-20)
Fall: Week 36-50
Get access to your personal timetable or the timetable of e.g. a particular classroom via this link:
Find the general ECON principles for timetable and exam planning here: General principles - ECON
Classrooms:
Find information about capacity, equipment, service phone numbers etc. via this link:
Booking must always go through the study administrators.
Note that it is the lecturer’s responsibility to make sure that the number of persons in the room does not exceed the maximum capacity.
If you experience that too many students show up for your lecture, you must inform the students either at the lecture or via Brightspace that they are not allowed to change lecture classes.
If there are no free spaces, the students originally scheduled to be in the lecture class have priority.
Find the guidelines here: Sickness absence
Brightspace is AU's learning platform. This is where lecture plans and teaching material must be uploaded. You must also use this platform to communicate with the students.
From May 2025, all students will also have access to Microsoft 365, and this provides other opportunities to collaborate with students - as a supplement to Brightspace.
You can use Teams as a tool for collaborative activities in your teaching. Also, Teams can be used as an instructor forum instead of SharePoint. Feel free to contact your study administrator if you need assistance.
As a lecturer, you should always clearly communicate to your students what they can expect in Brightspace, in Teams, and via e-mail.
Read more about using Microsoft 365 to collaborate with students
Find inspiration to teaching methods and much more here:
Please feel free to contact the director of studies or the teaching coordinators to chat about what is expected at ECON.
At AU, a study programme is described in detail in the academic regulation for the specific programme.
It is important that you are familiar with the academic regulations pertaining to the study programmes around the courses you teach.
Find the academic regulations on the relevant study portal here: Study portals or here: Academic regulations.
The AU Library offers to prepare an electronic curriculum list for your course, ensuring access to electronic resources and that all copyright rules are adhered to:
The AU Library also offers support to lecturers in relation to semester shelves, course literature, plagiarism, copyright etc.:
An overview over the literature used in the course must be added to the course description. If the list is not ready by the time the course descriptions are published, you can always contact your study administrator at a later point to add it after publication. Also, please make sure that the literature and curriculum for the exam are listed in Brightspace well in advance of the beginning of the semester in order to ensure the students have time to acquire the literature for the course and to ensure that the students are well aware of what the full curriculum for the exams is.
Inspection copies of books can be ordered by your study administrative contact person. See more here regarding purchasing of books etc.: Purchase (ECON)
Aarhus University is a campus university which means that teaching should take place on-site and not online. Students do not have a right to demand online sessions, and if you wish to use online components in your teaching, this will have to be approved by the relevant board of studies well in advance, i.e., before the publication of the course descriptions as the teaching form must be evident here.
Teaching staff may be approached by students, who are part of the AU Dual Career programme (for both elite athletes and for entrepreneurs), and who therefore have special conditions at AU. They are informed that any request to video/audio record or live-stream the lectures must be sent to the lecturer (or course coordinator) at least a week in advance of the lecture. Note that as a lecturer, you can decline this request.
Teaching staff may also be approached by students with other special needs, and in this case you can contact your study administrative contact person to ask for help clarifying any uncertainties about the rules and/or pitfalls.
Guidelines regarding GDPR etc. can be found here: Guidelines for streaming and recording classes at Aarhus University (see explicitly "Standard text for Brightspace").
Guides on how to use Zoom (also from Brightspace) for streaming and recording lectures can be found here: Streaming and recording of lectures
You can also refer students to Data protection (GDPR) for students if needed.
All teaching and exam material uploaded to Brightspace and WISEflow must be created with consideration to students with special needs (e.g., dyslexia).
Generally, if text can be marked/highlighted and copied (i.e., not text inserted as a picture), then it can be recognized by the text-to-speech software.
Read more here: Availability of texts on AU's learning and examination platforms
The planning of the exams (and teaching) is centralized and performed by Study Planning dept. (StudiePlan) in cooperation with lecturers through the study administrators. The exam plans for the ordinary exams are published for the students before they register for the courses in the following semester, i.e. before 1-5 May (fall courses) / 1-5 November (spring courses).
Exam periods:
Winter: Ordinary exams are held during December and January. Any midterm exams are usually held around week 43. Re-exams are held during the last 2 weeks of February, i.e. normally from 15-28 February.
Summer: Ordinary exams are held during May and June. Any midterm exams are usually held around week 12/13. Re-exams are held during weeks 31-33, always starting on 1 August (or the first weekday hereafter).
