Academic Laboratory (M6.1)

The Academic Laboratory (module M6.1 in your module catalog) includes the preparation, execution and documentation of experiments at the university which exceed the demands of practical tutorials in terms of level of abstraction. It is strongly recommended to carry out the academic laboratory in the third semester or later (i.e. when you already have acquired around 60 ECTS). This ensures that you possess the theoretic knowledge that is necessary to tackle the practical tasks.

Academic Laboratory trainings are often carried out in a laboratory setting. The preparation for the Academic Laboratory training is conducted according to the experiment description and generally includes literature or exercises connected to the experiment. The experiments must be conducted in accordance with the experiment instructions. Your work must be documented in a laboratory journal/report, as instructed by your supervisor. This documentation must contain the applied materials and methods, the results, an evaluation and a discussion. At the Department of Computer Science, the Academic Lab module usually does not take place in a laboratory but consists of resolving a given problem with a hardware or software based solution and the analysis of the solution incorporating a database.

The Academic Laboratory training is an ungraded achievement (pass/fail), for which you will receive 5 ECTS credits. Instead of doing one training worth 5 credits, you can also do two worth 2.5 credits each.

It is not required to register the Academic Lab with the Examinations Office when you start it. The achievement for the Academic Lab is either processed directly via the Campo portal (the student registers for the lab in Campo and the supervisor enters the credits upon completion) or – if the lab is not offered as a module in Campo – the supervisor issues a PDF certificate (“Schein” in German) upon completion (chair/lab letter head with all relevant data), which the students then submits to Mrs. Jahreis of our Examinations Office.

All courses offered by the Faculty of Engineering that are marked as “Praktikum” (practical training) in Campo and fulfil the above mentioned requirements are generally applicable for the Academic Laboratory training (if not stated otherwise, see below). You can search specifically for practical courses in Campo by going to the section “studies offered” – “search for courses” and selecting “show all possible search criteria”. Please select “practical” as your “course type” and “Technische Fakultät” as your “organizational unit”.

• Here you can find a list of previous practical courses used as Academic Laboratory Training (not exhaustive!)
• Please note this list of courses that cannot be taken as Academic Laboratory training

Please note:

• The above lists contain English-taught and German-taught practical courses – please consult the Campo portal to find out more about the ones your interested in.
• Practical courses (course type “Praktikum/practical” in Campo) require previous registration, which usually takes place a few weeks or months before the lecture period starts (i.e. March/April for the summer semester; August/September for the winter semester). As most of our lecturers define the registration period for their practical courses individually, it is crucial that you inform yourself early on via Campo and StudOn when the registration for your desired practical course takes place. In case you cannot find any updated information in Campo or StudOn, please contact the responsible professor and ask them about the registration modalities. Exception: The registration for practical courses offered by our Department for Electrical Engineering (EEI) is managed via an online registration system. You will be informed each semester via email when this system opens.
• Not every practical course listed above is currently offered and the list of permitted courses is not exhaustive! If you intend to undertake a different Academic Laboratory, which you cannot find in either of the lists please contact the study advisory to find out if your desired training can be added to the list.
• If the practical course is not specifically marked for Medical Engineering students in the Campo portal, make sure that the lecturers agree that you participate.

Further alternatives:

• If you intend to work on an extensive project for the seminar Medical Engineering (after consulting with your professor), you can incorporate surplus ECTS credits of this seminar project in your module Academic Laboratory. For this, your professor must issue a second certificate including the title of the seminar and the note “Zusatzleistung” (additional achievement), which you submit to Mrs. Jahreis of our Exminations Office afterwards.
• If you agree on an invidual practical project with a professor of the Faculty of Engineering which fulfills the above-mentioned criteria but is not offered on Campo as a practical/lab course, you can use it as your Academic Lab if your supervising professor issues you a certificate with your personal data, the titel “Academic Laboratory”, 5 ECTS, a short description of the project and your supervisors signature. There is no template for this certificate, it is recommended that the supervising lab uses a document with the lab’s official letter head and the lab’s stamp. This certificate has to be submitted to Mrs. Jahreis of our Examinations Office.
• You can also carry out a combination of Research Lab (M6.2) and Academic Lab (M6.1) at the same lab with the same supervisor. “Ready-made” combination modules for M6.1 and M6.2 can be found in you module catalog under module group M6. Moreover, you can agree individually with a suitable supervisor to carry out both, the research and academic lab, with them. In this last case, two indicividual certificates must be issued by the supervisor (the documentation for the Academic Lab described above and the form for the Research Lab).