Credit may be input-based, defined by the quantity and notional time of instruction given – or outcome-based, such as learning outcomes or summative assessments.
This permits a semester of study to be broken into more flexible combinations of units than the typical four, due in part to 24 being a highly composite number.
Credit points tend to reflect all forms of study and assessment by a student in a unit, not just contact time[note 2].
The Australian Government's common measure of university course credits is known as Equivalent Full-Time Student Load (EFTSL).
This is used as a common measure primarily for calculation of tuition fees and subsidies for government-supported places, including loans under the Higher Education Loan Program (see Tertiary education fees in Australia), but also for the determination of "full-time" status for the purposes of government assistance[7] and requirements of student visas; a minimum of 75% of a standard load (i.e. 0.750 EFTSL per year) is typically required to achieve and retain full-time status.
A full-time year of higher education takes between 800 and 1200 instruction-hours in Brazil, which would be equivalent to 50-80 US credits and 60 European ECTS.
In Uruguay's University of the Republic, a credit stands for 15 hours of work,[8] including classes, personally studying and task activities.
Third and fifth-year classes are more specialized so some facilities may offer half-courses that run from September to December or January to April.
According to the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, one of the top technical universities in India, the GPA is calculated on a ten-point scale, with weighted average of the grades received in the respective course.
On an average, students in India need to complete 180-185 credits after their four-year engineering course to be awarded the degree B.Tech/B.E.
[citation needed] Homework is time the student spends applying the class material without supervision of the professor: this includes studying notes, supplementary reading, writing papers, or other unsupervised activities such as labwork or fieldwork.
Credit for laboratory and studio courses as well as physical education courses, internships and practica is usually less than for lectures – typically one credit for every two to three hours spent in lab or studio, depending on the amount of actual instruction necessary prior to lab.
To figure a grade-point average (GPA), the grade received in each course is subject to weighting, by multiplying it by the number of credit hours.
[citation needed] This also means that a student often must take other classes instead, to meet minimum hour requirements.
[citation needed] Faculty in comprehensive or baccalaureate colleges and universities typically have 12 SCH per semester.
Faculty teaching significant graduate work or large classes (100 or more students in a section) may have "load lifts" or "course reductions."
While faculty workloads are almost universally based on the number of SCH taught, faculty teaching in technical "clock hour" programs in technical and community colleges have workloads that more closely resemble high school teaching, so that Faculty in community colleges typically teach 15 SCH or more per semester (5 days per week at 3 hours per day).