Find the general ECON principles for timetable and exam planning here: General principles - ECON
Written exams (except for analogue exams / handwritten) are held in AU WISEflow, our digital exam system.
That is also where all grades must be entered. If there are multiple assessors for an exam, all assessors must enter the grade.
For written exams, the deadline will appear from the relevant flow in WISEflow. The grading of written exams must normally be finalised no later than four weeks after the exam and preferably before. Note that there may be a shorter deadline at the end of an examination period as well as during the re-examination period.
For oral exams, it is important that the grades are entered on the exact day of the exam.
Students can complain about their grade up until two weeks after the grade is published.
From summer 2025 (after 1 May) all written on-site exams will be held in the new Exam House in Lisbjerg, and it has been decided to roll out the use of Device Monitor for almost all written on-site exams at the same time.
Device Monitor will be specifically rolled out for the following types of exams:
Device Monitor will NOT be used on on-site exams (Multi), for students who have a dispensation to use an IT backpack.
Device Monitor is a browser that students must download to their computer before the exam.
More information about Device Monitor can be found here: https://studerende.au.dk/en/wiseflow.
When preparing a written exam, please consider the following:
In connection with written onsite exams, you must be reachable by telephone during the first hour of the exam. For take-home exams, the students are allowed to send you emails with questions to problems in the exam assignment during the first 1-4 hours of the exam (depending on the length of the exam), after which, you must send the answer(s) to all students via Brightspace.
A guiding solution must be uploaded to Brightspace after the exam and also sent to the co-assessor/external co-examiner along with the exam assignment no later than the day after the exam.
The grading of the exam must be finalised no later than four weeks after the exam and preferably before. Note that there may be a shorter deadline at the end of an examination period as well as during the re-examination period. You can see the deadline in WISEflow.
In the course descriptions (see course catalogue), it is stated whether an exam is with internal, external, or no co-examination.
If an internal co-examiner is needed (i.e., a person employed by the department), your teaching coordinator will be able to help you find (and/or ask) a relevant colleague. Please notice that it could be useful to have the chosen co-examiner approved by either the teaching coordinator or the director of studies to avoid incapacity issues.
For exams with external co-examination, the study administrators will contact you to arrange this.
At oral exams, the lecturer as well as the internal/external examiner is required to attend the exams onsite. The study administrators will contact you in order to arrange the practical parts of the exam, e.g., in relation to catering, rooms, exam order, etc.
In special cases, oral exams can be held online (e.g., as during Corona), but this has to be approved beforehand by the relevant director of studies. Find guides on how to conduct exams in Zoom via this link: Zoom
Remember that all grades must be entered the same day as the oral exam is held. See more about marking here.
When a student's assignment is rejected due to failure to comply with formalities (in the course description or on the study portal/in the general guidelines for written assignments), the student must receive a written formal decision from a case officer in BSS Studies with a description of the reasons for the rejection of the assignment and a guide on how to appeal the decision.
It will be the examiner who discovers that the assignment does not meet the formal requirements, but it will be the case officer who prepares and sends the decision to the student.
If you, as an examiner, need to reject an assignment due to formalities, you must therefore notify Student Affairs in BSS Studies so that they can send the student a decision. Please notify them by email to dispensationsansogninger.bss@au.dk.
Your email must contain the following information:
The case officer will send a decision to the student as soon as possible and will inform you, when the decision has been sent. Do not enter the grade in WISEflow until the student has received a decision.
Questions can be sent to Ditte Bak, case officer at BSS Studies, at ditte.bak@au.dk.
Find the general information on formal requirements for students at:
- BSc/MSc Economics/Oecon here: Guidelines for written assignments
- BSc/MSc Economics and Business Administration here: Guidelines for written assignments
Otherwise, see your course description for specific requirements.
Every semester, a supervisor list is published for the students before they register for the project, i.e., bachelor's project, master's thesis, project-based internship, etc. It is required of all lecturers at ECON to be on the list to participate in the joint task of supervising the many students in our study programmes. If you want to be removed from the list a certain semester due to other obligations, it must be approved be your section head.
The study administrators will call for input for the topics on the list, normally during August/September and Febr/March.
If you are assigned a project as a supervisor, it is recommended that you contact the student during the start-up phase, if he/she has not contacted you within a reasonable time (e.g., 2 weeks).
