An individual study activity counts as an elective. It is an opportunity for you who would like to work with academically with a topic in which no courses are offered – or if you wish to try your hand at project work.
An individual study activity is a small research project that gives you an introduction to project work as a form of work.
You gain basic knowledge within the subject area of the project and are trained to identify and formulate a scientific problem - and then process it in a scientific way.
The project can be based on experimental and/or theoretical studies. Whether your project is experimental or purely theoretical, search for and application of relevant academic literature is an important part of the project.
An individual study activity usually has a weighting of 5 or 10 ECTS.
All associate and full professors at your department can serve as project supervisors. Before contacting a potential project supervisor, you must reflect on what you would like to work with during the project:
- Do you wish to do an experimental project?
- Would you rather work on a purely theoretical project?
- What subject area do you wish to work with?
Once you have found a supervisor, you make a final agreement for the project.
An individual study activity can also be done in collaboration with an external supervisor, who in that case serves as co-supervisor. The main supervisor must, however, be from your department at SDU.
The main supervisor has the formal responsibility for supervising you during the project and must ensure that the purpose, content, scope and academic level of the project are in accordance with the regulations of your degree programme.
You must register for the individual study activity in the student self-service during the course registration period:
- 20-30 November if you wish to do the project in the spring semester.
- 20-30 May if you wish to do the project in the autumn semester.
Please read the course description carefully before registering for an individual study activity, as they have different ECTS weightings and may have different exam regulations. You can find all course descriptions for individual study activities in the list of courses offered – the course codes start with "IA".
Once all agreements are in place, you must fill in a project contract, including project description, which you draw up in cooperation with your project supervisor.
The deadline for submitting the project is a week after the start of the semester in which you do the project. However, we recommend that you submit the project contract as soon as possible after registering for the individual study activity in the student self-service.
When the Study Board has approved the project contract, you will be notified by e-mail.
Individual study activities with an alternative weighting.
If you wish to do an individual study activity with a weighting other than 5 or 10 ECTS, you cannot use the digital project contract form. Instead, please contact the student counsellors at the Faculty of Science.
The Study Board may grant you a dispensation to change the project title if your project takes a different turn than initially expected.
The Study Board may grant you an extension of the submission deadline if you can document that extraordinary circumstances are preventing you from keeping the deadline. Any extension of the submission deadline must be approved first by your project supervisor, then by the department teaching committee, and finally by the Head of Studies. Therefore, it is crucial that you contact your project supervisor before submitting an application for extension of the deadline.
Read more about extraordinary circumstances
Regardless if your application concerns a change of the project title or an extension of the submission deadline, you must submit your application no later than 4 weeks before the submission deadline.
Apply for project changes (link to the application form in SPOC)
You conclude the individual study activity by writing a report of your project work.
The scope of the report depends ECTS weighting of the project and is agreed in detail with the project supervisor.
Requirements for the report
The requirements for the length of the report depends of the ECTS weighting of your project.
Title page, preface, table of contents, abbreviations, abstract, figure legends, bibliography/references and appendices should not be counted in when calculating the length of the report. Figures and tables count for one character each.
5 ECTS ISA
The length of the report must be at least 36,000 characters, including spaces. We recommend that the length of the report doesn't exceed 60,000 characters, including spaces. This limit may be exceeded only by approval from the main supervisor.
10 ECTS ISA
The length of the report must be at least 48,000 characters, including spaces. We recommend that the length of the report doesn't exceed 72,000 characters, including spaces. This limit may be exceeded only by approval from the main supervisor.
15 ECTS ISA
The length of the report must be at least 60,000 characters, including spaces. We recommend that the length of the report doesn't exceed 84,000 characters, including spaces. This limit may be exceeded only by approval from the main supervisor
The title page must contain the following information:
- Project title (in Danish and in English)
- Degree programme
- Name of author
- Name of supervisors
- Length of the report (number of characters)
A scientific report typically contains the elements listed below, which serve as inspiration and are open to discussion with your main supervisor. The elements marked in bold contribute to the total length of the report.
- Title page
- Preface
- Table of contents
- Appreviations
- Abstract
- Hypothesis/aim of the project
- Introduction
- Methods and materials
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Future perspectives
- Bibliography/references
- Appendices
Any questions?
The student counsellors at the Faculty of Science are ready to help you with your study-related questions.
Contact the student counsellors at the Faculty of Science