Read, comment on, and approve the problem statement and the outline. Remember that your approval of the problem statement in WISEflow during January/August (you will receive a link from WISEflow in your mail) is the student’s assurance from you that they are on the right track. If you need further information about what supervision entails at this department, you can contact a teaching coordinator. See more about your obligations here.
It is the students’ responsibility to contact you as supervisor, but we encourage you to reach out to the students via email, if you have not heard from them within 2 weeks from the start of the thesis writing period. (Remember that you must communicate with the students via their AU mail). If the students do not respond to your email, you are not obliged to do further until they contact you.
The extent of the supervision (and the procedures regarding the problem statement) can be discussed with either your section head or your teaching coordinator.
There are different consequences depending on the thesis/project, if the student(s) does not submit or pass the thesis/project. Please contact a study administrator for further instructions.
Please note that you should advise the students about pitfalls concerning use of GAI in projects as it from summer 2024 is allowed to be used in final projects. See more here: Use of GAI at AU.
For Master's theses (only MSc Economics and Business Admin/merc and MSc Economics/Oecon), you will be asked to approve a preliminary problem statement in WISEflow before the student begins writing his/her thesis (both for 1st, 2nd and 3rd attempts). The initial and preliminary problem statement does not have to be particularly extensive, and it can be modified throughout the entire thesis writing period.
If the student does not upload the preliminary problem statement, no further action is required on your part. The student must then send a problem statement directly to you, as supervisor, at a later point instead.
If you do not approve the preliminary problem statement because it lacks sufficient content, he/she must contact you directly to agree on a revised problem statement instead.
When a student transitions from the 1st examination attempt to the 2nd/3rd attempt, the student must upload a revised problem statement to WISEflow.
For MSc in Economics (Oecon), the process for you will be the same as for the 1st attempt.
For MSc in Economics and Business Administration (merc), it is slightly different. Here, the rule is that if a revised problem statement has not been handed in and approved in WISEflow, the student must attach a brief account when handing in the Master's Thesis, explaining how the revised problem statement differs from the original problem statement used for the first examination attempt. This brief account of the changes must be approved and signed by the supervisor. If the brief account is not included, the thesis must be rejected by you, and the student will have used an examination attempt. Please make sure to notify your study administrative contact person, if you reject a thesis.
Remember to read the relevant course description thoroughly, as differences can occur - both between MSc programmes and between semesters.
At AU Educate, you can find inspiration for your supervisor role.
Find the guidelines regarding your role and both your and the students’ obligations here: Confidentiality agreements at ECON.
If you have any questions about the guidelines, you can contact the relevant director of studies or send an email to nda@econ.au.dk.
Please also use nda@econ.au.dk if you need a company-specific non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to be signed by the head of department (see guidelines).
General information about confidentiality: Confidential theses and projects at AU (please refer students to Data protection (GDPR) for students).
As for internship contracts, it is only the standard AU-contract that you, as supervisor, must sign.
From fall 2024, it is no longer necessary for the student to indicate either name or study number on their thesis. The students are welcome to add their name, but it is not required.
The study administrator helps with the practical and administrative aspects of teaching. This applies to, among other things, book orders, scheduling and exam planning, support in connection with Brightspace and WISEflow, contact with students on general questions, proofreading of exam assignments and much more.
Study programme coordinators:
Directors of studies:
The teaching coordinators act as your sparring partner, when it comes to the academic content of your course and teaching. Each course is associated with a teaching coordinator within the academic areas: Business Intelligence, Econometrics, Economics, Finance, and Logistics.
Centre for Educational Development (CED) offers all kinds of sparring regarding teaching and learning to AU staff, and you can always contact them, if you wish to, e.g., add more blended learning, or if you want to participate in one of the many inspirational courses for lecturers.
At AU Educate, you can also find inspiration for planning and carrying out your teaching, and different teaching methods.
Other useful links:
IT Support:
IT Systems:
In order to log in to the systems, you need a user ID, i.e., an AU ID, which you will be given at the beginning of your employment. You can find your AU ID and create a password by going to https://mit.au.dk/ and logging in with WAYF (choose MitID as "institution" for the first time, so you can access the page).
Once you are an AU employee, you can log on to the EDUROAM wireless network using your AU ID as well as the password you created. However, please note that as a username you must write:
(your AU ID)@uni.au.dk.